TravellingStrom

Wednesday – Ushuaia, Argentina

The end of the world and I finally got here 🙂

I got on the road early, well as early as I could after once again having my bike blocked in by three cars and then having to wake up three lots of people to get it out! I also got out of town before finding there are no servos and had to return to fill up with fuel, bugger, I got caught again! This meant that by the time I actually left town it was gone 9am and this also meant I was behind the tourist busses, not a good place to be 😦 I did not get far before I had my first border crossing of the day, a basic simple system, stamp out of Argentina, step to the next desk and stamp into Chile, I forgot to take photos, oops but I did have to wait because of all the tourist busses which packed the place out!

After that border, the next stoppage was at the ferry crossing across the bay, this was a small wait and I guess I got lucky because the next one was due to leave in about 5 minutes, so no waiting here. 🙂

While on the ferry I tried to get a crew member to strap my bike down, but he was having none of it, bloody idiot! After the initial bumpy bits, it did settle down enough for me to let the bike go and slip upstairs for a photo. I got lucky in a way and saw an Orca broaching and that was about it because we were near the other side and it had started to rain, so I needed to get the wet gear on 😦

I now entered the “Land of Fire” although it would not get very hot, in fact it was cold wet and freezing, I wish my heated gear was working!

Now came the section I did not like, 120km of dirt and it was raining and yucky 😦

But, after the first 10 minutes I realised it was hard packed and there was no slippery bits so that meant I could increase the pace, does that sound familiar, but going fast over corrugations is the best way to do it 😉

And after an hour and a bit I arrived at the next border crossing, it was real nice of Chile to provide rain and dirt roads especially as I know they can build good paved ones! This border crossing was a repeat of the last one, sort of, basically stamp out me and the bike and head off, because the Argentine entry point is up the road a bit!

At least the pavement started again, good on ya Argies 🙂 Another simple crossing before I fuelled up, I was going to have some lunch but there was nothing here, so I had another 80km to go before I arrived in Rio Grande and grabbed fuel and a hot dog and hot chocolate, it was nice and warm in there 🙂

The road on this coast was still damp but the rain had stopped mostly, but it was not getting any warmer. There were heaps of Guacoles on the road and Rheas, but every time I stopped for photos, they bolted, I never did get a photo of a Rhea.

As I moved inland I started to cross the mountains again and the scenery changed for the better, plus the sun came out and tried to warm the place up a bit 🙂

It was not long after this that I finally entered Ushuaia, the end of the world, and nearly at the end of the PanAmerican Highway and it was here on the ocean side that I saw the fiery rainbow over the bay, what a nice view 🙂

I looked around for a hotel, most of the places were full, of course it was peak season, but I eventually found an expensive nice place which had what I needed, hang the expense, I needed some pampering 🙂

There was a German chap staying there as well and we ended up going to an Irish pub for a beer or two, and a basic feed, he is a cameraman and reminded me a lot of Jim, hi Rudi 🙂

He left after a short while and although I was tired, a few more beers would not hurt eh! This was when I met Gemma(pronounced Jimma as she is a Kiwi) and Scott from the US, don’t ask me why I have my arm around him and not the girl, I was tired and confused OK

The evening went from good to good after that and I ended up staying way past my bedtime, around 2am, crikey it was a long and tiring day but not as tired as this chap I saw on my stagger uphill to home, he had his engine running and was fast asleep 😯

Day – 371 miles and 597 km
Trip – 52,062 miles and 83,786 km

Salud
TravellingStrom

WORLD

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