1/27-I Remember When 60+ Kilometers Was a Big Day

Today we did 69kms, and finished at lunch time. Sure, we probably could have gone all the way to Tolhuin, another 37ish kilometers, but since we have been off the bikes for 7 days, a shorter day was good. One reason we got here so early is because we left Rio Grande at 7:40 this morning. 

The wind was already pretty strong, and to get out of town it was a crosswind. But, once we made the turn, it was back to tailwinds. 

The scenery was still Pampa. 

But there is a lake over there. 

And the ocean on the left. 

We saw the usual amount of guanacos. 

Guanacos in clover. Fun fact…guanacos can drink salt water when fresh water is scarce. 

At about 10:00, we stopped for a break. You didn’t realize how much the wind was blowing until you stopped. Then it is always the challenge to find someplace protected. 

Alex and Markus sitting in a hole out of the wind. 

After the break, we only had 25k to go, but there was more crosswind. Still, we made good time. 

Notice what is different? Trees! 

The planned destination was a wild camp spot on the Rio Ewan Sur. When we arrived, a guy came out to greet us. He looked a bit the worse for wear, but was super friendly. He gave us the scoop on the camping, letting us know we could probably get water from the police station that also happens to be located here. Alex and Markus took the dromedary bags and filled them up. 

The hillside protects a little bit from the wind. 

Ruta 3 over there. The police station is out of sight to the left. The green roofed building is shelter. 

Photo courtesy of Markus. 

After getting back with the water, we had some lunch. When the sun is out, it’s quite warm. While we were eating lunch, several vehicles pulled in. The first two seemed to just be taking a break, and letting the kids run around. They left after a short time. Then a few more arrived. It seems that some of them are planning to stay. We moved further along the dirt road, and found a better spot to set up our tents. 

Those people appear to be camping too. 

Our spot. 

The river. It’s not recommended to get water from the river as it comes from several estancias upstream. If we had to, we could filter, but better if we don’t need to. 

This place seems to have once been a campground. There are a bunch of concrete fire pits. Now it is free spot to stay. Unfortunately, as is common, people leave their trash behind. Otherwise, it’s a pretty good spot. 

See all the concrete fire pits?

Alex and I went for a little stroll around the area. We saw this pair of birds. They seem to be some sort of bird of prey. It was clearly a male and female. 

The male. 

The female

Male in flight. 

Female in flight. 

Then we were sitting in our chairs when I happened to glance over on the other side of A&M’s tent. A fox was walking by!

It headed down the road. Later, it came back with what appeared to be a sandwich in its mouth. It went partway up the hill, then stopped and ate it. Then it came back down and went searching for more. We saw it once more as it went back up the hill (empty mouthed this time). 

Markus worked on a couple of unfinished spoons. They were from a tree in the part between boat rides from Chile to Argentina. Of the three spoons, two had cracks. He was going to throw them away. I said I would take them. He finished this one. The other one he didn’t want to put more time into it, but I took it anyway. 

You can’t even tell where the crack is unless you know where to look. I think it’s a really cool spoon!

See the heart?

The unfinished one. 

Tomorrow is a short day into Tolhuin. I’m glad we stopped early today. My legs are telling me they haven’t ridden any significant distance since coming into Rio Gallegos. And, I would rather do consistent shorter days, than a long day followed by a day off. But, I still remember when we thought more than 60kms was a long day (and that was even before we got to the gravel part of the Carratera). Of course, tailwinds make all the difference…

Here’s a parting shot of my dinner tonight. 

Couscous with tuna that included peas, carrots, and corn. I cooked it in oil with garlic salt, chicken bouillon, and a bit of curry powder. It wasn’t terrible. 

1/26-Final Day in Rio Grande

After a leisurely morning, Alex, Markus, and I rode over to the same coffee shop I went to with Mathias and Carmilla yesterday. The same guy was there. Turns out, the coffee shop has only been open for about a year. It is run by just two guys. One takes one shift, and the other takes the other shift. Both speak English pretty good. Today, we had lunch too. I had medialunas con jamón y queso.
Croissants with ham and cheese. Alex and Markus had avocado toast with an egg. It almost looked like a divide sign. 

