The End

Merci de nous avoir lues et d'avoir suivi notre aventure !

We thought this day would never come, but all good things come eventually to an end. After 24’000 miles (40’000 kilometres), 14 countries visited, 294 days of travel and 87 posts on our blog, our journey is over. We have reached Fireland, our end destination, driving through part of the United States and most of Latin America. We were not robbed, mugged, abducted or raped, we were not even sick once; and last but not least, no car accident. 

The most amazing is that we are still talking to each other and are still friends! So besides the fact that it was a fantastic and mesmerising experience, we can also call it a great success. 

We would like to thank all of you who have followed us on this modern times adventure, hoping you have enjoyed our blog as much as we have enjoyed enliven it.

Buenos Aires, barrio ''La Boca"

Good bye for now, but who knows… life is full of opportunities!

The Xenias

Done now with Breakdowns?

Ushuaia, Canal de Beagles

We sold our camper in Punta Arenas, Chile. This took a little more than a week. We posted ads on various local and travellers websites, left some leaflets at hotels and even put an advertisement on Punta Arenas local TV. There was hardly any interest to start with, mainly because our camper is registered in the US and the import process is lengthy and cumbersome. We got our first real offer last Saturday. Right after this, an other person wanted to buy the camper but I told him it was already sold. Unfortunately, the first guy wrote us an email a few hours later saying that he had found a better deal. I was very upset, because we had sealed the deal with a handshake and I had turned down the other potential buyer. To me, a deal is a deal, but unfortunately not to everyone in this world.

So we were ready on Monday to leave the car at a car dealer when the second potential buyer called and said he was buying it. We spent the whole day going back and forth to various government offices and finally left the camper in the Free Zone. We got USD 5’000 cash and in green bills. This is about half the real value of the camper, but considering the circumstances, it is a good deal, even though the value in Swiss Francs has been plummeting since this morning. Good we did not sell it in Euros!!!!

We took a bus to Buenos Aires the next day. The bus was quite comfortable, with breakfast, lunch and dinner service, panoramic view, but no internet. A 45 hours ride, including a two hours stop at the border, changing bus at Rio Gallegos, Argentina and… a mechanical breakdown. Fortunately it did not happen in the middle of the pampas, but in a town.  We heard a huge clunking sound, something had broken in the suspensions. There was a workshop for buses with all the spare parts in town. I was tempted to investigate what was broken, now that I am an expert in suspension issues, but thought better. This time, it was not my problem; I stayed in the bus reading to the sounds of hammering. I hope now that we are done for good with breakdowns, I would hate to have another one on the plane taking us back home next week!

We are now in a hotel in Buenos Aires, we will spend a few days sightseeing. It is summer here, real summer. Fleeces, MontBells and gloves are back in the suitcase and shirts are out, at least for these last few days of our journey to the end of the world.

Dodge Pleasureway on Sale Now

On Sale in Punta Arenas, Chile now: Dodge Pleasureway 1998, 85'000 miles (130'000 kilometres). Engine 5.9 V8. Sleeps two people comfortably. Bathroom, stove, sink, microwave, AC. Comes with a 110V/220V transformer and travelling gear (bedsheets, cooking pots, crockery and cutlery).
REGISTERED IN COLORADO, UNITED STATES.
USD 12'000.

Fin del Ano en el fin del Mundo

Happy New Year to all of you!

Ushuaia ya!

We have reached Ushuaia, after a crazy drive of 580 kilometres from Rio Gallegos in Argentina: two border crossings, boarding a ferry, 120 kilometres of unpaved road and heavy rain for the last 50 kilometres. All this took twelve hours, we arrived at 10pm but there was still day light.

Tierra del Fuego is an island, and the Argentinian part where Ushuaia is is only reachable through Chile; so we had to cross into Chile first, and then again into Argentina. Two border crossings in one day, a first for us. Border crossing goes fast here, only 30 minutes each time. We got splashed twice on the ferry, fortunately we were in the camper. Even though we were just on a narrow strait, the sea was quite agitated and we were rocking a bit, hence the splashing. 

After this, we had to drive 120 kilometres on a gravelled road. This is unfortunately the only way to reach Ushuaia. We saw some people on bikes on the way. One had a flat tyre and was repairing it in the middle of nowhere. Two other were resting, one woman was even fast asleep on the side of the road. We stopped to ask whether everything was all right, it allegedly was, so we went on. The wind almost took off the door of the camper at the second border post. Gusts are so strong that we had to walk slanted with all our documents under arms. Then we had another 300 kilometres on paved roads. The last stretch is a bit sinuous, on a patched road full of potholes and of course it was raining. We saw some ski resorts and finally reached the end of the world. We were relieved to find a campground and slept until 10am the next day.

