I am a public functionary
Added on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 by Carole Nash Editor
I am a public functionary
“I am a public functionary,” said the national park official. He was dressed in green combat fatigues and had all the stilted attributes of ex military.
“You are in a group, yes?” he said, “and you do not have authorization to be here?” Having paid to get into the park we all looked at him as if he were daft. “No, you must have permission to come into the park, otherwise I must fine you. What you have done is an infraction, it is a fine and you must pay.”
Outrageous. The man was an idiot. “I will call the police if you do not pay,” he said. Welcome to the end of the world. “So is an extended family with uncles and aunts, five kids plus grannies and grandpas organised by a tour company, does this constitute a group?” We asked.
“Ugh…! I am a public functionary,” he said and then something very strange happened. His face went lop-sided as if he’d had an attack of Bells Palsy and his voice began to slur. “I am a public function-i-a-, p-p-pub func-t-i-o-n, pumkin funkin…..,” and as his whole body suddenly froze something slid down the inside leg of his trousers and popped out from beyond the turn-ups by his shoes…it was a large Duracell battery and then another one landed onto the same stop, enough to power a very long Maglite. “Quickly,” someone shouted, “help him, power him up before its too late.” One of the riders was quick thinking enough to release the belt of the official and pull down his pants, “give me the batteries, now!” “The poor man has had some kind of embolism of the bottom,” said our expedition doctor Dr C, and all were agreed that the batteries should be repositioned from where they came without delay.
Deftly and perhaps with a hint of enjoyment, the rider nearest the man carefully inserted the three batteries, all positive charge facing forward, at which point the public functionary started back into life.
But we were bored with him by then and left the park and rode back to our hotel in Ushuaia. Our landlady Anna, a large breasted Croatian lady, said she had conjured up the angel Raphael. Apparently this apparition was big with massive wings and was to help us over the Paso de Garibaldi. I think she had over reacted because the pass, whilst cold, was piddly compared to other places I’d ridden over. So as we rode over this pass, a place I fell off on in snow in 1996 and broke my ankle, a place of memories. It is here where the air hung as still as still can be. If air could ever be frozen, then this was the place it would be found. Mist layered the surface of the lakes that sat quietly, pushed out from isolated chimneys as steam, cooled down in the inversion to join with clouds that hang low between tree lined slopes and below spiky mountain tops. This is the end of the world, Lucas-Bridges’ ‘Uttermost Ends of the Earth’, this is Tierra del Fuego.
The morning we left Ushuaia, the Paso Garibaldi was curvaceous and possessed a small magnificence. The route through the trees was reminiscent of another world. At night it would be a place of quiet strangeness. This morning the temperature was -5 degrees centigrade and the small wind chill brought this down to -10. As the sun managed to climb above the steep mountain horizon, the road began to dry and the air began to warm.
The road to Rio Grande was gentler on the nerves. It was dry and the black ice had disappeared. The mountains flattened to the plains and they sloped away to a sea that presented itself as an oily pond. After fuelling in the city we rode on to San Sebastien, a border location with just a handful of huts and houses to accommodate customs staff and their families. After a brief exit procedure we left Argentina and after ten kilometres riding across a stretch of no-mans land and rode back into Chile.
We over-nighted in a rather natty boutique hotel in Rio Gallegos, a town populated by oil rich shift workers. One week on one week off, one week working like hell, the rest of the time living life good. Culture extends to why you buy yet another pair of shoes and how big a wedge you’ve got in your pocket. Camping is something other people do and Africa is a place where black people live. Still, the steaks are good and everyone, apart from ‘public functionaries’, are incredibly friendly. I love Argentine people and sometimes wonder why.
Meanwhile back in my own little theatre of dreams the riders were making decisions about what they were going to do next. A small group elected not to ride along Route 40 so the rest of us headed across Patagonia to El Calafate. The small town of El Calafate centred on the main street Avenido Libertado.
Small brightly painted coffee shops decorated the environment in a rather perky way, not surprising considering this area is the home of one of only three glaciers in Patagonia not retreating. The terminus of the Perito Moreno Glacier is 5 kilometres wide, with an average height of 74 metres above the surface of the water of Lake Argentino, in Argentina.
That night we 20 kilometres rode out of town and back the way we came from Rio Gallegos to turn left and north onto the notorious Ruta 40. Its reputation as one of the great unpaved routes of the world was initially unfounded as the first stretch to Tres Lagos had recently been surfaced. By a river we pulled off before a thoroughly modern concrete bridge to camp. The precedent of money being spent on such structures presaged the inevitable.
On the plateau the wind reached 90 mph and as we all slithered to a halt on the gravel we all lost our footing and lost control of the bikes. This wasn’t crashing, more like bikes sliding down your leg, although Peter was blown off his bike like a sparrow in a stiff breeze, whilst Tim Hughston’s bike was blown off the road completely.
During Galteiri’s years in power 30 000 political dissenters disappeared. Some were thrown out of aeroplanes alive, some buried in shallow graves semi-conscious. Most tortured, all forcibly detained in the middle of the night, young political activists snatched from their homes never to be seen again. It was a terrible time in Argentina’s history.
The Argentineans are gullible for a pretty face. If the Botox princess running the country at the moment were a fat peasants wife, there wouldn’t be as many streets named after her as there are after Eva Peron. At Bajo Garacoles we congregated in the main village store to have coffee and cake. After leaving Rio Chico at the start of the day we were gifted with a short few kilometres on tarmac. I was leading as we hit the piste and things were going well.
