Legendary South American Highways
After numerous road trips in North America, discovering its southern counterpart was the obvious next step. We were drawn to the Andes, Patagonia, the Strait of Magellan and the call of the open sea — and, by the way, we were not at all against the idea of trading burgers for empanadas.
It was early January — the middle of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Leaving Toronto in -30 C was easy, as was landing in 30 C temperatures after my Air Canada flight to Santiago, Chile. Thanks, austral summer.
At the hotel I met up with Pascal, my old buddy with whom I’ve already travelled across Western U.S., Northern Canada, Alaska, and the Sahara Desert when we were younger. After a good night’s sleep, our rental company was on time to deliver to the hotel the two BMW F800GSs that would be our travel companions. Our motorcycle inspection revealed new tires and just 20,000 km on the odometer — everything seemed perfect. Paperwork completed. Credit card swiped. Contract signed. And we were off.
Discovering New Roads and New Bikes
We quickly left behind the bottlenecks and traffic jams of Santiago, heading north on the freeway, which we soon exited onto Route 60, a small desolate highway in the mountains with stunning mountain passes and hairpin turns — it was great fun, and perfect for getting the hang of
