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.

Argentina con Cristina

No, Cristina is not a friend visiting. She is the President of Argentina. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has been leading Argentina since 2007, and was reelected in 2011. The previous President was her late husband, Nestor Kirchner, who did not run for a second-term in 2007. He died of a heart attack in 2010. According to the constitution, Cristina will not be able to run for a third-term in 2015. Even though she was reelected by a comfortable margin, some Argentinians seem to have seen enough of her. I read somewhere that there are daily protests by the Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires, people chanting “Argentina sin Cristina” (Argentina without Cristina) right under her windows. Soon they will start banging on pots. Being head of state is not easy every day… If we go to Buenos Aires, I definitely want to watch this, it must be hilarious.

Interestingly, the southern cone of South America is run by women: Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Argentina. Who said South Americans were machos? Let’s see if the US are ready for Hillary in 2016! 

Protests might be going on, but for the time being, it is still Argentina con Cristina. We have seen very little of it so far, we only crossed the border two days ago. We are currently in San Carlos de Bariloche, a ski resort, by a beautiful lake. There is no skiing in summer, and we are in summer, although it is still freezing at night. The area is very upscale, with beautiful mansions overlooking the lake, I reckon it does not reflect the entire country as such, we will see.

There were about twenty campers mainly from Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the campsite when we arrived on Saturday evening. They are part of an organised tour, driving throughout South America over a period of six months. Luckily, the campsite was big enough and there was still space for us. It was weird to be surrounded by so many campers, we are not used to this anymore. By the time we got up on Sunday, they had all vanished and we were again mostly alone, only a few tents here and there and a French couple on a camper. We had already met them in Peru and Bolivia, and will probably meet them again as they are also going towards Fireland. This is where we are heading to tomorrow, it is still far, about 2’000 kilometres through the pampas; if everything goes according to plan, we should be there by Christmas.

A World without End

Yesterday we reached the end (or the start) of the Panamerican Highway, stretching almost uninterrupted all the way from Alaska to the town of Quellon at the southern end of the Island of Chiloe, in Chile. Well, interrupted only by this ridiculous fifty miles stretch between Panama and Colombia, called the Darrien Pit. Actually it should be called the Dollars Pit, considering the outrageous fees charged to ship vehicles from one side to the other. This is another story, amply described in a previous post.

For us though, it is not yet the end. There are two options: either take a ferry south to the mainland, take the “Carreterra Austral” or Road 7 further south and cross into Argentina to reach the end of the world at Fireland. There is only one ferry a week and it left two days ago… The Carreterra Austral is a gravelled road, going through mainly deserted areas. Driving our camper on a gravel road is a pain without end: the cooking pots and dishes are banging endlessly in the cupboard, in harmony with the cutlery; the entire vehicle is vibrating; screws are getting loose; cabinet doors open constantly and stuff keeps ending on the floor; we cannot talk because of the deafening noise. Second option is to backtrack north and cross into Argentina through a paved road, and ultimately still reach Fireland of course. We had our share of gravelled roads, paved roads are more relaxing: we will take the paved road, even though the Carreterra Austral is terrifically scenic.

We have been following the Panamerican Highway since Seattle. Obviously we strayed sometimes. And sometimes, there seem to be several Panamerican Highways: there is one that goes through Bolivia into Argentina, and another one from Peru directly into Chile. Maybe each country wants its share of the famous Highway? Shall we find it again in Argentina? Maybe it was not the end of it after all? Will our journey ever end in a world without end?

I hope Ken Follett, one of my favourite authors, will not mind me having borrowed the title of one of his fantastic books for this post.

Une forêt engloutie par la mer !

1960, un tremblement de terre a secoué le sud Chili. Sa magnitude était de 8,8 sur l’échelle de Richter. Il y a eu des morts. Au sud Ancud, petite ville au nord des îles de Chiloé et particulièrement à Chepu après le tremblement de terre un tsunami arrivait. Les vagues étaient grosses. Le terrain s’est affaissé de plus d’un mètre. Il y avait une forêt d’arbres, tout était vert. Les vagues ont submergé la forêt et les herbes. La rivière s’est accrue de dizaines de mètres. Les arbres ont été abattus et seules des branches pouvaient dépasser de l’eau.

Cinquante quatre ans plus tard j’ai vu ce qu’avait fait un tsunami à cette bande de terre. En bateau nous nous sommes promenées dans cette forêt engloutie par les eaux. C’était époustouflant ! Et très calme. Seuls quelques arbres étaient debout sans branche naturellement. Des bouts d’arbres et des branches flottaient comme pour prendre de l’air. Les herbes ont repoussés aussi. On aurait dit un tableau d’un peintre contemporain. Nous sommes arrêtées pour prendre la mesure de ce qui c’était passé. Je me sentais faible. Très faible par rapport à la terre et a l’eau qui peuvent nous enlever ce qu’on à de plus cher.