Several riders signalled they wished to ride ahead but I stuck at a steady 40mph. More and more riders overtook me until, along with steady Steve James and his pillion Nadine on their Africa Twin, I was with my pillion, last on the track, when suddenly Nigel Miller on his KTM caught me up and waved me to stop. “Jon’s had an off,” he shouted, “looks pretty bad. He hit the transition at seventy and went straight through a wooden signpost. Bike could be a write-off.”
It would have taken too long for me to take Dr C on the R1 so I requisitioned Steve and asked him to take Caroline back to the scene and quickly. Nigel, Nadine and I waited beside the road. Nigel pulled out his stove and made us a coffee. In the distance voluminous black clouds began to fill the sky.
Further south, colours seemed washed, the blues diluted to something faded. Clouds were off white in a big sky that was altogether vapid. Here it was different. Colour seemed to be restored to something deeper. Rain clouds sat heavily above an escarpment clinging hardily to the Patagonian plateau. Here we were a world away from the world we all knew.
No one returned from the scene of the accident so I flagged down a construction truck and asked the driver to take me back the way I’d come. Halfway back I saw the pick-up coming towards me where I switched transport. Jon had blood on his left temple and was clearly shaken. Mechanic Roy said that Jon had been incredibly lucky. He saw the accident. Having not observed the construction signs, Jon had hit the piste too fast and immediately lost control. The front wheel slid and he went over the bars and bashed through a second wooden sign, coming to a halt 50ft from his bike using his visor as a brake.
The group had continued on to Bajo Garacoles, bikes lined up by the one gas pump. Everyone was crammed into the only store in a town comprising just few wooden buildings. The definition of a ‘one horse town’ was made to describe places like this. Inside the store jars of preserves stood next to tins of corned beef and different types of beans. Shelves of red wines and whiskies were stacked up behind the coffee machine and the general ambiance of the store manager Neto and his staff could not have been more helpful. I ate a large ham and cheese sandwich with my coffee then ordered apple tart. There was a hint of luxury attached to such little things as I crossed Patagonia. A moment later Roy turned up, he said that there was a problem with the support truck. A bolt holding the suspension of the truck had snapped a mile or so back and when he led me outside to see the damage, the front of the vehicle was almost resting on the tyres. It was probably fixable but he needed it jacking up for a proper inspection. Across the way someone wrote, poorly, the word Mechanic in black paint across the gable end of one of the white shacks so I asked Erik to check out if the service could sort out our problem. Inside the store Jon was fading. He didn’t need hospitalising but evidently there was some residual shock from such a crash.
In time the truck returned and fixed and after re-fuelling we set off on our way. The wind had increased and the rain clouds that threatened earlier had dropped their load. A once hard track had decomposed into a mudslide and once again riders were sliding over at slow speed. I’d had my own difficulties on my R1 so was a while behind when I found them all waiting for me on a section of newly laid tarmac.
The generator of the campsite killed the silence of the beautiful landscape but the light was princely in the way it compelled you to take notice. Slivers of cloud were dyed deep vermilion by the dying sun and the last vestiges of light gave a wafer thin edge to the crest of mountains which overlooked the plains. In the simple makeshift dining room, a broth containing carrots and potatoes was brought to us bubbling from the stove. As we ate I wondered quietly what might have happened to my crew. The back-up vehicle had become separated from the group because the tarmac route did not run adjacent to the accompanying muddy service track so for short periods we were not on the same road at all.
Roy was driving Suzanne and Jon with Caroline on the back. A passing car reliably informed us that the pick-up was parked up only 20 kms away, so not knowing if Barry could fix his chain, I sent Erik and Silvana to scout for them, expecting everyone to return a short while later.
Having parked the bike at the entrance to the campsite I knew the crew would find us. Telephone communications were nonexistent so it was down to ‘same thinking’ and it nearly worked. In my mind I wanted them to put poor old Jon into a hotel room with all the luggage and drop off his bike as well as Eriks. That would leave the vehicle free to carry Erik and Silvana safely back to us. Instead Erik rode back in front of the pick-up leaving Perito Morino at dusk. When they arrived an hour after I’d anticipated Erik’s XT was on the trailer. This was very ominous. Through the window Dr C’s face looked anxious and I feared the worst. Erik had hit a cow at 70kph. Walking end-on in the middle of the road it had turned to flee just before any point of contact whereby it was hit broadside. The bike slid under its legs knocking Silvana unconscious whilst Erik couldn’t stand. Roy braked and then drove around the scene so as to protect those on the ground from an ongoing car.
Near where Barry had tried to leap the bridge was a tyre which said ‘Camping 500 metres’. I’d made the decision to camp there as the sun was setting and muddy sections of the piste were still wet from a mid afternoon shower.
Because the new road was now separate from the piste, the recovery vehicle, which couldn’t follow on the road, was not in sight. I couldn’t risk leading the group without support. Instead we camped in the cutest place comprising small white wash walled buildings next to a stream that trickles across a landscape of biblical proportions.
The next morning we rode to Perito Moreno where Jon was waiting in the Hotel Belgrano for a fuller diagnosis. This would take some time so we set up camp in the seating area whilst he was taken to the local hospital for an x-ray. Silvano had only bruising, Erik, a clean bill of health but Jon had come to the end of this particular road.
