Leaving Ushuaia
Saturday, 03 April 2010 00:00
After 4 days in Ushuaia, it was time to leave. The weather had been outstanding with sun everyday, allowing me to walk around in short sleeves as long as I stayed in the sun. The day Oliver and I left was just as nice.
Arriving at Paso Garibaldi, we rode into the clouds.
I hoped the clouds were only only in the pass, but the cloud cover lasted until Rio Grande where we spent the night at Hotel Argentino. Later that night, we were joined by an Italian biking couple just starting their South American trip on a R1200GS.
That morning, Oliver and I parted as I was headed to Porvenir to catch the 2:00PM ferry to Punta Arenas.
One should never depend on past border crossing when judging the time needed to exit and enter a country. I was using the same border crossing that I had a few days earlier, which had taken only about 45 minutes to cross both borders. Today, when I arrived at the Argentinian border, I found this waiting for me.
It took me 50 minutes just to get out of Argentina. Luckily, Chile was not that long. I had my 2 PM ferry to catch with about 80 miles of gravel road to ride with just a little under 2 hours before the ferry left. I had ridden part of the road when coming into Ushuaia, after the rain, and if the road was in the same condition, I would not be able to make the ferry.
The road was in great condition until the last 20 miles where it had been raining and I started to run into a little mud. I rolled into the ferry terminal at 1:40 to learn the schedule and been changed and now the ferry left at 5:00 PM. Great, all that high speed riding for nothing!
Tierre del Fuego didn’t let me down - while I was eating a nice King Crab lasagna, it started to rain. When I went to board the ferry, the rain had turned into a downpour with about a 20 mph wind. By the time the Beast and I boarded the ferry, my gear was totally soaked and I had the joy of sitting on a two hour ferry ride in wet pants with a dripping jacket on the floor next to me.
Next, Punta Arenas and then on to Puerto Natales to catch a ferry to Puerto Montt.