In Ushuaia (March 17-22, April 9-12, 2012)

In Ushuaia, Doug and Chris came down to celebrate our arrival and trip completion.  Renting a house for nearly a week, we were able to assemble many characters from recent months: in addition to Jason and Jeff, we had Tom, Greg, Cat, Sonja, Craig and Guillermina in the house.  A perfect recipe for some gourmet meals, music, and lots of storytelling...

Jason and Doug caught these brown sea trout in Tierra del Fuego National Park near Ushuaia and cooked 'em up...

(photo: Cat Magill)

Cat and Jeff made homemade soft pretzels and served 'em up with spicy mustard sauce
(photo: Cat Magill)

we took a dayhike to the Martial Glacier which rises dramatically behind Ushuaia 
(photo: Cat Magill)

gorgeous southern beech forest

autumn beech leaves (photo: Cat Magill)

the view over Ushuaia and the Beagle Channel.  Ushuaia sits on the Beagle Channel, named after the Beagle, which carried Charles Darwin to this area in 1833. 

another look down from Martial Glacier

 Doug tells wacky stories to Sonja, Tom and Cat, backed by the glacier 

Chris, Jeff and Doug (photo: Cat Magill)

The End of the World, nearly.  The most southernly human settlement on the planet is not Ushuaia (midground), but Puerto Williams (background far left, barely visible), which is across the Beagle Channel in Chilean territory. (photo: Cat Magill)

Chris and Doug (photo: Cat Magill).  Before Ushuaia, they had visited Buenos Aires, Mendoza and Iguazo Falls on this trip.  They hosted a fantastic week in Ushuaia, thank you!

Ushuaia.  A relief for us, a real Argentine city with real people, not just a tourist creation like El Chalten and El Calafate.

sunrise in Ushuaia

... hallucinatory views of Ushuaia and the Martial Mountain range behind it...

Ushuaia marked the last time these individuals would be playing together for a long time, so we made the most of it and had some memorable jams in the house...

... gettin' deep in the groove... (photos: Cat Magill)

We played through a long session of songs that have accompanied and inspired - and been inspired by - our trip during the previous 18 months (photo: Cat Magill)

Jason and Jeff, while Chris listens on (photo: Cat Magill)

a specialty of these parts: Centolla, or Chilean King Crab, seen in a restaurant window in Ushuaia



This sign from near San Sebastian says: "Las malvinas son argentinas", or, as it were, "The Falklands Islands belong to Argentina".  This is a hot topic in Argentina... which is demanding the return of the islands from the UK to Argentina. 



This sticker promotes Ushuaia as the capital of the Falklands.   At least it was (briefly) in Argentine geopolitical structuring until 1833, when the British occupied the Falklands. 



Argentina refuses UK control of the islands, and proceeds as if they were Argentine.  Any map produced by Argentina claims the islands as their own.

"Guillermo Go Home!"  Or, get the hell out of here, Prince William! (William was doing military training in the Falklands in recent months) [seen on shop window in Ushuaia]

in Ushuaia there is a plaza dedicated to the Falklands in honor of the 30th Anniversary of Argentina's failed attempt to wrest the islands from British hands in 1982.  The Argentine invasion, which was ill-advised and ill-planned (soldiers had ancient malfunctioning guns, for example), has been shown to have been a national unifying strategy by the military dictatorship of that era in Argentina, to deflect attention from a poor economy (they took this one from the USA playbook).  However, it has been taken up as a theme of Argentine pride, and some Argentines actually think that the UK invaded the Falklands in 1982!   




... War photos.  In this image Argentine soldiers have taken British prisoners... the caption below gives an idea of the propaganda occurring in Argentina...

"An image that was hard on British pride".  That's a funny statement coming from the losing side.

the sinking of the Argentine battleship General Belgrano (formerly USS Phoenix from World War II), a decisive moment in the war in which 323 Argentine soldiers were killed.

the propaganda spreads beyond Ushuaia to Tolhuin (and much further afield): this is the Tolhuin Public Library.(photo: Cat Magill)

Further complicating this issue is that the islands went from Dutch (1600) to French (1764) to British (1765) to Spanish (1767) to Argentine (1816, 1828) to British control by 1833.   Nowadays, the population of the islands is just over 3000 and the residents are emphatic about remaining under UK control; nonetheless Argentina is adamant about the return of the islands to their possession.

Segment 58: Punta Arenas, Chile to Ushuaia, Argentina (April 3-9, 2012)

From Punta Arenas the road to Ushuaia starts with a crossing of the Straits of Magellan, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans... this crossing will drop us on the island of Tierra del Fuego...

(photo: Greg Altman)

the ferry trip lasts about 2.5 hours (photo: Cat Magill).  The Straits of Magellan is completely under the control of Chile.

(photo: Cat Magill)

landed on Tierra del Fuego, this is the port at Porvenir.  Tierra del Fuego is an island shaped roughly like a triangle, with the western two-thirds belonging to Chile and the southeastern part to Argentina.

