Ride: Leg 2 - Ushuaia to Punta Arenas

Route summary: Ushuaia, Cape Horn, Wulaia, Magellan Island, Punta Arenas
Days: 4
Zero mileage days: 2
Distance (point to point): 249km
Distance (driven): 75km
Inefficiency factor (Driven/P2P): 0.30Avg. speed: 19km/day

Click here for detail.

On a map this looks like it should be a short leg, but I've split it out as a "leg" as it was an amazing three nights / three and a half days and although the bike was with me, she wasn't the main form of transport.

It started for two reasons. The first was that I was really keen to see more of the archipelago around Tierra del Fuego (looking at the map it looked like an amazing place to see, but almost impossible to do so other than by boat or possibly aircraft). The second reason was that I had reached the end of the road, so logic would dictate that the only exit route was back the way I'd come, and I find retracing my steps very dull. It turns out that taking a vehicle from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas wasn't as straight forward as I'd hoped, but after a few emails and some help from three different countries, it looked like I'd got it sorted [1].

I went to check in my bags and when they saw the size of the panniers they asked to have a look at the bike. It transpired that they had been expecting a bicycle with a motor and not a "moto, moto!" as Fernando kept saying over the phone. Having become excited about the trip I was now worried about it not coming off, or envisaging falling off a gangway with the bike between the ship and the dock. So it was with a sense of intrepidation that I went to the dock, passed through customs fairly seamlessly with the help of the Australis representative. Checked into my berth (very comfortable) and get a call that my bike's about to be loaded, so grab my camera and run out. They've swung a crane round and lowered a cargo net which they've laid out on the deck. Wheel the bike onto the deck and then they feed the ends through various bits of the frame, attach it to the hook and take up the tension. By this stage other members of the crew have come outside to have a look. "Have you had any other motorbikes on the ship?" I ask. "No, this is the first". Which is cool, but from my perspective nerve-wracking, although all I'm picking up from the crew is a sense of intrigue! Very quickly it's level with the top deck, 6 stories up and I have to run aboard to meet the bike up top. By the time I'm there the cargo net's been untied and I wheel it along the top deck and put it, partially under cover behind a lounge/bar area on the starboard side where he crew lash it to the side of the boat, using what appears to me to be a fairly small length of rope and a small number of knots, but they're the experts.


Then it's into the bar for a welcome drink (Pisco Calafate for me) and a safety talk before the ship departs and heads down the Beagle Channel and then we're called down for dinner. Food is amazing and we'd been told that as this was an "expedition cruise" there was no need to dress for dinner [2]. Then to the bar (it's a free bar) and take the opportunity to make a couple more entries in the "beer diary" my brother had given me before retiring to my cabin. The weather was starting to pick up and the ship was starting to roll heavily in the seas and I took the photo on the left to show the angle the ship was leaning at.




Thursday 20 March

At about 3am wake up as the boat's moving through particularly heavy seas. My mind goes to my bike and after an hour or so of this I dress and head up to find out how she's doing. Sailor's knot tying skills have apparently not diminished and she was still there and very secure, even though the wind was howling around. At 6 everyone is woken up and told to get ready for the first trip on the ribs to Cape Horn island. I was amazed they were even considering it, but after about 45 minutes the Captain made the call that it wasn't safe and the excursion was abandoned. We circled off the north east side of the island for a while and multiple photo opportunities before heading back up the way we came. Where we were the wind speed being shown on the screens charting our progress said 70 knots (80 mph / 129 km/h) or force 12 [3].

Although it was disappointing to not get onto the island, and also not to actually round the Cape [4], it was an amazing experience to be at the Cape in the sort of conditions which gave the place it's reputation. And I think that it's probably fitting. I think there would be something a little bit wrong if the least seafaring member of my family (which I have no problem admitting I am) was the first to round the Cape.

