Torres del Paine

As I was saying, we had to hang around for a while in Porvenir as the ferry didn't leave until 2 pm. It gave us a chance to have a coffee, take a few pictures and check things out in the harbour. The landscape here reminds me of places in the Canadian Arctic or East Coast. Not too many trees around.
The ferry system seems pretty efficient. The reservation system consists of a page in a notebook. I signed in for myself and Neil indicating that we had two motos. No money exchanged yet. At 1 pm on the day of sailing, two officers from the ship walk over to a small coffee shop to sell tickets from a booth inside. Vehicles then load as directed down a concrete ramp like a boat launch. The ferry is equipped with it's own loading ramp and the ferry schedule is adjusted to account for the changing tides. You don't necessarily load in the order you arrived and bikes aren't first here. By scheduled departure time everyone is loaded and we're under way. I noticed on our tickets that there was a fare for horses on foot. Try that on BC Ferries.

Our ferry from Porvenir to Punta Arenas. They don't spend lots on the docking facility.

Some of the active fishing fleet in Porvenir

I think it was sea urchins in these bags.

The bikes had to be well secured as it can get really rough. We were lucky though and had a smooth sailing.

Considering the type of ferry it is, they do a nice job of providing for passenger comfort. Neil said if the passenger lounge had round windows and a rounded off ceiling it would look like an airplane.

We ended up with a full load.

 So we had a good sailing across The Strait of Magellan and docked in Punta Arenas around 4:30 pm or so. We had already decided to spend the night here and ride up to Puerto Natales in the morning. We stayed at a hostel that had good parking for the bikes and was only a few blocks from downtown. I don't know much about Punta Arenas but it's a major supply center for the Tierra del Fuego area. The downtown area has lots of cool old buildings and the harbour area appears to have quite a few dry-dock facilities as well as a Navy base.
In the morning, for some reason, it felt really good to get on the bike. Maybe because we had only about 250 km to go in the warm sunshine and the wind was blowing under the speed of sound. You might be getting tired of this, but; It was another awesome ride. We saw many sheep being herded in by...uhmm, not cowboys I guess but I don't want to call them sheepboys. Doesn't seem right. How about gauchos? It was funny to see even the sheep hiding from the wind in any hollow in the ground they could find.

Horses still do lots of work here

Lots of sheep

We were starting to get out of the flat Patagonia and back into the mountains

Puerto Natales is in a pretty setting with rolling hills as you approach from the southeast and beautiful mountains across the inlet to the north. We were here to catch the ferry to Puerto Montt on Tuesday evening. In the meantime we planned to spend a few days hanging out. When we pulled into town at noon we both had the idea to carry on into the park to spend a night or two there. One look at my back wheel however had us shelving that idea. I had noticed in Porvenir that the seal for my final drive had started to leak again but it seemed to be getting worse already. I had had it replaced once in San Diego, California already but for some reason the problem was back. It would be a pain in the butt to fix now so close to the end of the trip and I would probably have to get it to Santiago to a BMW dealer anyway. I'll have to try and milk it the 1000 or so kilometers to Santiago. So we checked in at a hostel here in Pto. Natales. Actually that worked out okay. It's a very relaxing and inexpensive place to stay. On Sunday we rented a small car to go see Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. It's another one of those places you have to see to appreciate. It seems a wisely developed park and there were lots of other tourists there besides us.

I doubt it's this calm here very often. This is the view from Pto. Natales to the north.

And this is looking east along the shoreline in Puerto Natales

Our first view of the Torres del Paine area

The weather wasn't much but the scenery was alright.

Pretty cool, eh?

Finally! A Lesser Rhea. There are quite a few but they're a bit skittish.

There must be thousands of guanacos

Some people just have to go all out when they camp

This was our car. I didn't even know Samsung made cars.

Gaucho rounding up horses a long way from the estancia

Lago Nordenskjold in the foreground with Cerro Paine Grande on the left with snow on it. I think the group of peaks without snow is the Cuernos del Paine. It's amazing.

Looking north across Lago Pehoe

On the way back to Puerto Natales

Relaxing in the common area at the hostel

A good place to stay in Puerto Natales. Hostel Natales

Small cruise ship docked in Puerto Natales

So you probably won't hear from us until the night of the 12th of March unless something really exciting happens before we get on the boat to Puerto Montt. Like the ferry running aground on an island before it gets here or something like that. Like that could happen.
Chau.

Fin del Mundo

It was a super nice morning when we left Rio Gallegos. It wasn't even windy yet. The terrain on the way to the Chilean border was pretty featureless except for all these small volcanic cones and their lava flows.

There were several of these mini-chains of mini-volcanoes.

These little volcanoes were pretty cool.

So I'm not sure if the borders are more relaxed here but it seems to be getting easier and faster. The Chilean Aduana official even took the time to chat with us and confirmed road directions that had been given to us by some other bikers. After the border crossing we headed for the short ferry ride across the Strait of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego.

Finally got a decent picture of a guanaco. There were many. This one was daring me to come a little closer so he could kick my ass. I think he was the boss of the group.

