Claudio Fallat is the first Mendoza native to dare to carry out the crossing to travel in motorcycle to Alaska. The experience that began in April will last months and, although it has already been carried out by other Argentines, none did so from the Cuyo province.
Claudio is fulfilling his dream, just as he had told MDZ in February when he confirmed that he would do the journey In solitary. “It’s a dream I’ve had for a couple of years,” the adventurer who began taking trips in motorcycle at 42 years old.
Today, at 51 years old, he is in the middle of that project that he devised for so long. As she had pointed out at the time, a journey Going alone requires courage and accepting that there may be risks and inconveniences, but it also gives satisfaction when you dare and make it happen.
Fallat is the owner of the Las 3F sandwich factory and it is not the first time he has ventured into a crossing of this style but the first one that involves crossing many countries and thousands of kilometers. It involves, nothing more and nothing less, traveling on two wheels around 45,000 kilometers one way and as many thousands returning.
The outward journey was not completely planned, Claudio began his crossing knowing that it was leaving from Mendoza to Alaska, without having precisely defined the destinations where it would stop. Having just arrived in Costa Rica, the adventurer left Mendoza at the end of April, crossing northern Chile where he crossed into Peru. From the Andean country he went to Ecuador and its different places including the Ecuadorian Amazon, Colombia with its jungles and cities like Medellín. From there he crossed to Central America, passed through Panama and arrived in Costa Rica where he is currently and from where he will continue the trip.
“He journey It has been very nice and positive. But hey, I had some bad things too. When leaving Peru they broke my 360 camera, one of the lenses, I had to record in 180°. That was on a beach, on the border with Ecuador, in northern Peru. I was standing with the bags, everything and I saw some interesting beaches with white sand and warm water. I went to film for a minute and when I came back I realized that they had broken my camera,” says Claudio from Costa Rica.
“Also entering Ecuador, I was going to stop at a hotel in the town of Tulcan and when I am arriving, I pass through the center, the historical part is very nice but I was going as if to the port. I saw that the area was not very good and I asked a police officer who told me to turn back because they could rob me. Every night there are shootings, gangs gather and there is no way to combat them. That was what a police officer told me and it was late,” says Claudio, who after returning to the center and spending the night in a hotel decided to continue his route along the Quito side to “be a little safer.”
In Colombia, he decided to enter during the day to avoid conflicts in drug trafficking areas. “It was all winding, up, down, curve, countercurve, so you had to walk slowly and to make matters worse I had a rainy day,” he says about the place. Claudio had to stop in Popayán, a district that he describes as quiet.
“The next day, after walking 30 kilometers, I was already in Pasto, in the pure jungle and suddenly I see a shocking scene. There were four women with STOP signs. I went calmly, always with caution, I put two gears less and they told me to stop insistently. But they had nothing to sell, as is common on those routes. So, my first instinct was to get away and not stop. I pretended to stop, put it in second gear and accelerated. It was a terrifying moment and after 50 kilometers I came across a small town and the people looked at me ugly. That area was full of police and the Army,” says Claudio and adds that a police officer told him to continue his crossing trying not to stop.
Already in Costa Rica, the reception was with a lot of rain. “I have never seen so much rain at once,” says the man from Mendoza who assures that riding in motorcycle so it is dangerous. “Arriving in San José, the very heavy rain started. I stop on the side of the road, I put my paw on the motorcycle to get off, with so much bad luck that a truck was coming very close to the motorcycle. The route was inclined, the motorcycle as if balancing and when the truck passed he fell and turned because there was a ditch so he was left with the wheels facing up,” laments the motorcyclist who will try to repair the damages that were minor, except for a loss of gasoline that he does not know Where is it.
Costa Rica, he says, “is too expensive. I’m going to do beaches in the Caribbean, the Pacific, the volcanoes and I’ll continue to Nicaragua.” Except for the inconveniences mentioned, Claudio states that “I am very happy for this journey What I have been able to do thanks to the 3f factory. I have met wonderful people who have even given me their home.”
“So far I have traveled more or less 11,000 kilometers,” says the traveler who is already halfway there “with the same idea of going to Alaska.” From that destination, the return will be through Los Angeles where you will take the entire Route 66 to Chicago. Then Miami and continue down to Mendoza but this time on the east side, along the Atlantic Ocean, through Venezuela and Brazil.
