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WE DID IT!!
WE HAVE MADE IT TO TIERRA DEL FUEGO. WE HAVE MADE IT TO THE END OF THE WORLD. WE HAVE MADE IT
AS FAR SOUTH AS YOU CAN POSSIBLY EVER DRIVE....ANYWHERE IN THIS WONDERFUL WORLD!
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| Tierra Del Fuego |
Tuesday, March 17(?) As it turned out, we did not stop to rest after the Reserva
Faunistica Peninsula Valdez. We pointed Silver Al towards Tierra Del Fuego and jetted. We swapped off driving
through the dark and made some mean time. More gas station foods, lots of sheep in the road and tons of rabbits watching
us from the sides of the road. One rabbit that I saw had red glowing eyes and was threatening to attack our car.
One rabbit did attack our car and we won, just barely, poor thing. Had we had a little more time and not so many flora
and fauna police inspection checkpoints, we would have certainly eaten the squished little thing (actually, for a rabbit,
quite big).
At one gas stop, as I switched from passenger to driver, they made me up a beautiful
double espresso...a great break from the Red Bulls and Super Energias that we had been guzzling. When I got back
to the car, however, the car wouldn't start. She cranked, she had juice and the starter was working fine,
she just wouldn't get going. Eli poked around the engine and I tried a few times with no luck. It was probably
4 AM. We waited a moment and though about what we should do, but I tried her again and she fired
up. Curious...
The sunrise was spectacular because we were driving down the eastern coast of Argentina.
The wind was so strong you had to constantly be cranking the wheel to the right just to keep straight. With one-against-one
traffic and no shoulder to speak of, it was a little unnerving when those huge tractor trails flew by. The whole
car just shook. The wind pressure was so strong that when you opened the window, you could not line the track up
properly enough to close it again unless you came to a stop or were driving next to the very occasional hill. The
landscape, in fact, was the most drab, desolate tundra that you could imagine. There was life...lots of grey fox, maras,
rheas, sheep, cuanacos, hawks, vultures and dozens of other birds. We saw one big wreck while Eli was driving
and despite the traffic backed up for a long ways, we drove past it all up to the scene and then weaseled through. Nobody
seemed to mind.
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| Whirl-wind of Sunrises and Sunsets 1 |
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| Whirl-wind of Sunrises and Sunsets 2 |
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| Whirl-wind of Sunrises and Sunsets 3 |
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| Whirl-wind of Sunrises and Sunsets 4 |
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| Whirl-wind of Sunrises and Sunsets 5 |
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| Whirl-wind of Sunrises and Sunsets 6 |
Tierra Del Fuego is shared by Chile and Argentina and they both wish they had it for their own.
Chile got an important shipping route
out of the deal. Argentina got the beautiful tip of South
America. To get to the tip, you need to pass through Chile
again. You stamp out of Argentina, into Chile,
drive for a while, cross the Strait of Magellan by ferry and then check back into Argentina again. They do not make things any simpler, even if there is nowhere
else rally to go. You go through all the paper work and passport work. (Which is admittedly quite straight forward
down here as opposed to other parts of the Americas).
The driving was great up until Chile, after which the road went straight to hell. Chile doesn’t need to help any tourists get to the beautiful Argentinean tip of
South America, which should, in their opinion, be their own. The road was loose gravel
for over a hundred K. It was rutted from years of truck traffic and was difficult to keep our undercarriage above.
It was also squirrelly, pulling the car all over the road and SLOW GOING. It didn't take long before the power steering
started to moan...plenty of fluid...just the fluid pump beginning to fail.
Eventually we made it to the ferry and it didn't take
long for one to arrive. The wind was sp strong it was hard to walk on the ferry. We went up to the wheel house
and huddled in with a tour group of kids on the boat, chatting them up. Eli chatted with the ferry captain...Capitan
to Capitan. The ferry had a complex steering system that seemed quite modern. The very personable captain admitted
that he didn't really know how the thing worked, but he knew how to get us to the other side.