When we were paying, the guy asked me if I was on iOverlander. IOverlander is an app/website we use to find wild camp spots. You can also find restaurants and other useful info. He wanted to put his cafe on iOverlander so more tourists would come. Alex did it for him. He was grateful. 

We rode back, and I showed A&M where the mercado was so they could get their resupply. I did mine yesterday. Tonight we will eat dinner here. I need to finish off a few town food items I bought. 

Tomorrow we head toward Tolhuin. We were going to do a gravel route, but due to wind direction, we will stay on RN 3. We should have a pretty good tailwind. This is the wind forecast for tomorrow. 

It’s in kilometers. 

I’m looking forward to getting back on the road tomorrow. It’s been 7 days. Hope I remember how to…nah, I’ll be fine!

Oh, and look what Alex brought me from their bus ride through Chile yesterday!

My favorite!!!

1/25-Back Together Again!

This morning I got a message from Mathias asking if I wanted to meet them at a coffee shop at 10:00. It was nearly 9:30. The location was about 3kms away. I would need to ride, which was fine by me. Garmin was not wanting to accept the address I put in, so I just used Google Maps. It was pretty straightforward…so I thought. When I got to where it was supposed to be, there was nothing. I went around the block. Still nothing. Then I had the bright idea to look on the other side of the street. Ah…there was Carmilla, and there was the place (note to self…look on both sides of the street, even if it looks like it should be on the one side).

Also, when I came back, it took awhile to acquire the satellite, hence the weird straight line. 

We had a nice chat, and made a possible plan for dinner when Alex and Markus get here. Speaking of A&M, they made it to the bus. Alex messaged me telling me that yesterday there was a general strike in Argentina that affected transportation. And, today's bus was full. That means, if we had tried to get the three of us, with our bikes, here by bus, it wouldn’t have worked. Good thing we rented the pickup. Just another example of how “It always works out.”

It was 4:00. Their bus should have been arriving in R. Grande now, but Alex just messaged me saying they just arrived at the border back into Argentina. Everyone has to get off the bus to go through border control. It would be awhile before they got here. But, once they were moving again, they would just have 68kms more to R. Grande. Of course, they would have to get a taxi to here once they arrived at the bus station. 

6:00, and they were here! Mathias and Carmilla made a dinner reservation for 7:00. It was about the same distance as this morning. We rode our bikes there. I had a great dinner of gnocchi with a herb and butter sauce with prawns. 

Now we say goodbye to Carmilla and Mathias until Ushuaia. They are leaving tomorrow, but they will be in Ushuaia for a week. We will see them again. 

Garmin routed us back home with no problems. 

Much more straightforward. 

I didn’t take any photos today. R. Grande is not such an impressive place. Maybe tomorrow I will take some photos of the town anyway. 

1/24-A Little Ride to a Punta, And a Little Flight Booking

Since I’m by myself here in Rio Grande, with nothing to do, I decided to go for a short ride. I had a look on the map, and saw a Reserve called Punta Popper. The name made me chuckle, so I set that as my destination. I found the Reserve on my Garmin, and let it route me there. 

In my limited experience around Rio Grande, it looks and feels a lot like Rio Gallegos. However, one thing R. Grande seems to have is bike paths. We saw one when we drove in yesterday, and I rode on this one today. 

It’s nice because the road (although it doesn’t look like it in this photo) had a fair amount of traffic. 

I had to cross the Rio Grande. The path continued up onto the bridge. 

These cement sections moved a bit. 

Rio Grande. 

I made my way out to Punta Popper. The road didn’t actually go all the way out to the point itself. Beyond the end of the road, it was a hiking trail. It didn’t look like bikes were allowed. I just went over to the beach on the Atlantic side. 

Looking to the end of the point. 

Looking on down the beach. 

I had my Garmin route me back to the start. Interesting thing I’ve noticed about the streets. First, there are many one-way streets. When you cross them, if the cars are coming from the left, they often have a speed bump. This slows them down because the crossing traffic has the right of way (there are very few stop signs, and people don’t stop at them anyway). One-way traffic coming from the right has no speed bump. 

In total, my ride was only 8 or so miles. Of course, since it was an out and back, half the ride was a tailwind, and half was a headwind. It was good to spin the legs a bit. 

