Tierra del Fuego

Charles Darwin descibed Patagonia as a "cursed land" while the seaman Antonio Corboda called it "the most wretched place on earth". The first week of our trip has already been full of adventures, terrible and perfect weather, challenging riding and amazing scenery. Our journey started with a beautiful ride over a pass out of Ushuaia. Five minutes into it, our peaceful riding was broken with a loud crashing and scraping. I turned around fully expecting to see Anna sprawled across the road bloody and broken. Fortunately it was not Anna that was broken, but her bike trailer Bob, whose back wheel had come out of its bracket and was rolling down the hill leaving Anna dragging her wheel-less trailer! Easily fixed we continued riding in perfect conditions through beech forest, spending our lunch-time beaver hunting- managed to find a dam, fresh beaver tooth marks and a beaver house but no beaver. Twenty five beavers were introduced to Tierra del Fuego in the 1940´s from Canada, now they are numbered in the hundred-thousands and are considered a pest. Our first night was spent camping beside the beautiful Lake Fagana with fresh salmon and trout for dinner (caught by Shane and Anna). Dreamy first day- all of us blissfully unaware of the riding ahead!

Over the next few days we made several discoveries- the best panaderia (bakery) in all of Argentina, the delicious treat that is dulce de leche and just how strong the Patagonian winds can be! The landscape changed from mountainous and green, to barren, windswept and hostile. Our progress became slower as the days went by with our speeds dropping to as low as 7km/hr.
The road between Ushuaia and Rio Grande was all sealed with wide verges, all the trucks gave us lots of space , toots and waves. Between the three main Argentinian towns in Tierra del Fuego there is virtually nothing except wind, abandoned farms and the free roaming guanaco (like llamas). At times food and water were in pretty short supply. The next major town on our journey, Rio Grande definitely failed to live up to its name! A wind-swept, dirty, industrial town, but thankfully for us complete with an amazing supermercado. We slummed it eating a huge lunch in the side street with trolleys as our furniture.

That afternoon was our first riding in the rain and we were all super grateful for the tent fly Shane packed. Finding free camp sites has been no problem and we have managed a mint spot not far from the road every night.

On day four we made our first successful border crossing back into Chile- complete with our illegal parmesan cheese and carrots! The road surface changed to gravel with less traffic. Our next obejective was to bike west across Tierra del Fuego in time to ferry across and meet Sophie in Punta Arenas. Although we initially felt we had lots of time up our sleeves we were yet to discover the full might of Patagonian winds and rough gravel roads. The wind was absolutely relentless making talking between each other impossible. All concentration was required to keep your bike on the road and I spent a lot of time picking myself and pannier-laden bike up out of the gravel. We had all read other cycle tourists` tales of days spent in ditches and culverts, but never really thought we would have to resort to that. How wrong we were!! We all became very attached to the shelter provided by a good ditch and spent many hours huddled in our sleeping bags escaping the cold winds. Despite all this we were still smiling and determined to get to Punta Arenas in time -despite our painfully slow progress. In order to avoid the winds we rode into the darkness and early in the morning, but soon discovered Patagonian winds follow no clock and the wind remained constant.

But we did make it!! Thanks to a lovely generous Chilean couple, our broken espanol, the perfect truck and some hardout riding by Shane. We were all stoked to enjoy a hot shower, delicious dinner, wine and warm bed in Punta Arenas last night. It is a beautiful wee town with big wide streets, a town centre surrounded by old mansions and quite geared for tourists is the mainland town used for Antartic trips. We`re all looking forward to Sophie arriving tonight and beginning the next leg of our journey.

We are having an awesome trip so far. The South American people are so kind and generous. It is cool practising our spanish and very satisfying when it works! Although the riding has been really challenging the freedom and new discoveries of cycle touring keeps us going.

ps. The orca photo was a joke!! Photo taken from a book in Ushuaia while testing out the new camera!!