By the time we got to Chile the wind changes and directional changes of the road had us fighting stiff side winds again.  However, we are pretty accustom to this by now and just go with the flow, or burst as it often is.  We passed the turnoff that goes to the ferry that provides the main route into Tierra del Fuego.  We knew we would probably be coming back this way so we took notes on distances, resources available and the like.  It turns out there are no fuel stops between Rio Galegos in Argentina and Punta Arenas in Chile.  The towns are about 160 miles apart.  Plan accordingly.

After arriving in Punta Arenas we did some exploring.  The town has grown into a good size city.  You can find just about anything you need here.  We found everything from low price hostels to high price hotels.  We picked something in the middle.  We walked to a very nice international buffet restaurant.  It had a wide variety of foods to meet almost anybody’s taste.  We arrived just as they were opening.  Before we left the place was completely packed. 

Tomorrow we are going to see if we can catch the early ferry to Tierra del Fuego out of Punta Arenas.  If not, we will head back north and take the main crossing.  In either case, tomorrow we will be in the “land of fire.”

Day 2 – Punta Arenas to Ushuaia, 290 miles plus two hours on the ferry

Today was an awesome day.  After an early breakfast we headed out to the dock to see if we could catch the ferry across the Estrecho de Magallanes.  We got there just in time.  We bought our tickets, put the bike on the ferry and visited with three other riders.  Two were on a three week adventure from Sweden.  They rented bike in Buenos Aires and were having a great time.  The other guy was from Germany and is a year and a half into his trip which started in Alaska.  We swapped a lot of stories about riding this beautiful country, bikes, fighting the wind and the like for quite a while.  Clara and I then went inside and found a warm seat.

A little more than two hours later we were unloading the bike onto the Chilean side of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego.  We rode for a hundred miles on a nice dirt road that followed the shore of Bahia Inutil.  We then crossed the border into Argentina and found paved roads for the rest of the trip.

I think Chile got the more scenic part of Patagonia.  Argentina definitely got the better part of Tierra del Fuego.  This is a huge island with each country getting about half.  When we arrived on the Chilean side we noticed a change from the Patagonia steep.  There was more grassland and rolling hills.  In the distance you could see snow capped peaks on some very large mountains.  After we crossed into Argentina over the next hundred miles the hills gave way to small wooded mountains.  We found farming, ranching, oil drilling and lakes. 

The last hundred miles turned into huge mountains, lakes, rivers, thick forests and some of the most scenic views we found on the entire trip.  The last hundred miles to the “end of the world” was, perhaps, the best hundred miles I have ever ridden.  The ride into Ushuaia is so fitting.  What a way to end a trip to the southern most city in the world.  The terrain is nothing short of stunning. 

The entire island of Tierra del Fuego is impressive.  It is almost like someone took Colorado and laid it in the southern Atlantic Ocean.  It is beyond words or photos.  Those who take on the challenging goal of making it to Ushuaia will be greatly rewarded.

Ushuaia has grown up!  I remember stories and reading about a small village on the shore.  But this is now a resort city of 80,000 permanent residents!  The secret is out.  Like other resorts towns, there are many hotels, restaurants and everyone we have met speaks English.  There is also a little collaboration going on.  I stopped and checked prices at several hotels and they were all exactly the same and unwilling to negotiate.  Oh well.  I found the price a little high but very fair given the quality of the rooms and the amazing setting.  We found a great little place in the heart of town but two blocks away from all the noise on Main Street.

After settling in and getting a shower we walked to main street and found a bank and a nice restaurant.  The bill for dinner was more than we paid anywhere on this trip.  Yep, we’re in a resort town and the prices reflect that.

Tomorrow I have to look into all the noises the KLR started to make as we arrived at the city.  We’ll also look into some of the other options the city has to offer.  By all the brochures we have seen it looks like you could spent months here before you could do all the adventures and excursions offered.

Day 3 –Ushuaia, 15 miles checking out the sites and several more on foot
 
We are in a nice, well insulated room.  With no noise and complete darkness with the shudders closed, we slept in this morning.  I jumped out of bed at 9:00am and instinctly opened the shudders to see the motorcycle.  It was bright outside.  Clara does not like sudden, bright light.  After some moaning, she finally got up and we went and had an excellent breakfast over looking this beautiful city.

