It was time to head south after a few days in Santiago. I was not sure how far or where I would land at the end of the day. The only thing I knew was that I would be traveling south. It felt great to ride on an interstate type road after many months and thousand of miles on mountain roads, endless curves, topes and small villages that slowed me down. I was able to enjoy and relax on this road and before I realized it I had traveled 500 miles. The most distance that I have covered in one day on this entire trip. WOW! The rest must have done me real good.
“Come see us” said the signs along the road inviting you to stop and sample their wines. I traveled about 150 miles in the Chilean wine country.
I briefly stopped in the very picturesque Village of Valdivia. Tourism seemed to be their main source of income. Tourists were everywhere. I traveled another 100 miles south to Puerto Varas, located on the shores of Lago Llanquihue. Puerto Varas is surrounded by several volcanoes. As many times before, just before I ended my day, the cold air started blowing, followed by rain.
The rain followed me all the way into Puerto Varas. I needed to swap tires again since the nice paved road south of this point would be a gravel road. I now needed to change back to knobbies. In the rain I rode around town searching for a place to do the tire swap. I stopped at gas stations, car tire places, and all I heard was NO. I even tried a Yamaha motorcycle shop and they said yes until they realized it was a BMW and not a Yamaha, then they said NO. I decided to stop at one more gas station and ask them if they knew anyone who might be interested in doing a little work. They give me the name of someone called “El Tigre” (the tiger). He was the ticket. He did the job and did not care what I was driving. Once I found El Tigre it was a matter of 45 minutes and the job was complete.
Real Chilean Workers