My mantra: "Ride the world"

After a relaxing night and a bit of re-organising my equipment on the motorbike, I started into the first tours on Chile‘s roads (and dirty roads!)

When it became warm, the roads made me even more sweating 😅

In the afternoon, I arrived in Los Andes

From here, you can enjoy a view to Aconcagua, which is the highest peak in South America. I myself was less impressed by the scenery, but more by the fact that I only finished half of the kilometres I had planned for today. To refuel my motivation and get some mental support, I gave a call home; Vivi made me laughing and softly pushed me back on track.

After a couple of further hours riding (and some shortcuts using the highway), I arrived in Maipo valley, where I took the first camping that I found – lovely place to rest!

On Sunday, I wanted to explore the rest of the valley, since that was highly recommended to me by Pablo (the guy I met my first evening in Chile)

Unfortunately, the last 15 kilometres towards the end of the valley and a chance to sneak preview a glacier were closed: an avalanche of mud and rocks has completely blocked the road!

Enjoying South America means being flexible. Though I modified my plan and turned around heading towards the camping I selected for the next night. The onward ride was offering marvellous sceneries:

When I arrived at my final destination – Reserva Nacional Rio de los Cipreses – I hd to learn that similar to the road in Maipo valley, this park (and camping) is temporarily closed! Tired, hungry and thirsty I went back on my bike searching for a place to stay. I opted for the challenging option 🤪

And was awarded again by a nice view

I needed two further attempts to find a place to stay. The last one was signed with „Camping privado“ and the man told me to leave the property, because I don’t belong to the „special people“, who can stay there. Only speaking Spanish, he called his maybe 15 years old daughter, who explained the same issue to me in English. However, looking at me – apparently realising that I am very tired and just want to rest for the night – she urged her father letting me stay with my tent on the football field. She blinked at him several times and when he checked that I am alone, not looking dangerous and obviously not being a thief or murder, he agreed – lucky me!

The most impressive experience to me: later that evening I had a beer at the reception area and talked half an hour to the daughter and her mother – they were very curious about „Where am I from?“, „What am I doing here?“ & „Why Chile?“, while I was most curious about the reason for fencing all properties, not letting „tourists“ on a camping. etc. The atmosphere apparently endorsed some change in the mind set: next morning, the father and his daughter actively approached me, wishing me a safe and pleasant journey towards Tierra del Fuego and by no chance they want to let me pay something for my stay on their land. They smiled and waved their hands – I smiled and waved hand while leaving ☺️