Awhile after I got back, I got a message from Alex that they were booking their flight from Ushuaia. They ended up with a flight to Buenos Aires (they will visit Ally and Alex) on Feb 8th. I had been looking at that date as well, but when I looked again, it had gone up in price almost double! There was still a much cheaper flight on the 15th, so I booked that. It is cheaper for me to stay longer in Ushuaia than to pay for an earlier flight. My flight ended up being almost a third of what it would have been had I booked for the week before! So, I’ll be in Ushuaia one week longer than Alex and Markus. We’ll see what I find to keep me occupied…

The end is in sight. Funny thing, I will depart Ushuaia exactly three months from when I arrived in Puerto Montt. 

1/23-Adventures in Border Crossings

Yes, crossings. This morning we left Rio Gallegos after loading all three bikes, and most of the gear (all of my stuff, and what Alex and Markus don’t need for the bus ride). We headed out at 7:20. 

We had to take the front wheels off, and I had to let air out of Billy’s rear tire to be able to close the tailgate. 

It wasn’t too far to the first border where we leave Argentina. There was a long line. It seemed that everyone was getting out of their cars and going up to the building, so we did the same. 

Checking out of Argentina. 

We got in line. It was a rather lengthy line, but it was moving. Finally we got to the migración window. Passports were checked, and the vehicle papers were checked. Then we had to go to the Adunas (customs) line where only Markus (as the driver) had to show his passport. 

Now we were in no man’s land for a short distance to the border office of Chile. There we had to, once again, park the truck, and go inside. First we got what we call, “the Holy Paper” (the paper you have to give back when you leave Chile, so by all means, don’t lose it), then our passports were stamped. Onto line 2, Adunas, but first we had to fill out the same declaration form we had to fill out when we came to Chile. Of course, there were no pens. Alex got one, and we took turns. Okay, through that line. We thought we were done, so we went back to the truck. They hadn’t taken the declaration form. We thought they would take it as we drove through the inspection. Ah no. There was “Step 3”. This time, only Alex went in with all the declaration forms while the officer inspected the car. We were concerned about the sandwiches because they had lettuce, avocado, and salami. But, sandwiches were okay. Then Markus and I pulled ahead, and waited for Alex. We were now officially back in Chile. 

See the Chilean guanacos?

Alex gave the guy the stamped declaration forms, and we were free to go. 

Why did the Chilean guanaco cross the road? So I could get a photo, of course!

Next was the ferry across the Strait of Magellan to Tierra Del Fuego. 

Strait of Magellan. 



You just stay in your vehicle for the crossing. 

Funny thing, I couldn’t even tell we were moving. Then we were on the other side!

Tierra del Fuego!!!

Next stop was to exit Chile. We saw many guanacos on the way. Even caught this one jumping the fence. 

Good job getting over the fence!

Then what should we happen to see? A couple of two-wheeled animales! Okay, maybe not really animales, but beasts nonetheless. 

Mathias and Carmilla! They had already ridden quite a long distance from Cerro Sombrero. They did 80-some kilometers  before noon, and that was with no wind. Now (about 1:30) it was quite the tailwind, and they were flying! They wanted to get past the border back into Argentina. They only had another 24 kilometers to go. If we had room in the truck, I’m sure we would have picked them up. 

Vamos!

Four kilometers later we got to the border control to stamp out of Chile. This time it went much quicker, even though there were two buses. They had the car people go past the bus people. We did the first two steps (stamping out, and customs), then drove 13kms to stamp in to Argentina. As there are no signs really telling you where to go, we drove up to the front. The border police officer said we had to park and go in. Markus started to back up, but then the officer said we could just pull in front. Sweet! That saved us a lot of time!

Pulling up to the Argentina border control. 

So, now we were back in Argentina! It was just another 68kms to Rio Grande. We made it to the Links Apart Hotel where I am staying while Alex and Markus drive the truck (doing in reverse everything we did to get here) back to Rio Gallegos. On Thursday (today is Tuesday), they will take the bus back to here. 

My apartment is quite nice. 

Kitchen, dining, and couch (and flat screen TV).

Cubby for Alex and Markus’ bags. 

Baño 

King size bed. 

And the bikes have their own patio!

I walked to the nearby La Anónima mercado. It’s a smaller one, but has everything. 

Now I’ll see what’s on the TV. Maybe I’ll learn some more Spanish…