10-Feb-2010 13449 Miles

Aboard the ferry ship Evangelista in the Straights of Magellan. Yesterday was my daughter's birthday, 19 years old, I miss her.

I have been on board for 2 days now as we steam ever northward for Puerto Montt. It is amazingly beautiful here in a very raw unchanged way. I am quite sure, except for the channel markers and lighthouses it is very much as Magellan and Cook found it over 300 years ago. I am thrilled to be here as I have been thrilled to be everywhere we have been. I am also thrilled to be headed home. It is time. We have been in the Straights, protected from the open ocean for the entire voyage so far. Within the next couple of hours we will be in the open ocean, taking whatever it is the Pacific has to offer us for the next 19 hours, it will be interesting, hopefully not much more than that. I have spent a great deal of time on the bridge with the crew, imagining what it would be like to sail a sailboat through here. It will require much more experience than I may ever be able to get. And a funny thing, the number of sailboats that we have seen sailing though here is all the way up to 0. Maybe there is a reason for that.

Even with the protection of the Straights, the first day was rough. Very cold, winds up to 70 knots, and wet. For those Utah people who think I have been working on my tan in a South American summer, its not exactly been that way. The last day of riding into Puerto Natales was brutal, and for the entire week before that we have not really been able to get warm. In fact I did not get warm on this boat until after my second shower yesterday, finally I feel warm in the protected confines of this vessel. Although not exactly a cruise ship(think backpacker hostel), far from it actually, but the berths are comfortable, the showers warm, and the meals serviceable.

I guess I can't complete this blog without some mention of Che Guevara. Shirley gave me the book, "The Motorcycle Diaries", before I left. Thanks, Shirley. I finally finished it on this boat ride. I carried with me for over 13000 miles. I have been asked several times on this trip if I had read it or seen the movie. One person asked me if I had seen the movie too many times and if that was the reason for my trip. Deanna and I tried to watch it while I was in Utah in December but both fell asleep. So no, that was not the reason for the trip. I can't really reconcile to his politics based on what I have seen here, or even reconcile him to his politics based upon what he described in his book, but I did enjoy reading his descriptions of places we have already been. His descriptions were based on a 1950's view and really not much has changed. The thing I really enjoyed about it was the way he saw things based upon his place in the world at the time as opposed to mine. So it turns out that reading it after I have seen those places was a good thing. Enough said about Che.

The book I had read prior was, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Hopefully none of you have read it because the guy was clearly insane and there are enough parallels to my experience on this journey to cause concern. Mostly his Chautauqua, which is mostly relative to my having too much time to think on this trip. But the thinking was good, and if it causes me to approach life in a little bit different way, that will be positive as well. I will just try to leave out the electro shock therapy or frontal lobotomy part.

We met 7 other bikers on BMW's before boarding at Puerto Natales and they are on the ship with us. It has been fun exchanging experiences with them. There are 2 couples among them that seem to have managed this type of journey well together. There is, however, one single that started the journey as a couple and sent the wife back home from Lima to get a divorce. It would definitely be a test to do this as a couple. They are great people and of course we all share this common desire for adventure. We have not seen any Americans on bikes this far south, and in fact very few on this whole trip. The one that we met that had been to Ushuaia had started from Buenos Aires. The people on the boat with us are from all over. A couple from Tazmania and a couple from England that started in Alaska. A guy from Germany. A guy from Chile. And a guy from South Africa. Wait a minute, the guy from South Africa lives in Miami and just got his citizenship, so he calls himself an African-American(white guy).

As I finish this up we are within about a half hour of open ocean. The swells are starting to get larger and the mountains smaller. I guess I had better put this away now.

11-Feb-2010

As it turned out, only the first few hours were rough. The Pacific ended up living up to her name. Today is warmer, drier and we even have some glimpses of the sun today. I told Nick that it will be 70 and sunny when we get to Puerto Montt. I don't think he believes my weather forecasts anymore though. I don't either but I will keep making them up nonetheless. We have had dolphins swimming with the ship and I saw a seal this morning. We are out of the open ocean and back into an inside passage, where we will remain until Puerto Montt at about 8 am tomorrow.

This has been restful but I am pacing now, ready to get back on the bike. As strange as it seems, this journey has inflicted routine into my life, something I have successfully avoided for most of it. The routine was get up, shower, pack, load up, coffee and breakfast if it was included where we stayed, ride for an hour or 2, get coffee, and free will or situation intervened for most of the rest of the day. We didn't let much interfere with that. Weather never, touristy things a couple of times, but that's about it. Strange that something as out of the ordinary as a motorcycle trip to South America would inflict routine. The ship is a total breakdown of that routine and by the time I get it working for me I will be unloading and going on the bike again, so I'm not even going to try. I'm just gonna enjoy the ride.

13-Feb-2010 14177 Miles

El Viaje Final

Angie will be so proud. I made it 13779 miles without breaking or losing my sunglasses. Unfortunately we are further than that now. Thursday, on the ship, the sky opened up, it warmed up a little and the ocean was as calm as a lake. We are starting to see the high volcanic peaks of southern Chile as we cruise ever northward. We were able to see the South Star and the southern cross last night. We got off the ship yesterday before noon and rode about 70 miles to Osorno and had lunch with our new biker friends before going our separate ways. At that point Nick and I decided to make Santiago this night. 700 miles. It was a perfect day to ride and a perfect ride to end the trip. Weather in the low 80's and no wind. It was 1am before we rolled into Santiago.

Our focus is getting home now to family and friends and a special woman in my life who has managed to stay close to me over the many months and thousands of miles. Thank you, Deanna. Thanks to all of you who have been following this blog and thanks to those who haven't because they have been too busy doing the things I should be doing, to have any time. I could not have done this without the wonderful support of all of you. And especially all of my great people at Redtail Aviation, who have carried on in the best way, under some tough conditions, while I have been away. You are all so special to me.