We opted not to push ourselves and do any “planned” activities.  We did get on the bike to go and get it washed.  It had so many layers of crud on it I couldn’t begin to see where the noises where coming from.  As I suspected, the chain had become so loose it was banging on everything within a foot of it.  My next concern was why it had become so loose in only two days.  Sure enough, the rear sprocket is so worn I’m surprised the chain stayed on.  The next challenge will be nursing this thing another two thousand miles up to Buenos Aires.  There is no hope of getting one of these down here for a Kawasaki.

As a side note, this does bring up the enduring question of whether to use chain lube on an o-ring chain.  I know I and others have spilled a lot of ink on this subject over the years.  It cannot be definitely answered.  I know I keep going back and forth.  Just when I convinced myself to never oil an o-ring chain on a dirt bike to get the longest life, I had a year of racing karts where chains won’t last a single outing if you don’t keep grease and oil on them.  So for this trip, I decided to try oil again.  I have gone through two cans of oil and have experienced much more sprocket wear than I think I would have if I didn’t use any oil.  Obviously, you can’t get oil in an o-ring chain that is any good.  There is a belief out there that you can improve sprocket life by having lubricant between the chain and the sprockets.  However, when riding in the dirt the lubricant attracts sand, mud, and gravel that grind away on these parts promoting wear.  I am now back in the later camp.  I am convinced that if I had left the chain lube at home I would have had better sprocket life.  12,000 miles is not very good life for a high quality chain and steel sprockets on such a small motorcycle.  Of course, I could blame it on the wind.  Enough said.

After getting the bike cleaned, the chain tightened correctly, and the oil changed we rode the bike around Ushuaia taking in the many different views of the city.  We got the obligatory photos of us at the city sign.  By the way, the sign has been replaced by a new one and placed next to a police station.  I guess they didn’t want any more craving in the back of the sign.  So, to my friend Greg Frazier, your name is forever carved into the old sign I just don’t know where the sign is.  There are no names, initials or anything carved into the new sign.  The police officers kept an eye on Clara and me to ensure that it stayed that way.  We took our photos and left.

After seeing enough of the city from the bike and having some confidence that the bike was ready for another leg or two we parked it and headed into downtown on foot.  We found many nice shops, a restaurant for lunch and an ATM that ate my card.  The one that is supposed to get Clara and I back home.  The bank employees smiled at me and told me to come back later.  Yeah, after they are done running the balance up…

I returned later to find the bank closed.  After enough pounding on the door a security guard let me in.  I went to a manger and asked for my card back.  They had it ready for me.

We walked the town some more and commented several times about how nice a place this is.  We learned that it once was a prison.  Someone must have thought that the end of the world would be a great place to keep prisoners.  Then someone woke up and realized how beautiful and special this place was.  The prison closed and the city grew.

Another striking thing is that most people speak English.  And yet we stand out as one of very few Americans that they see.  I guess the majority of tourists are English speaking Europeans, Canadians and Aussies. 

The city has done very well promoting it’s theme of the “end of the world” and the “southern most city in the world.”  It is now a hoping year round resort.  However, I’d check those average winter temperatures before I would book a ski or snowmobile trip here.

Today you can arrive in the city by airplane or cruise line.  Still, for many motorcyclists, it is still the ultimate challenge to get here by bike.  I can tell you that the winds and dirt roads of Patagonia will challenge you but the reward for getting here are far greater than the barriers.  As they say, “Come on down.”

Day 4 –Ushuaia to Piedra Buena, Argentina, 501 miles including a ferry crossing, four border stops and 75 miles of washboard dirt roads.

It was a marathon day.  It also meant saying goodbye to Tierra del Fuego.  That was hard to do.  This is a special place.  We wanted to stay much longer but we also want to get home so we headed north.

We had hoped for a day like yesterday full of sunshine, but instead we were greeted with fog and cold.  The cold was expected, but the sun would have helped to take off the first layer of chill.  Even in the low clouds Ushuaia is beautiful.  The tops of the mountains were covered in the thick fog, which gave quite the effect. 

