Chile and on our way towards Punta Arenas

Day 17 (237 km)

     The breeze made so much noise last night, that it kept us wake all night. Around 7 tried to take a shower, but only boiled hot water came out the faucet, no cold water was working. 

The day started bad already and the wind was hauling outside, but clear skies.

      we started to prepare to do the 90 km on paved road to the Chilean border, but it took almost 2 hours and sometimes could not go more as 40 km due to the intense  side wind we encountered, god only knows how strong it was. If a truck passed us either way, the breeze almost picked us up and throw you of your bike and our hands were starting getting cold and cramped up again, from desperately holding on to the handlebar and trying the moto up straight. Most of the time it felt we were riding in a 45 degree angle!

      The 2 border post 14 km apart, went fast. Drank some coffee and a pastel and prepared for the next 150 km on dirt road (ripio) to get to Porvenir, which is the capital of the province of Tierra del Fuego of the Chilean side.

   The first 50 km went reasonable, but then the gravel started to thicken up and 4 hours later we sailed in Porvenir. Made reservation on the ferry for Punta Arenas and is leaving tomorrow 7 am sharp and the voyage is 2 hours!

      Looked for an hotel and all were located in one street, but none came up so far we could compare it to, but all charged $ 50.00 US and more. 

We knew Chile was expensive, but now we knew for sure!

Back to Honduras, give or take 15000 km as the crow flies

Day 16 (212 km)

     Packed the motorcycles again this morning and were heading north now to ........ Honduras, but that will take a while to get there. Back tracked the same road to Rio Grande, where we decided to stay again to watch the soccergame "Holland - Colombia" . 

     You could see that that all roads lead to Ushuaia and it was unbelievable that of every 3 vehicles coming from the opposite direction had German license plates on their small Mercedes camper buses and some of them where Swiss.  All left for Ushuaia now, was to have German written menus in the restaurants, if it wasn't done already!

Trying Scotty's new toy, Go Pro video camera on the only pass between Ushuaia and Rio Grande

     The first 100 km today was cold and we found even ice on the moto's this morning! The last 100 km after we left the protected hills and reached the flats, the wind started to haul and I know we had 90 to 100km steady wind out of the north west bucking us and we had an hard time staying on the road and 2 pm we reached exhausted and with a stiff neck and cramped arms, Rio Grande.

Playing in the snow, on our rest day in Ushuaia!

Day 15 (0 km)

   Decided to visit the Glaciar Martial, just a few km up the road. Took a cable car and a few minutes later were on the top and had a pretty view of Ushuaia and of the seaway called Beagle Channel. On the top snow was still present and it actually started to snow!

     Went back into town and had lunch in a fish restaurant and had big Mussels, took my siesta and waiting on dinner tonight!

    

Ushuaia, "Fin del Mundo"

Day 14 (220 km)

    The reason we bought the bikes more as 2 years ago was to reach Ushuaia and today we did it!

We made a few trial trips, one in Honduras for 10 days, one to Panama for 2 weeks, one to Mexico and this is the third trip in South America, The way we did it was after each period of 6 weeks of  travelling, we parked the bike in South America where ever we ended up and bought a round trip ticket back to Honduras for a few months and then continued again further south. It worked well so far and now we have to go north to Lima Peru, where our planes leaves on the 22nd of December back to Honduras, so we still have 5 weeks to get there one way or the other to catch that flight and leave the bikes somewhere in Peru in a parking lot!

    So today we left Rio Grande kind of late to make the last 200 km to Ushuaia and the first one hundred went well and from one mile to the next trees reappear and in the distance the first snow capped mountains were visible.

    Soon we rode a very interesting road through the hills and saw the big blue lagoons all over on the side of the road. It took 3000 km to see this and now we were in the middle of it.

    Reached Ushuaia around 4 pm and took the mandatory photo of the entrance of the last city south in the world! "Fin del Mundo", planning to stay for 2 nights and ended up in a very comfortable hotel in the centre, close to the dock.

Chile, from The North to the South in one day!

Day 12,13 (365 km)

    We spend 2 nights in Rio Gallegos and Friday became our rest day and visit the Malvinas (Falkland) war museum, where they try to convince you, that the Malvinas belongs to Argentina and remembering the war of 1982. After an hour or so, we decided to have a beer session and got after 10 pm home and tried to get some sleep, because we wanted to leave early to make the almost 400 km to Rio Grande, To get there we had to enter Chile, do the paperwork for the bikes, catch a ferry to cross the narrow ends of the street of Magellan, and then enter Argentina again.

     The first border after leaving Gallegos was about an hour away and lost at least 2 hours on the Chilean side to do our paperwork, but finally we were on our way to the ferry what was another hour away, We just reached on time to catch it and surprisingly nobody charged us or the bikes and the crossing took less as 20 minutes. On the other side is where the big island "Tierra del Fuego starts and has to be shared between Argentina and Chile. To get to Ushuaia, you have to drive through Chile for about a 170 km and the last 100 km is ripio,

     I am still not an hero on ripio, although the ripio was very well graded and there was hardly any thick gravel patches.  So I was doing bout 50 km average, but knew we could have went at least 80 or 90 km, but like I said, I am not an hero anymore and can not afford to fall ( it hurts) 

   Anyway we dodged all the rain today, besides a few sprinkles and were lucky again,even all we saw was black clouds today, To stay warm today, I put on my ski clothes from years ago and had 4 or 5 layer of sweaters and pants, because anyway you take this wind by 5 Celcius, it is cold, it supposed to snow in Ushuaia tomorrow and is only 3 hours away!

The hotel we found in Rio Grande was small and the heater was turned up to at least 40 C and had a good hot shower, Rio Grande became from a village 20 years ago to a boom town, because of oil and gas discovery the last few years and was a buzzing city with all the amenities and shops you can think about.