A pod of dolphins swam next to us almost the whole way. Waves
slammed the boat so hard they sprayed way up over the top of the boat and down onto the tops of the tractor trailer trucks
and cars. The ferry moved directly to where it needed to go not by steering toward the other side but by steering into
the wind and up the strait. We moved sideways all the way over and the pier on the other side was built sideways to
accommodate this strange positioning. The Capitan said it was blowing about 80 KPH, an average day.
Back on the road, the gravel track was still
of miserable quality. We had been noticing an increase in a sound coming from the rear right tire - banging
sound- and had thought for a while that a shock was starting to go, but once we hit this road something completely
let go back there...I think maybe the A-frame tire mount thingy has snapped from the frame or the bolts fell
out all at once. The rear tire flies up and down in the wheel well, smacking and rattling and banging up
and down with no resistance or support. The shock and spring seem to be in tact as far as we can tell. So
far the tire has stayed on the car, though.
When we stopped to take a look we found another problem.
The E-brake cable was hanging down, broken. There was also brake fluid leaking out of the left rear brake line.
We drove on trying not to use the brakes. I was worried that we might lose them all together, but I have since heard
that the front brakes are independent of the rear in the fluid reservoirs, so the front should continue to work. The
road was nasty and, worried that the tire might fall off or the brakes might let go, the end of the road suddenly seemed farther
away than we had imagined.
When we made it to the Argentinean border and finished the
formalities (last border crossing of the trip besides coming home) a new noise began as we pulled out. A clunk that
accompanied the shifting. It got worse and worse and was soon joined by a whirring sound upon acceleration. Fortunately
the road in Argentina was paved, at least.
We still had over 300 kilometres to go and
Silver Al was suddenly disintegrating.
It got dark soon after we crossed back into Argentina and after 100 K we made it to a town that we got
completely lost in. Rough urban construction sections and speed bumps all threatened to tear our car apart at any moment.
We finally got some direction, stopped for a couple cold plastic wrapped gas station sandwiches (mine had egg in it...sick...they
put eggs in or on everything here, the bastards) and more red bulls. (We were going on 36 hours of driving with maybe
a restless hour or two nap each) and we kept going. The road got twisty and hilly, but it stayed paved all the way,
and at around 11 o'clock PM, St. Patrick’s Day, we limped into Ushuaia,
Argentina.
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| The Ferry |
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| A Captian in the Strait of Magellan |
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| On the Ferry |
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| Dolphins Escort Us |
Being St. Patrick's Day and after such a long haul, we were
not going right to bed. I felt my Irish half swell up larger than life and the energy of my long lost homeland
shot through me. We quickly checked into a hostel dorm room. A girl from Norway was just getting ready for bed
and apologized that she was going to have to wake up at 5 AM. We told her, we'd likely just be heading for bed
then and could serve as a backup alarm. Turned out we missed her all together. The Irish Pub was raging here at the end of the world. Packed
and pumping, green beer on tap, scores of other travellers. We downed beers by the double-fist and shots of Jameson
galore. We made a million friends in 5 minutes and hopefully had a couple left by the time the night was through.
Dancing, laughing, shouting, high fives...here we are, we made it…crazy, craziness. Hours flew by, then, at
some point in the night I hit the wall. I was sitting down by myself, some sort of Irish whiskey in my
hand, reflecting on the trip, starting to realize that the trip was winding down when I wished it could go on forever.
I was wondering when I would be able to do some sort of travelling like this again, I'm getting older -maybe I shouldn't run
around so wildly anymore. Just then this, to answer my questions, a group of folks that worked on an Antarctic
research ship whom I had met earlier returned to the bar and picked my floundering self up, dusted me off and straightened
me out. They were all in their forties, fresh off the sea and about as wild and crazy and beautiful people you could
ever meet…just naturals. I got fired up again we had a hoot and eventually headed to a different bar. They
were a crazy bunch, just fun, a Brit, an Aussie...I can't say I remember where they were all from, but they were on land and
they were living it up. The next bar was a bit tamer, but we livened it up plenty and before I knew it the sun was rising.
