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Pucon adventures...

Pucon is one of the main tourist towns of Chile and most of the activities are centered around the volcano, mountains and lakes that surround the town. Pucon strangely looks like something out of Switzerland with log and stone buildings everywhere. There is heaps of adventure activites to do around the town. But with bad weather for the whole week we were there we were pretty upset not be able to climb up to the volcano but we still managed to stay entertained! We went horse riding to a beautiful waterfall, sat in thermal baths for hours and a went down white water rapids with boogie boards... or what the tour operators call hydrospeed! All good fun... next stop Argentina.

Valparaiso to Pucon...

We left Valparasio with our minds now clearly set on getting down to the famous Lakes Disrict at the foot of the Andes in southern Chile. Everyone who we have spoken to has had only good things to say about this area, so hopefuly we wouldn´t be let down.

We took a slight detour north to quickly visit Vina Del Mar which is a vibrant coastal town about 10km north of Valparaiso. Here the long beach front is riddled with large apartment blocks which we´re sure would be packed to the rafters during summer. We hear that its the place to be during the hotter months. ¿ Perhaps another time?

A breif stop off at San Fernando Del Mar to see the worlds largest swimming pool broke up our morning ride, although attemps to enter the resort failed leaving us slightly disapointed. We didn´t mind too much after all we had so much excitement ahead of us. An amazing site none the less.

We picked up some extra spanish with some help of two chilean couples who were at the same campsite as us on the Embalse Rapel lake. Its amazing how much more you seem to learn after downing a couple of drinks.

A couple of fanatastic nights camping off the beaten track at the Reserva Nacional Altos De Lircay...only problem was the road there gave our bikes a bit of a beating and we had to do some road side repairs to Dave´s bike - going to be taking it a bit easier on the dirt roads from now on in!

Oil and filter change at local Kawa dealer in Temuco where the bike of choice is definitely green!

Santiago to Valparaiso...30th - 31st Oct

We decided to leave Santiago and get started on our rugged adventure. We needed to get a good road map of Chile so we caught the metro to Providencia to the Organization Automovil Club of Chile. For 5000 pesos we picked up a through map with all the camping spots and detailed roads. we then went to the tourist information center and picked up camping guides of Chile- very handy tools. After a nice lunch we packed the bikes up and took off through the streets of Santiago.

The first stop was Valparaiso and a B&B called LaNona. It was only a short ride there but it was great to get out on the open roads and see the country side. Valparaiso used to be a bustling port before the opening of the Panama Canel in the 1920`s which ment the shipping slowed to the city. the town is still busy but for the tourists to see the historic architecture. Valparaiso, as we were told by our host rene has 15 universities and approximetly 30% unemployment-so they relayed heavily on the tourist trade. This also ment that we were keen to lock our bikes up safely at night. Our hosts at La Nonas we really helpful here and found us a local guy who had an art gallery in his basement so we could leave our bikes there for the weekend.

Valparaiso has some really great restaurants in the old destrict and we enjoyed some great tapas, local wines and woodfired pizza`s... really good considering the dodgy camping food we will be eating soon! The town has some great graffeti works done by local artists (perhaps done by some of the unemployed university students!) and you can walk around and enjoy these. We left Valparaiso wanting to see more so we promised Rene at La Nona`s we would drop in o our way back to Santiago for another look at the town. If anyone is looking for somewhere good to stay in the town we would highly recommend La Nonas as the local knowledge and information about what is good to see in Chile is extremly helpful. After the great weekend we were keen to hit the road and head down to the much talked about lakes distict and see what other amazing sites Chile had to offer!

The Airport ... 28th Oct 2008 - 29th Oct 2008

We were excited by the final trip to the airport after preparing to leave for the past year! However this excitement quickly passed when we arrived early at the LAN check in desk to be told that the flight would be delyed for 6 hours. Since we arrived so early, eager to leave, this ment sitting at the airport doing nothing but watching the clock. However we did get $80 worth of food vouvhers out on LAN for our troubles! Needless to say we were pretty full by the time we boarded the Air NZ flight to Aukland. The first led of the trip was great- good movies and comfy seats but when we were transferred the the LAN plane it was a pretty uncomfortable 10 hours. We are pretty sure they turned off the airconditioning when everyone was sleeping to save fuel!.