We stopped in Rio Grande for gas and the bike wouldn’t start.  Worried of what was to come we pushed the bike like we had to in Central America and hoped for the best.  Luckily the bike started the rest of the day.  The bike is nearing its end when it will need a lot of work, but we hope that end will not come before we get to Buenos Aires.  I know dad is more concerned than he tells me.  Please keep the thought of us getting home with no break downs in your thoughts and prayers. 

On our way out of Rio Grande we were coming up on the usual police control station.  We usually are waved through, but this time we were stopped by a huge group of people.  There were TV cameras, mics and people dressed in all sorts of clothing that wasn’t police attire.  We might have been on TV today, but who knows.  Dad did get interviewed by a three star general who spoke little English.  They were there to promote safety on the highway and they wanted to know where we were from, where we had just come from and where we were going.  When we were eating lunch yesterday the news was on and they were talking about a bus crash that killed 50 people.  We are thinking that all those people were out there in memory of what had happened.  When it comes to bus crashes it is quite a tragedy, but easy to understand with the way the bus drivers speed and drive recklessly down the highways. 

Today we would start in Argentina, leave, enter Chile, leave and return to Argentina.  Each step would require a stop to go through the migration and customs procedures.  We made it out of Argentina and back into Chile with no problems.  It was the usual processes with short lines.  After a little over a hundred miles of riding in Chile we came to the ferry that would take us away from Tierra del Fuego.  To our luck the ferry was already there and we didn’t have to wait long before we were boarding.  There weren’t too many people on board and this ferry was much faster than the last.  Even though it was a shorter distance we were docking at the main land in about 15 to 20 minutes. 

The road to the ferry included what will hopefully be our last bad dirt road.  This road is much more traveled than the one we rode a few days earlier and it shows.  It is rutted and washboard all the way.  We had a stiff side wind from our right to left.  That meant we didn’t have to deal with the major dust from oncoming traffic.  However we did have to eat a lot of dust passing slower semi-trucks.  Dad said it was an act of faith.  When approaching one of these trucks you would have to plan a pass when you could see far enough down the road to know there wasn’t any oncoming traffic.  Then you would race up to the truck, inhale and hold your breath, turn off reason and turn on faith, dart to the other lane into a no visibility zone, gas it (the harder you dare to gas it the shorter the time with no visibility), prepare for impact with unforeseen objects, ruts, rocks, etc., brace yourself for the stiff side wind that will hit about the time you regain visibility, exhale, breathe normal, turn off faith, turn on reason, analyze the situation, act according.  Repeat for each truck passing.  I’m glad dad was doing the riding and not me.

After the ferry crossing it was pavement all the way.  We had a nice short ride to the border where we exited Chile and re-entered Argentina without too much delay.  Dad filled the tank just as we were leaving Argentina and right after we got back into Argentina.  It costs $6-7 for a tank of gas in Argentina.  Earlier we had to buy a tank of gas in Punta Arenas, Chile and it cost $23.  Dad never bought any more gas in Chile.

We had hoped to arrive in Rio Gallegos but were not sure how long all the delays might be.  We arrived a little before 6:00pm after riding about 350 miles.  The weather was great and the sun was still high in the air so dad asked if I was up to going to the next town 150 miles away.  Since restaurants don’t open for dinner until 9:00pm and it doesn’t get dark until after 10:00pm I said sure.  I’m not sure my butt will forgive me.

We arrived in Piedra Bueno some time after 8:00pm.  This is the same place we stayed six nights earlier.  We rode right up to the same hotel, parked the bike in a special place the owner made for us earlier, checked in and walked over to dinner within a few minutes.  After a long day it was nice not having to run around town looking for places.

Last time we were here was the night between the two worse days of wind.  To our surprise the wind was normal and not the raging hurricane force it had been earlier.  This gives me some hope that tomorrow will be a normal windy Patagonia riding day.  Normal wind, like today, seems downright calm to us.

To read about our part 2 adventures in Argentina as we head north to Buenos Aires click here.