#31 Tyres, Tea, and Politics: Part 1 - Rio Gallegos

After our epic walk and week of touristic activity it was time to give some love to the bike. We were aware that the front tyre in particular had done around 10,000 kms so the plan was to cross back into Argentina and across the pampas to Rio Gallegos. Not somewhere I was looking all that forward to as its a city described by Lonely Planet as a place most travelers stop in just long enough to catch the next bus to El Calafate, Puerto Natales, or Ushuaia.

I had the brilliant idea to wait to fill up with cheaper petrol across the border, forgetting momentarily the shortages in petrol that one can come across without warning in Argentina. See the video clip below for more detail. Ironically, I first drafted this blog in a petrol station a week or so later, again waiting for petrol.

Taking the customs official's word that the road to Rio Gallegos was completely paved we reasoned we would arrive a mere two hours later. Turned out to be some of the toughest gravel yet, especially daunting when you`re in the middle of nowhere, nobody or anything around. In 4 hours we didn't see anything (save for a truck driver we were pretty sure was driving naked). We were not sure if we had been directly lied to or gone wrong somewhere. Of course it was the latter. Turns out the paved road, covering only slightly more distance, is to the North, something we would have realised had we not lost our ACA (Argentinian equivalent of AA) map of the Santa Cruz province.

We chose Rio Gallegos because of the presence of SM Motors there. Big mistake. As soon as they saw our white faces and tried to screw us quoting $1000US for two new tyres. Through www.horizons.com (a fantastic motorcycle forum where novices like us can ask a community of bikers any stupid questions we have and receive answers within hours) we met up with Emmnuel, a keen biker who lives in town. Initially we were a little sceptical of his eagerness to assist thanks to lines such as, 'I am available to assist you whenever you wish', and 'you can come to my house for breakfast first'; surely no one is that helpful.

However, after our trip to SM Motors we felt we had little to lose so got in contact with Emmanuel rueing our initial stubborness not to take up his offer to come with us. Our fears he may be a serial killer quickly subsided, as of course he was one of the nicest, most genuine guys who went out of his way to help simply because of his love of motorycles and interest in meeting tourists to practice his already superb English. On holiday from his tourism studies he also had plenty of time.

After spending the afternoon waiting for siesta to finish we headed over to his motorcyclist friend, Jorge's shop (it seems that there is a community of bikers here). Jorge was a middle-aged guy, funny in that if he was your father you would constantly be in cringe mode kind-of-way, who owned an appliance-repair shop. He rides a mint-condition 1989 Honda TransAlp, the very type of bike (antique version) we nearly bought for this trip. Between the two of them many phone calls took place as we stood awkwardly in his shop having no real clue as to what was going on.

As far as I could make out there was one potential new tyre for sale in Rio Gallegos, another new one in Rio Grande (a couple of hundred kilometres away), and also the possibility of tyres being shipped from Buenos Aires. This was worst case scenario as it meant staying in the city for a few extra days. We were told be to patient, wait for the phone to ring, and offered mate while discussing Argentinian politics (Rio Gallegos is the original home of current and ex-President the Kirchner's - wife followed husband into office - and to be a 'fan' is borderline mandatory in these parts, very interesting), and looking at Jorge's pictures of scuba diving in the Perito Moreno glacier.

President Kirchner - I'm pretty sure she has had her lips done.

After a while we asked Jorge to take a look at the tyre and offer his opinion of how far we could get without a replacement. Somewhat embarrassingly that revealed that the previous day's gravel had caused large parts of the back tyre to start peeling off the tyre, which in Jorge's opinion meant it was pretty bad quality to begin with. That limited our options as there was no way we going to risk it on the 300 kilometres (100 of gravel) to Rio Grande. As the afternoon drew out it seemed we might be spending some time in the stopover city; that or handing over a couple of weeks worth of travel to SM Motors. Just as we had given up hope the phone rang and we had a tyre. It seems we missed out on the new tyre in Rio Gallegos but were given the purchaser's old one, which was deemed by the experts, Emmanuel and Jorge, suitable to get us to Rio Grande where we could purchase a new one.

To say thank you to the both of them for giving up an entire day to assist two strangers we suggested pizza for dinner. We were picked up in a car, a novelty in itself having not been in one for over two months now, and first given a tour of the city and its coastline. We nodded and smiled in appreciation of the sights, 'very interesting' etc., when what we were looking at was rusting old structures, once used in coal production, in my opinion ruining what could be a the beautiful backdrop for the city. We were left to marvel once again at the kindness of people who had dropped everything to help us for nothing in return. The next day it was on to Rio Grande for our new tyre and similar experiences.