So then to breakfast, which seems emptier than supper, the night and the motion having claimed the appetite of some of those on board. Then it's a packed schedule involving a film on Shackleton's failed expedition to cross the Antarctic ice pack, but very successful recovery of the crew, lunch and a presentation on the native flora and fauna and the inhabitants whose fires gave Tierra del Fuego its name. The latter was in preparation for the afternoon's excursion to Wulaia (Yangan for beautiful bay) and a walk up hill, filled with interesting information and beautiful views (below) then torrential snow. However, at the bottom of the hill, as well as a museum, there's a trestle table set up where we were served hot chocolate, and if you felt so included, the addition of a tot of whisky. I felt so inclined, and there were some who forewent the hot chocolate.

Supper and the activities continued, including my first (and I have no doubt last) employment as a male model (for the ship's on board clothing emporium - I looked disturbingly similar to Captain Birdseye), followed by bingo and karaoke (involving a duet of an, I think, Pink song in which I was massively carried by Javiera, a member of the expedition crew).

Friday 21 March
A morning of talks on the history of the Magellan straits (a lot on glaciers and Magellan, and some about the "pirate Drake"), a lesson on knot trying (favourite was the Devils ladder) and then a presentation on Chile and all the amazing things there are to see and do in the country (including some wine tasting). Then lunch and the visit to the glacier, which is great, if damp as it rains for most of the visit. A bigger glacier than at Ushuaia and more visible. And although something apparently falls of it later, I miss it! More hot chocolate and whisky, back on the boat, hot shower, a briefing on the next morning's visit to see the penguins and supper. After supper there's an auction of a chart of the ships route to the Horn, which I bid for but don't win - probably a good idea as I'm not sure what I'd do with the large plastic chart case that it comes with. However, in the raffle, I do win the ship's ensign which had been flying up until then (and as a result was looking quite ragged)!

Saturday 22 March
An early start and for a while it looks like the weathers not going to be good enough to land (the wind has picked up again) so in the meantime everyone enjoys the most amazing sunrise. However, we get the green light and so it's off to see Magellan penguins (again), although now I have a better understanding of their behaviour after the lecture the previous day.


Then it's a short cruise south to Punta Arenas, but we don't go come into port. Apparently the winds have picked up so much that they've closed the port in the centre of town, and after being in a holding pattern off shore for a couple of hours (during which time I see the most amazing, complete rainbow I think I've ever seen), the decision is made to go to the harbour slightly out of town and land there. Even that's not straight forward though, and we need two tugs to nudge us alongside the dock. Everyone then gets off the boat, apart from me, who has to wait for the bike to be unloaded. Initially we wait for the wind to drop a bit, but then I think everyone gets a bit bored and so we do it as quickly as possible. I see it come off the top deck and by the time I'm on the dock it's down, but appears to be in one piece so I don't think it was dropped! Then the moment of truth - after 3 days of a South Atlantic salt water jet wash, does she start... first go. Customs and then a slightly unsteady ride into town (sea legs and motorbikes don't mix), for my first night on Chilean soil in this trip after an amazing three days.

Notes:
1. I'd seen on a map that there appeared to be a car ferry that went from the area to Punta Arenas (on the Magellan Straits) and another that went a lot further to Puerto Natales. However, I then found out that the ferry went from Puerto Williams, across the Beagle Channel and (importantly) in Chile (and also home to the most southerly post office in the world). There were two companies that ran boats across the Beagle Channel, between Ushuaia and Puerto Williams, but it was essentially a large rib, and so it wouldn't be possible to take my bike on it. I'd asked in some of the travel offices in Ushuaia and everyone seemed to think it was impossible. Then online I found a company that might be able to help. Wrote to Luke at Swoop Travel (based in Bristol, UK), who put me in touch with Marisol at Australis (based in Santiago, Chile) who spoke to the ship and Fernando (in Ushuaia, Argentina), who said that they should be able to get the bike on a boat (cruise ship), leaving on the Wednesday evening. It would last 3 nights and would go via Cape Horn! Although it was more money than I'd anticipated spending I went for it, on the basis that "how often are you going to get the chance to take your motorbike to Cape Horn?"
2. Which was fortunate as my black tie didn't make the cut when I was deciding it I could get away with 3 pairs of socks...
3. I know that the ship had registered winds of 130km/h at about 3am as we made our way to the Cape - it was this particularly bad weather which woke me and sent many passengers running to the heads. Cape Horn's official weather station reported winds of 40knots (a relatively tame force 8) at 6am the day we were there. Normally it also sends in a response at 9am but it didn't on that day - I like to think that's because it was too windy for the lighthouse keeper to take the reading (a family live on Cape Horn Island).
4. The route we did went out and back and didn't actually go round the Cape. As a result I can't legitimately put a gold hoop ear ring in my right ear, or put one foot on the table - privileges traditionally reserved for those who have rounded the Cape from East to West. One of the things I didn't get to see first hand, as a result of not getting onto the island, is the monument to all the sailors that have died in and around the Cape. The statue is of an albatross, turned sideways in on the wind (see below a linked image I found on the web) and a that I took picture of a bird (not an albatross I think), doing a similar thing.

