Saturday, April 2, 2011

Chile - Patagonia! - Austral Highway to O’Higgins, Bees fly into my jacket and sting me, Most amazing road and best scenery in South America!

After visiting the hanging glacier I went back to my bike, I noticed there was a hive of bees roaming around my bike.



After some rock throwing and running around hystarically I noticed that somewhere through my travels I had killed a bee with my helmet, and not just any bee. It was a queen bee!

So its scent was trapped on my helmet so all the bees were searching for their dead queen stuck in-between the visor on my helmet.

This marked the second time on this trip that I’ve gotten stung by a bee. Not just any sting, but it occurred the same way the first one did.

I was just riding on the motorcycle at about 40mph when all of a sudden a bee flies in through the sleeve of my jacket. Of all places and the sure luck of this happening twice! It’s astronomical.

But it did, so I had to sit there while I slowed down the bike while the bee stung the crap out of my arm inside my jacket trying not to flinch or go crazy as I am at the moment operating a motor vehicle in a very dangerous road overlooking a very steep cliff going pretty fast.

So finally stopping the motorcycle after being stung various times I have to smack myself silly until I kill the bee inside my jacket, or in this case just smack the stinger back into my arm repeatedly.

Needless to say I had a pretty hurtful arm the next two days.

Headed onward with some road construction and dangerous loose gravel.



So the road continued to be great



Even passed by some waterfalls.



Found a place to stay and called it a day.



The next day again the great scenery continued. The Austral highway is becoming an incredible trek.





Passed through one of the most beautiful lakes I’ve ever seen.




There’s a huge ice field full of glaciers and ice that melts and flows into this lake, which creates the most amazing turquoise colored water I’ve ever seen in my life. It was breath taking.











Once again my quest of finding my name somewhere continues.



So continuing to drive this far out trail of the Austral was just so amazing I have no words just pictures of the majestic landscape.







It was amazing to see such a variety of landscapes and scenery changes.












Even had a nice crash to remember the Patagonia well.

Scene of the accident

















Some nice construction in the middle of no where



Had some more ferry hopping to do to get to other peninsulas.

bored waiting on the ferry so I took a picture






This was definitely the most extreme riding adventure yet, and I thought Bolivia was crazy. This was definitely way out there! 3 days of travel on a desolate dirt road connected by various boats to cross from peninsulas and islands.

Patagonia holds some of the most pristine, untouched and unspoiled areas on the planet, and being able to go through them were astonishing to say the least.

There are no services, no gas (had to carry 3 extra gallons with me), no one around), just pristine and amazing scenery.
















This Austral highway is definitely on the top 2 roads ever taken in my life!








It was so awesome I decided to take it all the way down until the road ended, which meant  had to come back up to cross back into Argentina, another 2 day excursion into the unknown, my specialty.

Made it to the town of O’Higgins.

Not much there, except the remote wilderness.

Had to drive all the way back to Chalten to cross back into Argentina, another 6 hours of crazy driving and amazing scenery.

Patagonia has officially blown my mind!



I was stopping ever 10 minutes to take a great picture. I was getting nowhere!




It felt I was spending more time off the bike taking picture than on it driving.



My batteries on both my cameras actually died because of how many pictures I had been taking the past 3 days on the Austral trail.



More beautiful scenery



This picture above is 12 km for the end of the austral at O'Higgins.

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