Il y a des églises dans les îles de Chiloé qui sont classées patrimoine mondial de l’UNESCO. Elles sont très belles. Certaines regardent la mer, d’autre la forêt et d’autres les prairies. Ne sont elles pas là pour nous dire que le Chili est fragile et qu’à n’importe qu’elle moment un tremblement de terre peut surgir et un tsunami par dessus le marché ?

Nous n’avons pas vécu une secousse pour le moment au Chili, j’espère qu’il va en être ainsi jusqu’à la fin de notre séjour.

Tales by a Grumpy and Selfish Old Maid

Sometimes, I really wish there were no weekends. I was definitely not saying this a year ago, and will not a year from now. This is very selfish, but what else can you expect from the grumpy and selfish old maid I am gradually turning into? I am sure people who do not work feel exactly the same sometimes.

We arrived at this beautiful campground by another lake (our fourth and last lake) on Friday afternoon. As we were the first we took the best spot, right by the beach. People started to pour in, a group of teenagers sleeping in tents, two Americans from Colorado touring Chile, and a few other families. We are so used to be almost the only ones in campgrounds that this looked already crowded for us. At night, the group of teenagers gathered on the beach wrapped in blankets, made a bonfire and drank soft drinks. Some played guitar; there was a barbecue with plenty of meat on the ready; nice atmosphere.

The next day, Saturday morning, we decided to stay for another day to explore the surroundings. So we paid for another night at the reception, explaining we were leaving but coming back later on. We left two chairs to clearly mark the site as occupied.

We spent the day sightseeing: some beautiful water falls, another lake and the arrival of a marathon called Volcano Trail: people struggling to make it to the end and going straight to the massages tables with energy drinks. We bought some smoked salmon for dinner and went back to our campground.

This time, it was really crowded. Half surprise: there were two tents pitched on our spot, with people drinking beers comfortably seated in our chairs and a pick-up truck parked. Mmmmm… I got out, put on my best smile and greeted them. In my halted Spanish I explained that we had reserved the spot, paid for it, and put the chairs to clearly mark it. Because I was nice and polite, they agreed to move out immediately but told me the car was not theirs. Mmmmm… It belonged to a guy who had gone fishing on the lake, on a boat, nobody knew how to contact him. Damn… We could not bypass the car, so we parked our camper behind it, blocking half the way and waited (grumbling), hoping fishing would not last until sun set at half past nine. The guy finally came back, not too late actually and moved his car out. End of story; with a smile things get sorted out easily. The evening was very lively again, barbecues, music, people chatting until very late.

Today, we have an English weather, or a Island of Chiloe weather, as people call it here. We are indeed going to Chiloe Island later on today, we know what to expect. I woke up briefly last night, hearing the rain pouring down and thinking of all the people sleeping in tents. The selfish old maid, comfortably tucked under her feather comforter thought: good that we have a camper; went back to sleep and made sure to be the first one to use the shower at 7am this morning! 

Squeaking and tilting

We are now staying at a campsite in the lakes region of Chile, in Panguipulli. The campsite is overlooking a sparkling blue lake with a snow-capped volcano in the background. We can see fumes coming out of the volcano from time to time. Simply gorgeous. We are going to stay for a couple of days here, to enjoy the scenery and the nice weather. We have been quite lucky with the weather so far, almost no raining, but I reckon this will change soon as we go further south.

This campsite has absolutely everything we need: fast internet, hot showers, barbecues, even a terrace on the lake. The only problem is that the ground is gently tilting towards the lake. We tried to park the camper in several different ways last night, to no avail. Unfortunately, we have no props to put under the wheels to level it; we could possibly use planks or boards, but there are none here. So we slept slanted, not much, maybe by only 5°, but this is enough to feel it and it is not exactly the most comfortable way to rest. We could sleep all the same, but I woke up this morning pegged to the side of the camper.

Yesterday, on our way to Panguipulli, we heard some squeaking sounds from underneath the camper, it had started the day before actually, but it was now becoming louder. We thought oh no… not again… we took it to the first mechanic we could find. Actually, the joints just needed some greasing, this was done in no time, together with a checking of oil, transmission fluid and engine coolant. The mechanic told us we were good until Fireland, let’s hope he is right!

The sun sets a little before 9pm here, and there is day light until at least half past nine. We have no idea when the sun raises because we are always asleep at that time. Chile is our first country in Latin America where is it safe to drive at night. By safe, I mean the roads are in good shape, properly marked, there are no weird vehicles such as donkey carts and the like or broken down trucks in the middle of the way. It is quite ironic that there is day light until very late in the only country where we could actually drive at night!