Next to the statue is a poem by Sara Vial, which I think is rather beautiful and so have included below, in English as well as the original Spanish (I think the latter sounds better).


So el Albatros que te espera
en el final del mundo.
Soy el alma olvidada de los marinos muertos
que cruzaron el Cabo de Hornos
desde todos los mares de la tierra.
Pero ellos no murieron
en las furiosas olas,
hoy vuelan en mis alas,
hacia la eternidad,
en las última grieta
de los vientos antárticos.

I am the albatross who awaits you
at the end of the world.
I am the forgotten soul of the dead seamen
who sailed across Cape Horn
from all the seas of the world.
But they have not died
in the fury of the waves,
today they fly on my wings,
towards eternity,
in the last crevice
of the antarctic winds.

Tierra del Fuego and Ushuaia

"El fin del mundo o donde todo comienza" - "The end of the world, or where it all begins"

I've loved Tierra del Fuego and really liked Ushuaia as a city. Having learned about Magellan and Drake's circumnavigations as a 10 year old, and how they found a path through to the Pacific and then subsequently hearing people talk of Cape Horn in a tone of awe and respect, the area has had a latent sense of magic with me that I wasn't fully conscious of. However, on leaving Rio Gallegos on a very windy day, but with an enormous sense of relief that the bike was running properly again for the first time in a week, and successfully negotiating my first border crossing to get into Chile, it was amazing to get to Punta Delgado where the road runs into the Magellan Straits to wait for the ferry. The wind was incredibly strong and all there was to do was wait (I've learnt that this is the norm in Patagonia). Even the wait was an experience, chatting to other bikers, having maté for the first time, and then, as the day was coming to an end the ferries started running again. The crossing was windy and rough, but the bike stayed upright and then rode off the boat onto the land of fire. Three weeks later as I was heading in the opposite direction I saw some motorcyclists coming off the boat and could hear them whooping to themselves inside their helmets. The crossing just has that sort of effect on you.

The voiceover is: "It’s Iain, it’s Friday, I’m crossing the Magellan Straights, hopefully my bike is upright, this is awesome"

Then there are the mountains. After a couple of weeks of flatness, or very slight hills, as you leave Rio Grande you can spy ice capped mountains, although at first you might think they're clouds on the horizon. Tierra del Fuego is at the border of two plates, and the mountain range just north of Ushuaia is the border and creates the most amazing motorcycle ride up and over.

Then you have Ushuaia itself, just after the most southerly ski resort in the world. The city's not particularly attractive, but its charm lies in the fact that it feels like it's the end of the world, a real frontier town with an eclectic mix of permanent residents, new arrivals seeking a fresh start and visitors, from cruise ship passengers to cyclists and motorcylists (looking for the end of the road, either at the beginning, end or middle of their travels) to scientists on their way to the Antarctic. I spent most of the three days there walking around with a broad smile on my face, and not just because I was there for St Patrick's day.

There's a glacier 8km out from the city centre (my first in Latin America and at this stage hadn't been spoiled by Perito Moreno) with great views over the town and the Beagle Channel.

Then about 20km out of town there's a national park which is amazingly pretty, with mirror calm lakes and stunning views, and from my perspective, then end of the road (Ruta 3).