The last frontier in the southern world: Tierra del Fuego

Continuing our progression south, we left El Calafate to cross into Chile. As always, the landscapes of Patagonia were just incredible but man, it was cold here. In the morning, when we left not too early to leave the sun enough time to warm up the air a little, we were close to 0C degree (low 30sF) but with this cold and strong wind, it felt more like deep freezing temperatures. We were fighting the cold, moving as much as we could on the bike and stopping when we saw one of the rare gas stations around here to drink some hot tea. How could all the sheep we saw in the fields not be freezing? That wool they have must be warm indeed.

The afternoon was slightly better with probably 5C degrees (mid 30sF), still not comfortable though with the wind. We arrived at the border utterly frozen and went through the formalities slowly, happy to be in a warm building. We had already done twice the Argentina/Chile border when we went to Chiloe so it was very straight forward. In Chile, we drove down the hill and got an amazing view over the fjords, happy to see the ocean once more.

Strong and unexpected snowfalls change our plans
Puerto Natales would be our home town for the night and we were eager to find a hotel quickly to rest in a warm place. We did and settled in, then worked on a few things we had to figure out. First, we needed a new rear tire for Chad's bike as we were not even sure that he could make it to Ushuaia with this one. We asked the owner of the hotel and she gave us a few addresses in town. Chad went to all of them but no luck. Our tire was bigger than what they usually had in stock. We would have to figure out something else... Second, we wanted to come up with a plan about what to do next. We were close to a beautiful and famous park, the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, where you can do world class hikes. But with the current temperature, we were in no mood to go for long hikes, especially since it was even colder in the park than in town.
We had found an alternative: we could just drive into the park and go to the main viewpoints to see the highlights of the park, maybe do some short hikes if the weather allowed it. In addition, there was a bus that could take us there if it was too cold to take the bikes. When looking at the weather forecast for the next day, we were all optimistic again: sun and about 12C degrees (60F) in mid day. Perfect: we could see the park with our bikes.

The next morning, big disappointment when we woke up: no sun and it was raining. We had breakfast and by the time we were done, the sun was out. We just needed patience apparently. We got the bikes out, put of gear on and as Chad was filling up with radiator fluid, guess what, it started to snow! We are not talking little flakes here: the sky was dark, the wind had picked up and it was snowing hard. To Caroline's surprise, Chad said that the snow was not setting on the ground as it was not freezing, that we should go since the weather was probably nicer 150 Kms north. Oh well, why not try. We jumped on the bikes and as we started to leave town, it was snowing even harder, flakes now setting on the ground and us unable to see through our visors. Ok, the elements had been stronger than our will and motivation: we gave up, turned back and returned to the hotel.

Crossing the Strait of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego
Since we were now out of outdoor activities due to the snow, back to doing some work: we needed that tire to continue the trip. Plus, it helped us forget how disappointed we were to miss the Torres del Paine park. Caroline called all the motorcycle and tire shops in Punta Arenas, the biggest nearby town and she finally encountered two that could work. We needed a 150-70R17 and she found a 130-70R17 road tire and a 130-80R17 mostly dirt tire. They were a little narrower than what we needed but it could work. Watching outside the window, we saw that it had finally stopped snowing. Given that it was Saturday, that the shop was open until 7pm and that we could be there in about three hours, we decided to pack all our things and go, to avoid waiting until Monday. We arrived frozen at the tire store at 5pm and after debating with the salesman, bought the dirt oriented tire since the size should work better. It was a tire taller than the stock, hence it would compensate for being narrower when mounted. A little later, we had the tire put on the bike and it did work. We had been quite lucky on that one and Chad was so proud of having a dirt looking tire that he thought made him look much tougher!

The next morning at 8:30am we were at the port in Punta Arenas, hoping that there would still be some space for us on the daily ferry to Tierra del Fuego. We had not reserved anything, not knowing until late the afternoon before if we could get the tire. Since we are in the low season, they still had spots left and we were on the boat a few minutes later, ready for the two hour crossing. Today, we would cross the famous Strait of Magellan, which reminded us of our geography lessons back in the days, and reach the famous island all the way south of the American continent: the Tierra del Fuego. The big island has a triangle shape and is at the tip of the continent; it half belongs to Chile and half to Argentina. It is quite weird to have split this area between two countries but it is the result of many border fights between Chile and Argentina. So we would arrive on the Chilean side, ride 150 Kms of dirt road and cross into the Argentinian side to ride south towards Ushuaia. Our bikes strapped down on the ferry, we entered the comfortable cabin, which was nice and warm. Much better than being out riding in the wind and the cold.

We could not believe how excited we were to ride on Tierra del Fuego, now less than 500 Kms from Ushuaia. The dirt road we took had the most incredible view on the ocean, taking us along the Bahia Inutil, which means “Useless Bay”. We found the name funny, and the ride along it was gorgeous, with the sun and for once and no wind. We were even able to eat our picnic on the side of the road since it was a little warmer. The dirt road was really smooth and we were beating some personal records on unpaved road, riding as fast as 110 Kms per hour (more than 65 Mph). We crossed the border into Argentina and spent the night in Rio Grande. Nothing attractive there and when we woke up the next day, our bikes were covered with a thick layer of frost. It was so cold at 9am and we had to stay until noon before we thought it was warm enough and safe to ride on streets and roads without ice. Ushuaia, here we come... just a little more than 200 Kms away!