Tierra del Fuego - Ushuaia

Sometimes this road is windy

We left Punta Arenas in gorgeous sunshine and had a relatively smooth ferry crossing over to Porvenir wondering where the famous Tierra del Fuegan wind could be. If anything we felt a bit cheated as we headed due east out of Porvenir, into the emptiness, we had read about 80km/hr Westerlies on very flat ripio terrain and had hoped to do some record breaking (or personal bests anyway), but the wind speed couldn't have been more than 20km/hr.

I've never worked out how other cyclists work out wind speeds, but I use a number of highly scientific techniques, all based around trying to cycle at the same speed as it. My favourite is the Flyaway Hair measure, where if you have an irritating wisp of hair in your face then the wind is faster than you are. Pob and I basically guess wind speed by checking the speedo when it feels completely still.

There's not much to see in this part of Tierra del Fuego

The wind picked up a little the following day but only to about 30km/hr. As there is't much else to do in this part of the world we set about record breaking on the way to San Sebastian. We managed our furthest ripio journey (63 miles), and furthest total mileage (64 miles) and longest time on the bikes (6 1/2 hours, plus two very long queues at Argentinian and Chilean immigration, not on the bikes).

The following day the wind was stronger (approx 40km/hr) and the landscape still wasn't terribly interesting, save for the huge expanse of it all, so we went for some other records on the smooth Argentinian tarmacked road on the way to Rio Grande. Our average speed over the 50 mile journey was 14.4mph. Pob was hoping to break his speed record but unfortunately there weren't any steep enough hills...

The weather and scenery significantly improved for our last 100km into Ushuaia and it was wonderful to have some gorgeous views for our final cycle of the trip. We also bumped into an English couple on bikes going the other way who it turned out were Andy, from Thorn, and his wife!  Andy designed our bikes and gave us some advice back in June when we visited the Thorn shop in Bridgewater so it seemed a fitting end to the trip to bump into him near Ushuaia.

So, we've arrived, and it feels great, but strange not to be thinking about the next day's road surface and wind and food and camping conditions; the only remaining challenge is to find some boxes big enough to take our bikes on the plane to Buenos Aires, and from there back home.

Almost there now

We've just hopped on to a ferry from Punta Arenas, on the southern tip of mainland Chile, to Porvenir, in Tierra del Fuego. This is the start of the final leg of 500km through Tierra del Fuego to Ushuaia. We're slightly apprehensive about it having heard some of the horror stories from other cyclists of the winds, road conditions, and lack of any civilisation for at least the first 150km, but as we're going south we *should* at least have the benefit of the wind most of the way.

Pushing to Fitzroy

We arrived in Villa O'Higgins, the end of the Carretera Austral, in the pouring rain to find that the boat we'd been planning to get was full. Still, we appreciated the extra rest day and it was probably required to prepare for the infamous (within cycle touring circles at least!) crossing over the boarder to El Chalten. This involved 2 boat trips (the first via the magnificent O'Higgins Glacier) and a 22km bike/hike of which about 7km were mostly pushing through muddy singletrack, over streams and fallen trees. Fun, but quite tiring! We opted to get a horse to take our panniers which made it all more manageable. The crossing acts as a bit of a bottleneck for cycle tourists as the boats aren't frequent, or reliable. As it turned out there must have been about 20 cyclists on the final boat across Lago Desierto. It was great to bump into people who'd met people we'd met, and to exchange stories of travels so far. That night we wild camped in a forest with about 10 other bikers.

Wild camping in the woods

Marion with our canine companion
on the way to Torres del Paine

From El Chalten we turned into normal tourists for a couple of days. Time is running out and we've had to take a couple of buses to make sure we get to Ushuaia for our flight! We bussed to Cerro Castillo on the Chile/Argentine border near Torres del Paine (via El Calafate for a day trip to the Perito Moreno glacier). Torres del Paine is most famous for it's hiking trails around the Paine massif, but due to a lack of any suitable hiking equipment, and time, we'd decided we would cycle through the park to Puerto Natales. It was a wonderful few day's riding, though I think we both enjoyed the days to and from the park more than days in the park! Having spent most of the last month in an area of Chile pretty much untouched by tourists, it was a bit unsettling to suddenly be surrounded by gap-year kids and English speaking people everywhere. The ride into the park was especially wonderful as we were joined by a Swiss couple, and an incredibly energetic dog who ran alongside us for 50km!

Another bus took us here to Punta Arenas, but that will (baring any unforseen problems!) be the last. Tomorrow we head out into the barren plains of Tierra del Fuego for the last week's cycling of the trip. sob.

The boat to Porvenir