Somehow I found my way to the hostel. Eli was there asleep and our neighbours were long checked-out and gone, which
was great cuz hostels make me very self conscious about the horrendous and voluminous snoring I am capable of after a
night of drinking
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| Empanadas |
Today was spent feeling lousy and trying (and usually failing) to take care of tasks that needed
to get done.
It is beautiful here at the end of the world. Mountains, Oceans, Glaciers. Feels like
a mix between Switzerland
and Alaska and Maybe Newfoundland...even if I've never been to Alaska or Newfoundland...I can just feel it.
I've got to run for now. I'll tell you all about this place tomorrow. It is beautiful.
I'll try to put up some photos and some recordings.
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| Around Ushuaia |
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| Around Ushuaia 2 |
THE PLOT THICKENS. Check this out for a laugh... Here I am at the end of the world. I have a car that needs
some serious work. I had thought about storing it for the next 9 months and coming back, but then I
met a very cool fellow who is willing to buy it. Rasta Max loves Silver Al and was about as excited about
buying her as a person could ever be. He has already kissed the fender. So today, I walked down to the
customs office to look into the details and I walked out with a big problem. You cannot sell a foreign used car in Argentina...period!
In fact, you cannot give away (for free) a foreign used car in Argentina. You cannot even junk a foreign used
car in Argentina. The only thing I might be able to do is find someone who is willing to come down to customs and take
responsibility for the storage of the car, sign papers, ect. They wanted to know if I knew such a person. I don't,
but I could try to find such a person. That is fine with them, but I should know that after this afternoon,
they will be closed for some holiday until next Tuesday....the Tuesday after the Monday I should be flying back home.
So right now it is three forty-three. Customs closes in an hour and 17 minutes. If I don't find someone who will
take the car for 9 months and sign on the line to be responsible for my return, (they can't drive it) I will probably be
arrested at immigration as I try to leave the country ...that, or if I do slip out, I can never come back.
So why am I sitting on the internet instead of running around. I have one plan and
I have put all my chips on it. Rasta Max. I called him up, woke him out of a dead sleep (he works the graveyard
shift at the hostel we stayed at last night). He, supposedly, is going to meet me at 4:30 to discuss my proposition.
I am willing to pay him...I don't know how much, but he needs to find a place to park her and trust that I am not going to
screw him over and never come back...If I don't come back, he is in trouble with Argentina as well as myself.
So I am either never leaving Argentina, never coming back to Argentina or coming back in
the beginning of December to fix her up and drive her to a different country where I can sell her or at least ditch her.
This whole craziness brings up a lot of questions. What, for instance, would happen if she caught on fire and burned
to the street? What happens if you total your car here...what do they do? The risk is having to stick around longer
than I would like to find out.
I never liked homework and I guess you could say that I didn't do mine in this case. I guess I always figured that,
at the least, you could junk a car, especially an injured but strong car loaded with good parts. A mechanic's dream
car if it was free. I'm not completely screwed yet, but my pants are nearing my ankles.
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| Tenedor Libre |
So...now you are going to have to wait a little bit longer for the wonderful pictures that I would like to post.
The next hour should be a true adventure and I thoroughly adore adventures (especially the ones with some tangible repercussions
and especially when I was just feeling like the adventures were winding down)....I'm off...let's do this thing...wish me luck!
Thursday, March (?) at 1:06 PM Rasta Max came through for me! He was a little nervous about
taking responsibility for the car at first, but I'm going to pay him well, and we made it to the Aduanas (Customs) just as
they were closing the door. Props to Rasta Max -a really great fellow who has stuck his neck out for me big time.
