Patagonia..... and then there was one

Last leg of my journey home and I said my goodbyes to Mark at Madrid airport - two grown men with beards hugging in the business lounge must be an unusual sight!

Relatively short flight ahead, 2hrs vs the 12 from Santiago (another bum massage needed - not that I got one the first time you understand!).

This will be the final post for this trip (unless I feel an urge to review the 1200GS I rode there, and maybe one about what made Biker Dom), so I'll wrap-up a few points.

Thanks to all my buddies for giving me another head full of fantastic memories. I met some good new friends Ray, Graham, Tpong and AJ, and caught up with old friends, Cory, Steve, Danny, Gerard, Brett, Hugo, Mick, Mark and Christopher. Duff I think deserves a special mention for putting up with my messiness over the last few weeks; my 'stuff' managed to fill more than my fair share of each room we occupied. And he put up with my random music choices played through my 'monkey' speaker during the evenings and mornings, not to mention the dancing and prancing; I'm sure he'll never be able to listen to Shania Twain in the same way again!

Our trip to Patagonia has been less of an adventure trip and more of a group tour as it primarily consisted of good quality tarmac; sure we had gravel, but on well prepared bases. Previous trips have shown we are capable of dealing with more technical conditions and all of us have become better riders since then. We've covered 4200km (me 4300km because of the day ride in Ushuaia), which is way more than any of our other journeys. But those trips were generally shorter, eight to 12 days rather than the 16 of this trip.

So what constitutes an adventure trip? Well, we discussed this briefly during the weeks and decided an impromptu yardstick is that hotels with wifi and mostly well made roads signify a tour, while tents and/or remoteness from wifi and a significantly higher off-road content qualify as adventures. That would be all the previous trips then. This was still immensely enjoyable but in a different way. In my mind one thing that pointed firmly at tour rather than adventure was that the bikes were too good (give or take a 650cc twin). Take my 1200GS, which was the very latest model; it often meant I was on 'tippy toes' to avoid dropping the bike whereas faster would have actually been more appropriate and safer. The other bikes were also mostly in good condition and we faced hefty bills for ANY damage we caused. This is because MotoAventuraChile run a tight ship to cater for the US riders who expect and demand a higher standard and are prepared to pay for it. Personally I prefer rough and ready bikes with character and some 'history', ie a few dents here and there.

So, the flight's about to land, hopefully my bike will still be at the airport for Biker Dom's 'tour' back to Waterloo. Can't wait to say "Honey, I'm Home!". Yes, I've had a few hard days.

Thanks for reading....... Until next time! ;-)

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Sent from the dusty road using my rusty BlackBerry