Expedition South - Episode 8 - Don't Cry for Me Argentina

Welcome to episode 8. This episode I'll be traveling from Chile through Argentina. I start my adventure in San Pedro de Atacama, known as the driest part of the world. I will then head east through the beautiful Andes into Argentina, passing colorful canyons and mountains. I'll proceed south through the famous Ruta 40 of Argentina, similar to what is Route 66 in North America. I'll take a sweet detour west to check out the highest peak in all the Americas. And finally, I'll head west through the Argentinian plains, then make it to the city of Cordoba. So I found this cool biker hostel here in San Pedro in Chile. And I saw a bike, so I said I'm going to pull in because I'm a biker, and there are bikers. We're all family. Departing from the biker hostel in San Pedro, I headed to the border with Argentina. Just crossed from Chile to Argentina, and now I'm having lunch. Guess what's on the menu. That's right, you guessed it. Tuna. But this time, there's a twist. There's actually bread. Not ramen and lunch at this time. So, changing it up in Argentina from the typical twist. Also changing up was the dramatic scenery, which included cacti. Then randomly, another salt flat appeared. So I turned on all the cameras to film the ride. Only to have a swarm of bikers pass by. These are the most adventure riders I have seen in the last six months combined. For some reason, this ride from San Pedro to Jujuy was littered with other motorcycle riders. The most I've seen anywhere in all Latin America. Unlike the uni salt flat, this one had an asphalt highway running through the middle, which was quite unique and intriguing. The scenery continued to dramatically change as I made it to the famous valley of seven colors near Purmamarca, where the ride got pretty neat and awesome. This is the famous seven colored rock and valley you'll see on most postcards for the Jujuy Valley. It was a bit more colorful in person. So in the middle of Argentina, my bike decides to absolutely just die on me and it won't turn on anymore. So I hate to say it, I am quite literally nowhere. Nobody's passed by for the past hour. And I am screwed royally, it's raining, uh, far from anything, at least an hour from anything. Walking's going to be about two, three hours, bike won't turn on. I'm so screwed. Ah, it turned on. Okay, I gotta go. I was like a happy kid on Christmas when the bike finally decided to cooperate enough to actually turn on and get me to the city of Salta. It was constantly shutting on and off without explanation and thought I was toast. Alright dad, this one's for you. Check out all the amazing wine that Argentina has. So much selection and such a great price. And here's the best part, is that this Cabernet Sauvignon is like three dollars for this bottle. It's cheap and it's good from what I'm told. So there you go dad, thanks for the wine, the wine knowledge. All the fun stuff you don't realize you do is you have to wait for gas in Argentina. The big lines. After my 30 minute wait for gas, I headed to the beautiful valley south of Salta, which has some awesome views and colors of its own. So what makes Alex cry? No, it's not getting lost in all the extreme stuff you've seen. Instead, it's my broken sunglasses. It's quite sad. I'm actually very sad about this. As I drove down the road later, I saw the happiest place on earth, Walmart. I could not believe my eyes. I hadn't seen one since Mexico six months ago and I came to appreciate the wonder it truly is. The only place in the world where you can find everything from books, winter and summer clothes, and goofy funny shirts like these. I'm not sure if the Argentines know exactly what these shirts say, but I think the pictures say it all. Especially this one. You, me, your friend. I think they can get the idea. I love Walmart because you can find everything from food, electrical equipment, stickers, and more food. All under one roof. I've had to go to individual stores for each of these items through the past 10 countries I've been through to get what I needed. But thanks to Walmart, my shopping time and experience was absolutely fantastic. I just completed the happiest experience of my shopping life. Walmart. Beautiful. So, a fun parking spot for the day is a friend of mine's grandmother's backyard in her little garage. So, what do you do when it rains and you need to use your GPS that's not waterproof? Well, you do a Jale Chicano. And in this case, you put a nice little Ziploc bag over it and it works probably just as good as that $600 GPS instead of this little $100 GPS does with a plastic bag. So, that's my cool Chicano invention for the day on a very, very rainy day. As I said, a friend of mine is from Argentina and I got invited to stay at his grandmother's house. She was very, very sweet. She cooked every meal for me. I never wanted to leave. I even got my own room and bed. And she was even super nice for letting me store the bike and open the gate each time I needed to get out. So, thanks to Pilu and her family, my time in Tucuman was great. Changing tires is fun. 1. You sweat like crazy. 