So I am going to be coming back here next December ...no question about it. If I don't, Rasta Max is in trouble, and
my karma would never recover. So, in a way, as this trip was coming to an end, it has suddenly sprouted a new life.
I've got to come down here with a suitcase of car parts and rig Silver Al together enough to get her out of the country...thousands
of rough miles. She will need to survive a very cold winter, which is just starting here. She will be parked behind
Rasta Max's cousin's house a few blocks away. It is a little bit of a steep grassy place and I will probably need to
bring a come-along to get her back out. Then I'll hopefully get her started and have a mechanic put on a bunch of new parts
and we'll shoot the moon. If she is running well (and the motor appears to still be strong and sweet)
I might just drive her north again. At least up through Brazil and back to Columbia. So I
have closure in one way and a huge adventure ahead of me in another.
Anyway, when I finally finished the wheelings and dealings and dropped Max off to his wife and daughter, I
met up with Eli at the hotel and we went out to celebrate. We went here and there and did what you can imagine,
by now, we did. We got some empanadas and a huge, loaded, pizza-sized hamburger at a neat little local
watering hole and made friends with the bar-tender. We picked up laundry, looked into a boat trip, (which
we decided against) and window shopped for duffle bags -all between cantinas and bars. Eventually I ran out
of steam. Eli had a four hour nap earlier and was wound-up...my head was bouncing from shoulder to shoulder, exhausted.
We had been talking with a few Spanish guys at that point and Eli headed out with them, while I walked back to our hotel to
crash. I heard Eli come in last night at some point, but I don't know about his adventures. He was still asleep
when I got up to come here and get some photos up.
We have, at this point, stayed in two hostels here
and one hotel. The first hostel was alright for sleeping, mostly because by the time we went to bed, everyone else was
up and gone. The second night, at Freestyle Hostel (where I met Max) we slept really pretty poorly.
The guy below me snored, in Eli's opinion, worse than I do, and the hostel bar, just outside the room seemed to rage
all night long. Our roommates kept barging into the room all night to grab this or that, making a racket, one
kid sounded like he was snacking all night on the most crinkly bag of chips in the world. In the morning,
when the roommates got up (before us because they kept us up all night) they were just carrying on at full volume.
Other than this, the hostel was great, friendly, helpful...spot on...but after no sleep, we decided that we needed a
room of our own, and we have it. I slept great last night. I bet Eli did too!
Today is a holiday here, but I will try to buy some brake
fluid. Yesterday the car began to inch forward on a steep downhill with the brakes pressed all the way in.
Not a good feeling when there is a car stopped at the bottom in front of you waiting for the light to turn green.
I was pumping at the brakes and yelling at the light aloud, 'Come on baby, turn green, turn green, turn green...come
on' as Silver Al and I slowly made our way down the hill. The light did turn green but not until I was just about
sure I was going to be testing out my soon-to-expire Pan American car insurance policy.
Also today I might try to find a car cover and a duffel bag or even a new back pack. A hike would be really nice...maybe
we can pull that off too. I'll try to get you all some audio clips soon!
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| Mountains Around Ushuaia |
Friday Before Easter. Just spending my last hours here in Ushuaia. Yesterday, Eli and I headed
to the National Park Tierra Del Fuego. We bought some brake fluid and drove through the park to literally the furthest
point that you can drive to. Got the bumper up against the wooden fence posts that mark the very end of Argentina Route
3. The park was great. Tons of rabbits, beautiful woodpeckers, geese. There were crystal clear lakes and
streams, big old forests of twisted trees, lichen and moss. We got some hikers to take a few pictures of us and cracked
the bottle of champagne that we had brought down from the states. After that, we turned around and headed back to Ushuaia.
This marked the first real backtracking we have done and the official end of the drive south.
Back in town we had a pretty lousy dinner at
a Tenedor Libre that was recommended to us by our hotel proprietor. A tenedor libre is a sort of buffet spread
in one area and a man with a fire grilling up meats in another. The buffet was drab and the meats were dry
and flavorless. The wine (malbec) was the only thing that was quite good.
