After leaving Puerto Natales, I got to the ferry in Punta Arenas for the crossing of the Magellan Straights. Cloudy and rainy today, but no wind. The wind had been absolutely brutal for the entire two weeks before, so when I saw there was no wind I was extremely happy!
The old Don Edmundo looks like it had seen better days…….
And on to Ruta 3 in Tierra del Fuego!
The Garibaldi pass is the last one you cross before coming to Ushuaia. Mid December, still snowing……. That ought to tell you something when it snows here in summer at near sea level.
And into the southern most city in the world, Ushuaia. Uh Oh, that sign is in English too. You know what that means, touristy and expensive, just like Alaska.
These guys in the mural, wearing striped suits and hammering on stuff. I thought they sent all those guys to Australia? 🙂
They normally call Ushuaia “El Fin del Mundo” or The End of the World. I’ll let you figure out Culo del Mundo.
Tierra del Fuego reminds me of Alaska, and Ushuaia reminds me of Anchorage. The weather sucks pretty much all of the time, its got a port surrounded by mountains, its scenic, and its very touristy.
Cruise ships large and small come here. In fact in this photo, parked next to that great big cruise ship, is the Antarctica cruise ship that lost engine power in the Drake Passage a couple of weeks ago in very heavy seas. A huge rogue wave came completely over the bow, flooded the ship with water and flooded the engine room.
The Chilean Coast Guard (I think) evacuated the passengers and towed the ship into Ushuaia. I heard from several guys as I was wandering the docks that the Drake Passage was particularly nasty the week before.
About the same time, some people were killed in on a sailboat in the Beagle channel. I think they actually intended to try to take that 50 foot sailboat into the Drake Passage. If so, they were crazy. But unfortunately they didnt live through the experience.
I cant go any further south on the moto. So what do I do? Antarctica? Head north for the 20,000 mile trip home? Ship the bike home out of BsAs? Hang out in Brazil then ship the bike home? So many possibilities.
I must admit that a little obscure line on my map has been whispering to me. It goes up though nastiest mud and clay roads that the Brazilian Amazon jungle can dish out, then onto French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, and into Venezuela. That little line is going to be a hard one to resist. When do I have to be back at work? I forget.
I thought of doing an Antarctica cruise as people in Ushuaia raved about them. However, even if the cruise was horrible, if you spent $5000 to $10,000 on a cruise, you would rave about it too. So, not really feeling it about the cruise, I opted to get back on the bike and head north on Ruta 3 towards Buenos Aires (BsAs) for short.
Not long after I left Ushuaia, I met these guys on the side of the road. They were from a Tierra del Fuego moto club and they were heading to Cerro Sombrero, Chile for an annual club meeting and BBQ. Guillermo asked me if I had any plans for the next couple of days. I told him that I had none. Then he said, “good, follow us.” So these guys kind of adopted me from the side of the road. Very cool, I love meeting local riders. This type of stuff is exactly what this trip is all about for me.
We got to the San Sebastian border crossing to Chile. What a zoo. I told the boys it looks just like Central America, only in the middle of nowhere and butt freezing cold. When I came through here a week before, I was the only one there. What happened?
The boys explained that the Argentinian holidays had just started and everyone was headed north to see relatives. They figured that the crossing would take about 4 hours.
I dont know what happened, but after 30 minutes, we got pulled out of line and taken to an office where they processed all of our paperwork and sent us on our way. One of the guys in our group was an Argentinian federal cop, and I saw him chatting to one of the Chilean Carabineros a few minutes before. So maybe we got the VIP treatment. Whatever it was, it saved a butt load of time as other folks had been there for hours.
This is Guillermo and his brand spanking new Yamaha 1200 Super Ténéré with less than 600 km on the clock. From what I understand, he owns the very first one brought into Argentina.
1200 cc fuel injected twin, shaft drive, and all the bells and whistles like a BMW 1200 GSA. Its a heavy bike though, I think about 260 kg wet, without anything else is what he told me. For reference, my bike wet, but, with all of my add ons, and all of the gear in the panniers, and all of my riding gear, helmet, boots, gloves everything, stacked on top of the bike, weighs in at 260 kg. I know this when I weighed it in Panama before the trip to Colombia.
Its still a really cool bike though. Good for Yamaha. We need much more competition in this market. This bike looks and feels like a very capable mile eater, and I’m sure its a bulletproof bike as most Yamahas seem to be. Too bad we will probably never see this marketed in the States. They would sell quite a few there.
Anyway, we went to the big fiesta in Cerro Sombrero, TdF, Chile. There were a few moto clubs there. One from Ushuaia, from Rio Grande, from Punta Arenas, Rio Gallegos, and of course, Cerro Sombrero. As you can imagine, these moto clubs are small, so when they have a get together, they need to include other clubs to get the attendance up. There were about 50 folks total here. The bikes were everything from big BMW’s to Honda 250’s, Big cruisers, and even the Chinese 150 cc choppers complete with skeletons and tassels. Everyone is friendly and gets along well. Sure, the guys riding the same type of moto usually ride together, but it doenst matter what type of moto you have to these guys, you are still in the family. I really like this attitude.
Of course most talk centered around motos and all thing moto. These guys treated me like a brother and were awesome hosts. Many of them have traveled all over South America so it was funny for me when they wanted to hear my stories about Central America and Mexico. One of them said I was crazy for riding in Mexico. Amazing how far reaching the sensational news media can spread their fear mongering, all the way to Tierra del Fuego. Nice.
Well of course we had to eat. We arrived at the meeting. The mayor of the town spoke. We ate, we talked about motos long into the night. We got up the next day and did it all over again, complete with another big Parrilla.
A big shout of thanks to Los Lobos, Motoqueros, and Moto club 54 Sur. I really enjoyed meeting all of you folks and thanks so much for your wonderful hospitality, and your patience with my Spanglish. It was for sure the highlight of my trip to Tierra del Fuego! Mil gracias!
Shortly after the fiesta, I got on a ferry across the Straights of Magellan, and said farewell to Tierra del Fuego.
And I headed north, to do battle with the wind. To really understand the winds here they have to be experienced. You can throw around 80 to 100 mph all day long, but until you get blown off the road by it, or forced off the road by a semi driver thats about to lose his rig, you cant really get your head around it.
Saludos.
Saludos, Vicente.