2. You get hurt. And 3. If you don't have the right tools, it sucks. So, those people were very nice and actually stopped by and let me use one of their tools which for some reason, I don't have. My front tire actually went completely flat as I was going 75 miles an hour. And when your front tire goes flat, that means you got no control over the bike. So yeah, I almost died. Almost lost it, I should say. Which would not have been good next to a semi driving by. Uh, valve stem coming out of tube equals no good. But you know what? It's part of the fun. Almost died. If it was easy, everybody would do it. It's not easy. Not everybody does it. God, it's hot. Did I mention that? Changing two tires in one day. This is fun. I got lucky on the second one and found a guy to actually change it for me. So to give you an example, this is what tread should look like. Coin should be fitting about this much. The old tire, pretty much nothing. Which makes grip quite, quite terrible. So I think my next trip, I'm going to make the main purpose to visit every mechanic shop because I always seem to find these eye-catching posters of half-naked women everywhere. It's quite curious. The following day, I ride into Argent & Gauchos, which go around these parts on Sundays with their cool clothes along with hundreds of others for their weekly ride along the highway. Check out the ridiculousness that is getting gas sometimes in Argentina. For some reason, they don't have what they call here, NAFTA, which is what we call gasoline. Or petrol. And I don't know what it is, it's just, there's always lines at the gas stations. Can't help it. Maybe they don't have enough, or they can't produce enough, or some other thing. After my gas adventure of 45 minutes, I made it to the Jurassic region of East Chihuahua-Alasto, where I said hi to the oldest Jurassic fossil known to man. I felt pretty bad for the dinosaurs who experienced this horrible death. Dinosaurs into hole, dinosaurs sleep in hole, and dinosaurs stuck and cannot get out of hole. That is quite a terrible way to die. After my empathy for the dinosaurs and taking a neat tour through the valley, I continued to Mendoza through the cool and gorgeous scenery of the Argentine outback. It's 8am in Argentina, and today I'm Captain Popular. I got asked the same four questions about 25 times now. That's a new record. So after the tour bus of 100 people finished harassing me, they gave me some delicious dulce con leche cakes, which made up for answering the same four questions over 25 times. The road from Mendoza to Santiago takes you close to the highest peak in all the Americas called Oconcagua. The road there is absolutely spectacular and worth the visit. And if you're asking yourself why I look fat like Frosty the Snowman, it's because it was so cold I had every piece of clothing I had on that I owned, and it was still chilly, thanks to the wind chill factor and altitude. This valley also had abandoned mines and train shafts that were quite dangerous, but very neat to explore. Then again I passed by these areas that have little miniature red houses that pay homage to the spirits. This was a spirit of water, and people lay offerings of water in plastic bottles. It makes it look quite dirty and messy, I must say. I finally made my way from Mendoza to Cordoba. I saw a really, really neat looking car. And arriving in Cordoba, I was hit with what it is to truly be Argentinian. You have to love soccer and you have to believe that the Falcon Islands still belong to you and not the British. There's still a political misunderstanding in that aspect. I then paid my respects to my traveling buddy David, whom I agreed I would have a Subway sandwich with next time I saw one. I finally had some good healthy food for a change. A good change from canned tuna, I can tell you that. Unfortunately, I hate food prices in Argentina. They are the most expensive in all Latin America. Pringles cost $4, spices cost about $9, and even have a security magnet on them. Food was just as expensive as it is in Europe, I was told, and it really took away from this beautiful country. However, they did have really cool stickers, especially this one. Yo tuve in Spanish, YouTube, literally means I had, and they put with your sister. So I had with your sister. I think you can understand what it's trying to say. So thanks for watching. Stay tuned for next episode where I'll enjoy a beautiful 5 a.m. sunrise. I'll pick up an Israeli hitchhiker for a few days. I'll enter the country of Paraguay. I'll sell my trusty motorcycle for an offer only a madman would refuse. And I'll make a pit stop in Mexico, my favorite and best country, in my opinion, in all Latin America, on my way back home to Texas. So thanks for watching and stay tuned.