Patagonia, Day 1 - Osorno.

Day 1 was a gentle introduction to Chile as we all assemble and meet up for Dinner. A few of us arrived a day early, 'Day Zero', so have an extra day to acclimatise after our 24hr journeys. Except for Brett who flew in from Singapore via Paris, Madrid and Santiago, who probably doesn't know what day it is as it took him two days to get here!

Most of us arriving early spent the morning looking around Osorno. To be honest there's not much to see, it's quite an agricultural town with few touristy recommendations.

Downtown Osorno

Cultural centre of Osorno

However it is a key regional city with an airport and is thus a convenient gateway to the area including the Lake District area north of Patagonia. That's one of the reasons it's also home to MotoChile a surprisingly large and well stocked BMW Motorrad dealership with almost a hundred bikes for hire and kit for sale. Gerard and I visit with Cory and AJ, our two 'local' tour guides. They've come down from Bolivia to run this tour just for us. Cory, we know well, having been our tour leader in Bolivia, but AJ is a new face. He'll be leading the tour on a motorbike so we'll get to know his back very well. Cory will sweep with the jeep, but knowing Cory he won't be able to resist some two wheeled action.

There are a range of bikes for hire, but due to an issue with the bike I was going to ride (now in a carpark just inside Bolivia) I booked late and have a choice of one. It's a 1200GS; not one I've ever ridden, but it's legendary, even if being much larger than the usual bikes we ride offroad. However it's a good choice for the next few weeks as this will be more of a tour with few offroad sections. Having said that, it's also said to be very capable offroad and earlier versions were taken around the globe by Charlie and Ewan (Google "Long Way Round"). It's also famous for the BMW "beak': a perfect perch for Sandra from which she can survey the road ahead and no doubt catch a few flies.

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Sent from the dusty road using my rusty BlackBerry