My friend Romain and I are two New Yorkers who grew up in France. In June of 2011, after seeing the “Long Way Round”, we thought it would be amazing to have an adventure like that and it looked like riding bikes would be great fun. Patagonia came up as a place we both wanted to explore and we agreed it would be the perfect place to have our first motorcycle experience. Indeed neither of us had ever been on anything more than a Vespa. So, we went to get our motorcycle endorsements at the end of August in New York by taking a weekend safety course. We then attempted to rent bikes in October so we could at least get a bit of experience before we went on our trip. Unfortunately, the owner of the rental place noticed we had only gotten our licenses a month earlier, and, after giving us a chance to go around the block to prove to him we were good enough, my friend Romain dropped his motorcycle at a red light and the owner would not let us rent the bikes. In spite of this we still managed to fly to South America and cross Chile and Argentina by motorcycle with no experience, and what an unbelievable adventure it was!

Day 1: Flight & Motorcycle Pickup

It was a long day of traveling, but we finally made it to the moderately sized town of Osorno, Chile, where we were to pick up the motorcycles. Osorno is a big agricultural hub so there weren’t many tourists around.

We walked 30 minutes to the garage to rent our motorcycles, BMW 650 GS bikes; they were almost brand new which was great. They are much heavier than the Ducati Monster we learned to ride on, and the seating position is different, so they took a bit of practice to get used to.

We went for a two-hour ride around La Pampa; everything was very green and there was cattle everywhere. The ride was amazing, but we were really hungry, so we headed back to town for dinner.

Tomorrow we’ll ride to Bariloche in Argentina, we will see an active volcano on the way, and we might go skiing—exciting!

Check back each week for the continuation of Chris and Romain’s first motorcycle adventure through South America!

Text and Photography: Christopher L Berthe