Touching down in Chile was fantastic, we were all happy to have arrived finally in South America. We caught a taxi to La Casa Roja in the old colonial district of Santiago- near the center of town. Dispite the smog, grafitti and rubbish, Satiago could be a beauitful city with the Andes surrounding it. La Casa Roja is a very busy backpackers which has the capacity of approx 100 people. We shared a 8 person dorm for 7000 pesos each. We had a pretty boozy night to celebrate our arrival drinking with another Aussie chap Will (who was on our same flight over from Sydney) until 3am.

The next morning the boys woke up at 8.30am looking worse for wear and then went to spend the day at customs to get the bikes which had apparently arrived on the Monday! Matteo and Dave caught a taxi into town to an area with lots of automotive dealers, and managed to pick up two batteries for the bikes, chain lube, and oil for 75,000 pesos (¿ ripped off ?) after somehow explaining to the taxi driver we needed to go to the customs office for cargo - we were happily surprised to see our 2 bikes waiting in the warehouse. The first step was getting the original Airway Bill from the FastAir warehouse office. It cost us $30US to get the original Airway Bill then we varified the bike VIN numbers with Customs to get a temporary registration number and stamp on the Airway Bill.

The office shut between which gave us an opportunity to walk to the near by petrol station to pick up a couple of litres of fuel so we could ride the bikes out of there. The next step was going back to the FastAir warehouse office to pay the storage bill of 60,000 pesos. We were then able to finally get the bikes out the crates, put the new batteries in and ride away. The funny thing was we forgot to bring our rear-view mirrors... not the best way to start drivig on the wrong side of the road in a foriegn country! 12 hours later we were back at the hostel. Jet lagged, still hungover and ready for bed.

Our KLR Mods...

The bikes we bought, though being our pick for the trip they are not perfect and definitely can do with some add-ons and mods to make them a whole lot more rugged. The good thing about the KLR is that there is every possible mod or add-on available on the net. Here are the ones we did…

SW-Motech Centre Stand from Twisted Throttle – bound to make maintenance a whole lot easier.

Superbrace Fork Brace - just felt like buying it. Have since discovered that it makes cleaning the fork seals a pain in the ass as you need to remove the fork brace every time you want to give the seals a good clean…only a 5 min. job though.

SW-Motech Crash Bars from Twisted Throttle – first day out on some dirt with the bikes Matteo dropped his bike and cracked the front fairing…they are definitely not designed to take the weight of the bike so crash bars are a must if you are going off-road. This mod also upgrades the sub-frame and foot peg mount bolts.

Barkbuster VPS Handguards from Twisted Throttle (…it is cheaper to buy them from the States than from any dealer here in Aus, this was back with $0.97 exchange rate) peace of mind not needing to carry spare levers.

Protaper SE ATV High Bar Handlebars – cheap, much like the original handlebars in shape and less likely to bend than the originals. The Barkbusters also work well with the Barkbusters as there are no clearance issues with the fairings – handlebar risers would be nice though.

AMHP Headlight Protectors – at $50 it is a whole lot cheaper than having to replace the headlight lens.

SW Motech Highway Pegs from Twisted Throttle – bolt straight on to the crash bars.

Sheep Skin seat cover is a good idea for the long rides in the saddle.

Caribou Cases as our panniers. David has the 35L Pelican Case System and Matteo has the 36L Hardigg Case System. These cases are very strong, secure, waterproof and dustproof as well as having a bit of flex in them. These cases are really easy to install too as they come with custom bolt on frames.

Wolfman Enduro Tank bag.

Metal Footpegs from KLR650.com – the stock ones are rubbish when you get some mud on them.

12V Socket from Twisted Throttle.

SW-Motech Handle bar Camera Mount.

Staintune Exhaust – the stock bikes sound like a 4HP lawn mower so the Staintunes are a must to transform the bikes into respectable thumpers.

Freight …

Organising transport for our bikes from Sydney to Santiago (Chile) was a major step in our trip. Air freight seemed like the best options as the sea freight would take up to 60 days to get to our destination in Santiago. The only draw back with the air freight being the cost at A$2115 per bike. However this meant that we could ride our bikes over from Perth as well as getting it straight up once we arrive at the other end…a small price to pay for the trip of a life time.

A company call Freightnet International who is based out of Sydney helped organise all the fine details and we would recommend using them if anyone else is considering a similar trip.