Journey to the end of the world DAY 7

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Definitely one the most eventful days. We woke up this morning determined to reach the end of the world, but still dauntingly far away from our goal. Banking on generous tax rebates occurring at some point this month, we extended the car hire by four days. We needed to cross the water, to get to the Island Tierra del Fuego, but the only crossing listed in our guide book was $60 with the car.

Ignoring that, we identified a place on the map where we thought we might be able to cross for less, and Tom found a ´track´ that would act as our short cut to the crossing. However, 150km later, our smug smiles faded as we reached a dead end and our ´short cut´ turned into someone´s farm. The farmer told us that the road we were following on our map no longer existed. Totally demoralised, we (and our out of date map) turned back. Three hours after setting off we arrived back in El Calafate where we started.

We bought a new CD to boost morale and begrudgingly followed the proper path to the border. The Argentine/Chile border was great. It involved two men (one representing each country) sitting in a hut with a ping-pong table between them. When they had looked at our documents, and written our names by pen in a book (ruling off with a Mickey Mouse ruler) we had to lift up a rusty chain ourselves, and drive across.

Later, we stopped for petrol in the middle of nowhere and, after loosing the car keys, and realising we hadn´t changed up enough Chilean pesos, ended up paying for our gas with a combination of three currencies (including 6 British pounds that luckily had been lurking at the bottom of Tom´s bag).

Much later, when it was cold and very dark, we arrived at Punta Delgada, the place where we´d guessed we might be able to cross cheaply. We asked a truck driver, who to our delight said "ferry" and waved his hand towards two blue flashing lights, several metres apart. Very excited to finally have one of our plans work out, we went to drive between the lights, but screeched to a halt when we saw the sea, directly in front of us.

Not long afterwards, the ferry ramp replaced the water and, after the choppy and freezing cold ferry crossing, we were given a cheap hostel room for the night by a woman who took pity on us when we couldn't afford the rates. It had been an eventful day. And we weren´t even at the end of the world.

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Comments

[Mum]

You look as if you are having a wonderful time. My only concern now is that you wont want to come home! Has Tom managed to get you to 'love nature' yet, or are you still missing makeup and hair straightners? Take care - love to you both Mum xxxx

[Beth]

Haha! that picture makes me feel better about the state of my car at the moment!