Well we cheated a little, we have only ridden about 1500kms since Panama, the rest we did the easy way - by boat.

The start of our fifth month riding and we celebrate by arriving at the last stop on the way south. Well, not technically, but as far south as we will get. Ushuaia, a strange town that sells itself as being at the end of the world. We were surprised to find the place full of people when we arrived, where did they all come from? We hadn’t seen that much traffic on the road here. The weather was also surprising, sunny days, and little wind, is this really Tierra del Fuego?

International group at the end of the road. Peter, Yonni, Yuki, Sian, Arno.

From P. Natales we rode to Punta Delgada, where we hoped the ferry was running. We got there to find 2 other riders already waiting, Peter from Switzerland on a Teneré and Yonni from Israel on a DR he’d bought in Buenos Aires. The ferry soon arrived and the 5 of us were on the island of Tierra del Fuego almost before we had paid for our tickets.

The road was tarmac and brand new, still being built in fact. However construction had only progressed 20kms or so and then it was back to dirt. The road wasn’t too bad, a few dodgy places but we were able to speed along at 70kmh or so.
Needing fuel, we stopped at an outpost where the map showed a fuel station. After riding around the few deserted buildings and gas plant, unable to see were we could get fuel, we asked directions at what looked like a canteen. Bad news, the fuel station had already closed! It was late so we asked if we could camp out in one of the unused buildings. It turned out the canteen was part of the gas plant, the manager was consulted and we were offered the use of one of the dorms where the workers sleep. Warm and out of the wind, perfect, we were even fed dinner and breakfast.

Fine weather at the border in Tierra del Fuego

The next day, we fuelled up and headed for the border. Even though there were 5 of us, we were reasonably quickly stamped out of Chile, into Argentina and riding on tarmac towards Tolhuin. Here the road changed again and it was dirt almost all the way to Ushuaia. The scenery made it a nice ride though.

The five of us made it down to the end of Ruta 3, in the National park for the obligatory photo. It took awhile for everyone to pose with their bikes, by which time the rain stopped, the sun came out, so we rode to Laguna Verde and spent the afternoon lounging in the sunshine planning our next moves.

We left “the end of the world” in the company of Dieter, another Swiss rider, the others we hoped to meet up with somewhere along Ruta 40. Was a beautiful day for riding and we made good time despite stopping to take photos at every opportunity. We wanted to visit Punta Arenas, and so after the border took the other road towards Porvenir. An Italian cyclist we had met had said that the Estancia owners were generally pretty hospitable along this stretch of road and indeed this proved to be the case. We asked if we could camp out of the wind at one Estancia. We didn’t even have to get out our tent, we were able to sleep in a building and were again fed and watered.

Rain greeted us the next day, but we made it to Porvenir in time to catch the daily ferry to Punta Arenas. Stocked up with enough food for 4 days, the 3 of us headed to Torres del Paine to exercise our legs for a change. The road there was spectacular, wonderful scenery and a good gravel road.

A good gravel road plus spectacular scenery, moments to enjoy

The park had suffered from lot of rain in the past few days and the road up to the Torres Campsite was under water, so we decided to ride to the other side of the park and do some walks from there. After a couple of days riding around the park and doing some short walks, we went back to find the road rideable again. So the next day we trekked up to see the famous Torres. Amazing what you put yourself through to see some rock!! It was worth it though – just, and as a bonus we had great weather too.

Dieter and Arno, no motorbike in sight!

I was glad to get on my bike the next day though, even though we were heading for the first stage of Ruta 40. The border crossing at Cerro Castillo, was the fastest yet, it took longer to ride between the 2 border posts than it did to get the paperwork done. A new road was being built on the way to La Esperanza and we sneaked onto it until the turnoff for El Calafate and Ruta 40.

Our first encounter with the infamous Ruta 40.

The road wasn’t too bad, despite the recent heavy rains and we made good time. We were lucky too, that it wasn’t windy. Reached the tarmac stretch to El Calafate, a lovely ride with the road sweeping down from the plateau. After a few km’s, however, the tarmac really deteriorated, then suddenly ran out as we had to follow a diversion. It had been recently, very generously re-gravelled in large patches – my favourite!

We finally reached El Calafate and whom should we bump into, Asher. He and Arne Bomblies were staying at the same place, so we headed there too. Was nice to meet Arne as we had emailed a couple of times. Yuki and Rodi also turned up, and so we planned to ride together, to Parque Nacional Los Glaciares when the weather improved.