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.