This will be our first full day on the Patagonia’s Ruta 40 and we were looking forward to the experience.
We rejoin the road on the lower, southern section. Here are some views showing the diversity of the road surfaces and views.
The road is not widely known, outside of the Advrider site and South America, actually Argentina. In recent times the road was highlighted in the Che Guevara Motorcycle Diaries movie and book. Before that it featured in the retelling of the Butch Cassidy saga. In Argentina, to travel the road is the ultimate manly feat. It is sort of like the Alaska’s Haul Road to Prudhoe Bay reputation. After you’ve done Ruta 40 you earn the right to the t-shirt and bumper sticker. Of course Chris and I set out to find stickers for our panniers. The road runs mostly north to south though Argentina’s Patagonia area. It is about 3000 miles in total beginning at the northern Bolivia border making it one of the longest roads in the Western Hemisphere Americas. Its scenery runs from spectacular to downright boring as it travels through long stretches of desert like flats and through snow capped mountains. It is paved in the north and mostly corrugated dirt (Ripios) in the south.
The wind is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The velocity was high but the gusting was the real problem.
Even if you are hard as a rock, if you stay in one place too long, the wind wins.
A striking aspect of the road is the damage it inflicts.
On a longer straight stretch boredom can set in. At one point, to ward off drowsiness, I stopped to chase an Armadillo across the tundra. It was a cute little fella and fast. 
Attempting to hide under a bush…
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