30-Jan-2010 11135 Miles

Temuco, Chile. We have had a wonderful last couple of days. We rode from Casablanca into Santiago and managed to find our way around to the Los Condes area. There is so much motorcycle support there I think you could find about anything for whatever bike you had. We found a BMW dealer who called a tire dealer and we got Nick's front tire replaced. Santiago was really nice. Very civilized compared to any other large city we have been to in Latin America. As much as I would like to believe I could adapt to anywhere, I must admit that it was comforting to be in a very clean, organized place after all the chaos we have seen in the cities.

After we got the tire replaced, we headed south again for Curico. There is an American living there that Nick met in Washington. We met Donn and his lovely Chilean wife Polita the next morning for coffee. We ended up spending the day and evening with them and some of their friends, Valentina and Raul. We also met Polita's sister and her husband. Very nice people and we had a great time.

Then today, I did my radio show thing and guess what. We changed the oil and washed the bikes. They haven't looked that clean for 3 countries and its good to be clean on the inside also.

We have been a bit retrospective the last day or so. Trying to remember all the events of this journey. Nick asked about Lucky Charlie. I'm sure the lousy traitor is still partying in up in Mexico somewhere. Oh well, he's missed a hell of a journey. So many things seem so long ago because so much has happened. I am really glad of this blog. I have not gone back and re-read any of it, but I am sure I will appreciate that I have done this when I do.

The end of the journey is in site. It is getting colder again. We are at about the same south lattitude as Price is North. Now it will be as if we are heading for northern Alaska. So many names have been said about this place, Ushaia, South till there is no more South, End of the world, beginning of the world, but the name I like most is one we heard from our new friends last night. El Mundo Final. It feels like a powerful and fitting phrase for that goal of this journey. I will use that from here on out.

Looking forward we are trying to plan(I know, strange for us) a route to the south. There are some options, but my thinking when these choices come up is always affected by a Robert Frost poem.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

...Robert Frost