1st day - A farewell to Ushuaia

29 Jan 2015
0 - 300 Km
Ushuaia

At the gate to Ushuaia, on La Ruta3.

The motorbike has a fairly high centre of gravity, so it makes it tricky to balance when you get on, off, moving it around. After having spent quite a chaotic day getting ready, already tired, we almost tipped the bike when it was Caro´s turn getting on! We barely avoided a catastrophic start of the trip!

We left Ushuaia relieved to finally be on the road, to leave all the stress and anxiety behind, to enjoy the peacefulness of the road. We tried to put a good distance between us and Ushuaia, to make progress early on. 

But after leaving the protective mountain chains surrounding Ushuaia, we were almost immediately hit by the cold Patagonian wind. As we stopped at Rio Grande some 200 km later, I told her; "Not all days are going to be like this!" as she looked a little worried what she had gotten herself into! 

100 km later, we were at the boarder. Although very tired, the plan was still to keep going. Maybe a fools errand, and I think we did the right thing listening to the kind lady who advised us to stay for at least a few hours till sun rise (it was already 2200). We met some bikers from Japan, Chile and Spain, and shared the common space, basically a kitchen, with them. 

We shared some "mates" (Arg / Urg hot drink, much like green tea) over some stories of our adventures so far. One person at the time could enter a shower lit up by a generous soul who had hung his / her head-lamp to light up the dark room.

Caro organizing our stuff, getting ready to get some rest

After the luxurious hot shower, a snack bar, we needed little to put us to sleep, even with the rest of the group cooking right beside us. It had been a looong day indeed! And a few hours later we were bound for Punta Arenas to buy the insurance that I so desperately needed to drive the bike outside of Chile (before they closed for the weekend)!!

We still had a long way to go!