The ferry to Tierra del Fuego

Getting a little local knowledge can really help sometimes. We turned off the paved road at Cerro Sombrero and got on the best gravel road of the trip. This road took us south to Onaisin to intersect the road to Porvenir. Most of the other traffic, except for trucks, took the main road to Rio Grande. We made good time on this road and quickly got to San Sebastian to exit Chile. Then on to the next San Sebastian to enter Argentina once again. It's kind of a pain but that's the way it is.

On the road south of Cerro Sombrero. This is an average estancia.

More Fuegian countryside

The Chilean border post at San Sebastian

While we were making such good time heading for San Sebastian we had passed a few other bikers heading north who were giving us a thumbs-up and big waves. I was starting to get excited about getting to Ushuaia. When we stopped for gas in Rio Grande I suggested we keep on going. It was only 3 pm or so and there was only about 215 km to go. Neil wasn't hard to convince. I'm glad. I doubt I would have slept that night in Rio Grande.

Between Rio Grande and Ushuaia the landscape changes dramatically.

On the Ushuaia side of Garibaldi Pass.

It felt really good rolling into Ushuaia. That had been the real objective of the trip for me. It was time to celebrate.
We spent a few days just hanging out in Ushuaia. It's an interesting place and there are tourists here from all over the world, as you can imagine. Cruise ships leave regularly from here to Antarctica. Many round-the-world sailors make Ushuaia a replenishing stop. Most of the people we talked to weren't your average travelers. One woman I spoke to briefly in a restaurant had been in Ushuaia since January waiting for new rigging for her sailboat. She had some kind of mishap while rounding Cape Horn and badly damaged her boat. She was trying to do a non-stop voyage by herself from Victoria, BC.
We each did our own thing here during the day. Neil went for a tour of the town one day and did a boat tour to see some local wildlife the next day. I checked out the museum at the famous jail here. It was very large and I had to rush a bit to get through it in 4 hours. I took a walk up to the ski hill where they have a campground in the off season. I had emailed with a biker from the States on the way here so I met him there for a coffee. He told me about the big sign at the end of the road in Tierra del Fuego Park so I had to go do the picture.

Looking back from the shoreline in Ushuaia towards the ski hill.

Another monument to the heroes of the 1982 war. There is a lot of strong sentiment here about who the Malvina Islands belong to.

Looking back to the east side of the harbour.

The old jail in Ushuaia

An un-restored section of prison cells in the jail

This is the area they have fixed up for the museum. There were displays in nearly all the cells and common areas for three wings of the jail like this. I was really impressed.

This shows one of the five (or maybe 6) wings of the jail.

From the ski hill looking back to Ushuaia

Downtown Ushuaia

Fin del Camino

Thursday morning we left Ushuaia to go to Porvenir, Chile. It was quite windy most of the way and I was glad the hundred and some odd kilometer gravel section from San Sebastian to Porvenir was in such good shape. Maintaining an even keel in such wind keeps you focused for sure. Other than the wind it was a beautiful day with nice scenery.

Typical scenery across the north of Tierra del Fuego

Bahia Inutil on the west side of Tierra del Fuego

Just east of Porvenir

Some pink flamingos. I'm pretty sure they weren't the plastic ones you put on the lawn. Although that would be a funny trick to play on us tourists.

So here we are in Porvenir, Chile. We will catch the 2 pm ferry to Punta Arenas this afternoon. Depending on how Neil is feeling we will either stay there or carry on to Puerto Natales. Oh yeah. We even got to go to the hospital here in Porvenir to find a medico for Neil. He had some weird throat affliction so they gave him some stuff for that. He's feeling much better today.
Also, sorry for the long times between posts. Sometimes there's no internet. The hotel in Ushuaia wanted to charge us for internet use. That's the first time on the whole trip anybody tried to charge for wi-fi.
Well, I'm too stubborn to fall for that.
Chau

Rio Gallegos

First of all, if your interested, I edited the last post to add a photo and some text about the road and the wind.
Today we made the short hop (about 320 km) to Rio Gallegos after a lazy start. I even had a third cup of coffee. First time in a long time. Tomorrow the plan is to do the double border crossing from Argentina to Chile and back into Argentina. This puts us on Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego at Rio Grande.
We actually saw a bit of wildlife along Ruta 5 today. There were lots of Rheas and guanacos. We tried stopping to get pictures but they're a little camera shy. Or gun shy depending on your point of view.
The best part was that it wasn't windy except for a few freak gusts.

Countryside southeast of El Calafate

Again!

Valley of the Rio Santa Cruz that runs out of Lago Argentino.

Guanaco bums at maximum telephoto.

The waterfront in Rio Gallegos on the Atlantic side of South America.

A monument to honour the war dead who perished when the British sunk the Argentine battleship General Belgrano during the Falklands (Malvinas) conflict.

And another to remember the pilots who died during the 1982 war. Interesting to see history from a different perspective.

Gotta go now. It's after 5 pm. Somewhere.
Chau.