Reaching Ushuaia is not a walk in a park, you definitely have to earn it. Now, our only possible way is northwards, we cannot go more south than this. We are very proud and delighted to have reached our objective, but somehow it feels weird, like anticlimax. What are we going to do now? More on the coming posts.

Noel à Ushuaia…

Nous sommes à Ushuaia ! On est arrivées à destination ! A la fin de la panaméricaine ! On ne peut pas descendre plus bas ! On est au bout du monde !

Glacier de Perito Moreno

Nous avons fait 36 000 km depuis Denver en 8 mois et presque trois semaines, avec notre bus qui commence à fatiguer. Le voyant du frein est passé au rouge. Je crois que l’ABS ne marche plus… On a plus d’eau chaude et même plus d’eau du tout, le chauffage ne marche pas, le frigo est kaput, les batteries ne se rechargent pas qu’en on roule, le clignotant arrière droit ne clignote plus, la roue avant droite est un peu foutue… Mais on est quand même arrivées à notre but ! On se demande si on ne va pas vendre le bus en pièces détachées…

Ca se mérite Ushuaia ! Nous sommes arrivées le 23 décembre à 22h30. Dans la journée il a fallut traverser deux frontières, prendre un ferry et puis 120 km de piste… Heureusement le soleil se couche à 23 heures dans le pôle sud à cette époque de l’année. On est en été depuis de 21 décembre, mais il fait très froid et il y a beaucoup de vent. Il y a des traces de neiges sur les montagnes. Ici contrairement à la Patagonie Austral en Argentine, il y a beaucoup arbres.

Même si nous sommes au niveau de la mer il y a des pistes de ski. On a croisé plusieurs téléphériques qui menaient un peu plus haut sur la montagne vers les pistes de neige. 

Noel au bout du monde, ce n’est pas si mal que ça !

Southwards Bound

We have now reached El Calafate, a small town by the famous Perito Moreno glacier, after a drive of more than 1’500 kilometres south, part of it on gravelled roads. We are really south now, I have never been that south in my life. Summer officially starts tomorrow here, it does not feel like it though. We are freeeezing, days and nights.

Patagonia is a deserted area, swept by gusts of wind, with a few cows and sheep here and there. The scenery is beautiful but vaguely hostile. Towns are 400 kilometres apart, and these are really small towns, a few streets that’s all. It is telling that even isolated houses are shown on the maps…There is very few traffic, a vehicle every ten minutes or so…

And this is where we had another of these irritating mechanical issues. We again broke something in the suspensions. I am starting to believe in guardian angels: it happened just 200 meters from the campsite we were going to, at the entrance of El Esquel. All of a sudden, we heard a horrible hissing sound with some white smoke. I thought we had burst a tyre. We got off the car and saw that the right front wheel was skewed. The vehicle would not move, the back still on the road and in a curve. We waved at an approaching truck who stopped immediately behind us. The driver knew immediately what it was, called a mechanic in town and took me there while Xenia was staying by the camper, still in the middle of the road; we had put our two triangles and some rocks to warn incoming vehicles. The mechanic secured the wheel with a chain and we could move the vehicle to his workshop, at snail pace. He welded the broken part the next day: spare parts are difficult to get in Argentina. We could resume our journey south the next day. I hope the part will hold. It is amazing how easy it was to have this fixed. And fortunately, it did not happen in the middle of nowhere. Do guardian angels exist?

Besides this, our coffee pot is dead for good, cracked by the vibrations on gravelled roads.

Yesterday, we took two young French who have been hitchhiking their way all the way from Mexico. They use the website “Couchsurfing” to find free accommodation or pitch their tent. They have been travelling for one year already and plan to continue over Asia next year. This is a smart way to travel, but not easy every day: we left them at a crossroad in the middle of nowhere with relentless gusts of wind as sole company. I hope they found another vehicle to take them to their destination. 

We meet all kind of people on the road: people travelling on campers like us, or on bike, motorbike, on foot. I reckon it is very courageous to travel on bike or motorbike in this part of the world: the wind is so strong it closes the doors of our camper and constantly pushes it laterally. For some reasons, it never blows from behind, always on the sides. I cannot  (and do not want to) imagine what it must be like on a bike.