(photo: Cat Magill)

looking down on Porvenir

on the route out of Porvenir (photo: Cat Magill)

Coscoroba Swans

shanty fishing village (photo: Cat Magill)

...paralleling the coast...

great dirt riding (photo: Cat Magill)

local dwelling, seemingly abandoned

riding straight towards Bahia Inutil (photo: Cat Magill)

these were introduced to Tierra del Fuego in the late 1800's  (photo: Cat Magill)

mostly flat terrain, and foreboding weather

... we hunkered down in this booth for the night, hiding from a cruel whipping wind and low temps...

astonishing skies at sunset

continuing east towards Onaisin

more proof of the nasty winds here

we had a six-cyclist wind-refuge pile-up at this crossroads near Onaisin.  Two Germans, heading east like us; and two Poles on a tandem, miserably heading west into a monster headwind.  A headwind so bad, that they were effectively stuck here for many hours.

from Onaisin, we went to look for King Penguins which reputedly have a small colony here on Bahia Inutil.  This is the only King Penguin colony found north of Antarctica, so we are eager to find them.

our search starts here, where we walked a few km on the beach without a sign of anything really

we stumbled into this dead penguin (not King but Magellan); not sure if this is a good sign or a bad one

fresh penguin tracks!

a mythical moment.  We found the colony, huddled and active here, and backed by a huge full rainbow.

King Penguins (photo: Cat Magill)

... this was really too good to be true...

(photo: Cat Magill)

... this is a small colony, apparently numbering around 40-50 adults, of which we saw 18...

the reserve is on private property, a property which charges over $25 to see the penguins, to the dismay of everyone who passes by here.  Not today, chumps; no one is around so we have a free pass.

at dusk we knocked on a door at a large mostly-abandoned estancia at Onaisin, and were welcomed into a mostly-defunct sheep farm.  We slept here in the empty dormitory for the farmhands, who last shore the sheep in September.

heading east towards San Sebastian

flamingos on Tierra Del Fuego

Chilean estancia

lots of sprawling pampa here in Chilean Tierra del Fuego

crossing the border once again into Argentina, we found ourselves getting ever closer to Ushuaia; from here 294 more km (if you can trust the sign, which you can't, in either Chile OR Argentina)

looking east towards the Atlantic now

double-decker sheep truck!  (photo: Cat Magill)

watch for guanacos crossing

Estancia la Sara, on the way to Rio Grande (photo: Cat Magill)

back on pavement now, all the way to Ushuaia (photo: Cat Magill).  Fighting a tough crosswind.

between San Sebastian and Rio Grande, we hit this widened patch of Highway 3, which was used by the Argentine air force to launch planes in its (failed) invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982.

...sunset colors with a near full moon...

We pulled into Rio Grande at dark...

... this statue commemorates the history of Rio Grande as a sheepraising community.  In recent times, however, it is a sprawling city built on petroleum and natural gas extraction.

the nearly full moon above the Atlantic at Rio Grande

crossing the Rio Grande

a glance back at Rio Grande; this is flat, treeless, windy country

Jeff drinking beer and mate with two farmhands from the northeastern Argentine province of Missiones (they are 4000km from home), Rogelio and Nego.  Rogelio, who is drunk on beer and wine, insists on speaking to us in Brazilian Portuguese.  Nego is so drunk you can't make head or tails out of what comes out of his mouth.  These guys, known as peones in estancia culture, have welcomed us into this estancia for the night (Estancia Viamonte).  (photo: Cat Magill)

we slept in the cook's house, but she was away as this is Semana Santa/ Easter weekend (photo: Cat Magill)

... a glimpse into Tierra del Fuego history... kitchen implements above... (photos: Cat Magill)

...and here the enormous stove, which runs on natural gas which runs at full blast 24/7/365... such a contrast to Chilean Patagonia, where the people still live on woodstoves and pay very high costs of living. 

Cat and a farmhand from Chubut (photo: Cat Magill)

Jeff drinking mate (photo: Cat Magill)

Nego prepared us a lunch of oven-roasted potatoes and vegetables as it rained outside (photo: Cat Magill)

the comedor where we slept at Estancia Viamonte

riding in the rain, we encountered a long stream of auto traffic (boo!) heading the other direction (north); moments later we found out why...

...Semana Santa in Argentine Tierra del Fuego is the scene of a very popular dirtbike race from Ushuaia to Rio Grande...



(photo: Cat Magill)

this forest, which we encountered between Rio Grande and Tolhuin, marks the first trees (not planted) that we have seen since near Puerto Natales some 700km previous

the empanada-making station at Panaderia La Union in Tolhuin (photo: Cat Magill)

leaving Tolhuin, only 102km to go

...Heading west now, alongside Lago Fagnano...

(photo: Cat Magill)

snowcapped Andes peaks above beaver ponds

enjoying mostly clear weather

(photo: Cat Magill)

what could be better than to end your trip on a road that leads away like this?

about 50km east of Ushuaia, we spent the night with the friendly crew of the Defensa Civil, a post which exists to provide emergency help along this stretch of Highway 3.

now on the final day cycling!  beautiful scenery and low traffic

the western end of Lago Fagnano (photo: Cat Magill)

...hard as it is to believe, we make our final real climb of the trip here, up to Paso Garibaldi...

... altitude: 500m, approx.

... brilliant fall colors of Southern beech forests (photo: Cat Magill)...

... backed by stunning peaks



about 15km from Ushuaia we passed this spectacular range (photo: Cat Magill)

... a fitting finale: on the last curve before the descent into Ushuaia, we pass a series of roadside patron saint shrines, the largest of which belongs to Gauchito Gil...

this place was covered with figurines of Gil

arrived at the entrance to Ushuaia, mid-afternoon, 9 April, 2012.  For Cat, this marks the completion of a 5000km-plus ride from Salta to Ushuaia.  For Jeff, this caps a 1000-day-plus, 17 country, 40000km-plus journey started on 2 July, 2009.  A very satisfying moment, and relieving... time to rest from the elements, and the road. 

this painting seen entering Ushuaia recalls the history of Ushuaia as a prisoners' colony (photo: Cat Magill)

we slept our first night in Ushuaia in one of these carnival booths just a few blocks from the center of town (photo: Cat Magill)