Ushuaia – January 22nd, 2015
Jan 23rd, 2015 by rallyadmin
The road to Punta Arenas is called the Ruta del Fin del Mundo, The Road to the End of the Earth. It’s not really. That distinction goes to Ruta 3 but that’s in Argentina. This road, Ruta 9, is in Chile and it ends in Punta Arenas and no roads go father south. Ergo, the end of the earth. It’s the bottom of Patagonia. Ruta 3 ends at the bottom Tierra del Fuego, the land of fire.
There’s not much to see in Punta Arenas but it is the port that supplies the Chile/Argentine side of Antarctica so all of the scientists, explorers, tourists and naturalists go through here on the way to their cruises and duty assignments. And it’s the southern entrance to Patagonia so the climbers, trekkers, hikers and tourists go through here. I emphasize the phrase “go through here”. We do, too.
We’re up and out for our last leg to Ushuaia. It’s another beautiful day, cloudless and blue sky. We detour on our way north to a penguin colony about 50 kms from the main road. It takes us about 45 minutes to get there. Just in time to share the place with a tour bus. Whatever.
The penguins are megellanic penguin, one of the smaller penguin breeds. They are 18 to 24 inches tall, quite a bit bigger than the Fairie penguins we saw at Philip Island in Australia. They summer here in Chile to next and raise their young and then winter off Peru.
It’s a small colony of about 6,000 breeding pairs but it accessible by car. There is a much larger colony, 50,000 breeding pairs, south of Punta Arenas but it’s only accessible by a day long boat tour.
We walk the boardwalk and do the self guided tour. Most of the birds are out to see feeding and the young are hidden away in the burrows awaiting the return of a fresh meal. There are enough birds still on land, though, to satisfy everyone’s penguin lust (Opus where are you now that we really need you?) But it’s back to the car and back to the main road headed north to the ferry at Angostura and on to the border crossing at San Sebastion.
Just as we are ready to leave John notices that the right rear tire is riding very low. I dig out a tire guage and it reads about 15 psi. Crap. I don’t want to put on the spare and then have to find somewhere to fix this tire. I thought we had piled some excess karma points for helping the folks a few days ago. And the wearther is rapidly changing for the worse.
I had brought a very small tire inflator for just this emergency but though I had plugged it in when I was home and it started. I didn’t however check to see if it would really inflate a tire. Now’s the time to try. I plug it, attach it to the tire and turn on the switch. Here goes nothing.
These little tire inflators have a very small capacity so they take very long time to inflate a large tire. It rattle away for about a half hour and the rain holds off. I check the pressure. Damn! It’s working. It takes us the better part of 45 minutes to pump up the tire but it eventually gets there. For a Harbor Freight el-cheapo, it probably worth buying one of these and just throwing it in the trunk (boot, to you cousins across the pond.)
We start on up the road and the weather gets much better and soon we’re back under cloudless skies though now we have a tremendous wind occasionally following but mostly a cross wind. When we get to the ferry to cross us to the other side of the channel we’ve been following north, the wind is really howling. Well, it’s Patagonia and we’re headed to Tierra del Fuego. This ain’t Kansas anymore, Toto.
We cross the ferry, disembark and drive away from the ferry landing. And then the pavement ends for the next 165 kms. The road isn’t too bad, actually, but it very dusty and I’m getting tired of the dust. I was all geared up for lousy, wet weather and, instea, we’re getting beautiful, cloudless days. I shouldn’t complain. These have been Chamber of Commerce days and people come here in the summer and never see the sun. I love it but the dust is getting to be a pain.
Both the Chilean exit customs and the Argentine entry customs go fine. As usual, acting dumb and helpless gets the customs officers to be understanding and easy to get along with. (“What are these two old men doing out alone so far from home?”) And the natural friendliness of both countries’ immigration and customs people have been something to write home about. Or maybe write to the US Customs people about. Nah, I’m already on enough lists as it is.
We make it into Ushuaia by about 6PM. We did it. We’ve driven to the End of the Earth. The Ruta del Fin del Mundo. And it’s a beautiful cloudless sky to greet us.
Of course, we’re not the only ones here in town. Apparently, every backpacker, tourist, cruise ship bozo and motorcyclist in the western hemisphere is here with us. And we can’t find a room. Not in a hostal, Not in a hotel. Not in a hospedejia. This is starting to sound like Dr. Suess.
We try close to ten places before finding a hostal that has a room for the night. We’ll take it and worry about tomorrow later. After a bottle of wine. And a good meal. Maybe we’ll just worry about ti tomorrow.
Obi-wan