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Published: December 2nd 2015
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Road side shrine
Along the road you will find shrines to departed family members. We are not sure if they died in a traffic accident or this was just a nice spot along the road. To The End of the World
After one night in Punta Arenas we gathered up a rental car and headed for Ushuaia, our last stop on the tour. Ushuaia is the farthest south city in the world, on the Beagle Channel where Darwin and Fitz Roy sailed.
The trip from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia covered 700 km to the southern most point of Terra del Fuego, and took around 13 hours. How does it take 13 hours to cover about 420 miles? Well, you have to stop in Penguinia Rey to see a colony of king penguins, get through two boarder crossings, take a ferry across the Magellan Strait, and cover about 100 miles of gravel road!
The landscape was stunning, going from miles and miles of flat Patagonian pampas as far as you could see to the forests surrounding the lakes and then the ocean bays. On the way we spotted a number of Darwin's Lesser Rheas, alpacas, guanacos, and the native Patagonian Fox along with more birds, including condors, than you could count.
OK, time to say something about the wind. It blows, and blows, and then comes up some
more. According to John it is hard to tell how hard the wind is blowing because as wind speed doubles the force is cubed (so a 10mph wind pushes on you not twice as hard as a 5 mph wind, but many times harder). But I can tell you that John opened a car door and the wind almost ripped it off the hinges. More examples...leaving the Argentine immigration check point I kicked a rock forward and the wind blew it back to me; the dust from the car on the gravel roads went past the car and rained down on the windshield; you could literally see the semi-trucks coming toward you leaning away from the wind on their frames; and at times it is impossible to walk in a straight line. Take my word for it, the wind blows and blows.
On the way we stopped in Rio Grande so John could visit a farm supply store and pick up a fine pair of Argentine made leather boots for the farm. Of course I also had to bow to the Rio Grande river, home of some of the biggest sea-run trout in the world. The run
Neighbor
Hanging out, waiting for us to return to our B&B has not yet started, so Marcia and John were able to keep the car moving.
Finally we pulled into Ushauia and found our bed and breakfast, a very nice place located in what you would not call an upscale neighborhood. You will find large homes next to fairly run down places in this part of the world, for example our beautiful B&B is right next door to a small place with a horse saddled up and ready to go (see photo). Once settled in, we caught a late dinner, actually, regular dinner time by Argentine standards, of king crab and octopus which is in season.
Today we drove out to the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego and went for a hike. Actually, engaged in an illegal boarder crossing as we hiked to the Chilean boarder and went across without having our passports stamped. Where is Donald Trump when a country needs a wall built? We also drove to the end of Route 3, which is the final highway at the end of the South American continent, a full 17,848 km from Alaska...as if anyone would really drive that. (Well, the motorcyclist we met there
Lunch spot
In Terria del Fuego National Park. had driven his bike all the way from Columbia, I was impressed.) Route 3 runs all the way from Buenos Aires to the national park ending in a one lane gravel road.
As I type this I am sitting in the B&B guest room with the family enjoying dinner nearby. They opened their wine rack and asked me to select a bottle of fine Argentine Malbec which I gladly purchased from them for $60 Argentine Pesos, or $4.80 US. I love this country. A couple more days of adventure await, will keep you posted.
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