Our last leg was another long drive: We were driving from El Calafate to Rio Gallegos under bad weather. From there we entered Chile. After we had finished the migration, we continued to the ferry which took us to Tierra del Fuego. Fortunately you don’t need a reservation for the ferry, you just have to wait in the line and half an hour later you are on your way. Fifteen minutes later we finally reached Tierra del Fuego!
But the weather was not getting any better. Under rain and wind we continued to Ushuaia. Unfortunately we had to ride on 80 miles of dirt road. The road was one of the worst we had so far. We had to cross numerous pot holes, puddles and pieces of wash board roads.
Soaking wet and freezing we arrived at the border to Argentina in San Sebastian. We could cross the border rather quickly, but anyway it was already quite late and raining heavily. The expected city of San Sebastian unfortunately was not more than a border station, a gas station and a hotel. Since the next real city – Rio Grande – was still 50 miles away, we decided to stay for the night in the quite expensive hotel. Some other travelers, whom we met earlier, also staid in the same hotel. So we spent a nice evening with them in the hotel restaurant.
During the night the weather got much better and we started our last leg to Ushuaia under nice sunshine. About 50 miles before arriving in Ushuaia, a motorcyclist with swiss license plate passed us and was waving. It was Georg, whom we met while crossing the Darien Gap on Stahlratte. After a heartily welcome, we drove the last miles together to our goal, Ushuaia.
Unfortunately the weather was getting worse again and we were quite cold. So we went to a little, nice Cafe in Ushuaia first. After warming up, we rode to the end of Ruta 3 in the Tierra del Fuego national park. After 6.5 months and more than 30.000 miles we finally arrived at our goal!
On our way back into the city, we met two other bikers, whom Carmen got to know via Facebook and whom we now met for the first time in real life. Claudia and Werner are traveling with their BMWs across South America and plan to join the Stahlratte tour across the caribbean in April. We decided to drive to the visitor’s center for a cup of coffee and talked about our experiences.
At late afternoon we finally drove to the camping place Rio Ripo, on which many motorbike travelers meet during Christmas and New Year’s eve. Here we staid for a few days and had a great New Year’s eve party with many other travelers.
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Posted by: | michasifi and carmen.on.the.road |