After dinner, Eli turned it in because he had spent
the previous night out, and hurt himself pretty good. I headed out, spent an hour or so on the internet, looking over
applications for exchange students that want to work on the Cape this summer, and then walked up to the Irish pub where
I spent most of St. Patty's day night. At the pub I grabbed a stool, ordered a beer and moments later my Argentinean
friend, Lukos, came walking in. He had thought that he had seen me walk by him earlier and figured that I was heading
this direction. Lukos is a cool cat, lives in Plata Blanca and is finishing his last year of studying medicine
at the university there. He has a passion for surfing, football (soccer) and snowboarding, with a little gardening
thrown in on the side. Lukos is here on a vacation with his mother (who's work gave them this free vacation) and
grandmother who, at 82 years old, can hike with the best of them.
Lukos and I hung out a long time, talked music and sports and politics and travel.
We drank a few beers but then switched to Fernet and cola...a very popular drink here (tastes just like Moxie). The
bar filled up and was packed within an hour of our arrival so we were grateful to have the seats that we scored. There
are a lot of other travelers here from all over...hikers, people heading to Antarctica, vacationer on the Patagonian
circuit. For Eli and I, it has been a bit of a culture shock to be around so many other travelers from away. It
is very modern here in its way. Sophisticated compared to most of the places we have been. American and European
music cranked up hard instead of the Cumbia and Salsa we have been listening to everywhere else. People speaking
English to you even when you speak Spanish to them. Suddenly being able to communicate clearly...I'm not quite sure
I like it. I had thought that there was not a last call here in Ushuaia, but that was only on St. Patrick's Day, I
guess, because they rang the bell at 4AM. We snuck another drink order in and talked a while with a Brit
of Indian descent that now lives in the Czech Republic. Then I figured we would stop
by the Hostel Freestyle, catch up with Rasta Max and get a beer there. At the Freestyle there were a few kids up,
a couple Argentineans, a Russian, and a tired looking French couple. Max hooked us up with a couple beers
(gratis) and we hung out there for an hour or so…actually I don't know how long...laughing it up with Max and chatting
it up with the other kids. And that was that...I headed back to our hotel and made it to bed just as distant light cracked
the black sky. My last night in Ushuaia for a few months!
Now I am off to try to buy a duffel bag to empty some things from Silver
Al into. We've got a lot of CD's and bottles of pisco and rum to contend with. We meet Rasta Max at 2
Pm
to ditch the car and then we have a few hours to kill until our flight leaves. Next time I write, I'll be in Buenos Aires!!
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| The End of the Road |
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| National Park Tierra Del Fuego |
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| As Far As You Can Possible Go |
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| Cheers! |
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| Lukos and Justin |
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| Rasta Max and Justin |
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| Silver Al's Resting Place |
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| Silver Al's Resting Place 2 |
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| Justin, Al and Max |
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| Justin, Ali and Rast Max, Saying Goodbye to Ushuaia for a Few Months |
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| Flying to Buenos Aires 1 |
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| Flying to Buenos Aires 2 |
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| Patagonia from the Sky |
We have made it to Buenos Aires!
Here in BA our old friend (from our same home town) Nate Moyer has hooked us up upon arriving here. We arrived
in B.A. around 11:30 and didn't get to Nate's until well after 12:00. Nate has some nice digs and nice friends and we drank
some wine and then headed to a nearby bar which Nate and his clan run. They had both Jim Beam and ginger ale. For a night
that Nate thought would be slow, it was quite quick. We talked, had a few Jim and Gingies, a couple Fernets and colas. Eli
and Nate took on the pool table and almost took the game. They have a few different rules here. Any foul, scratch, sinking
your ball in an uncalled pocket or sinking of an opponent's ball...any mistake and it becomes 'ball-in-hand'. Unlike a scratch
in our game...ball-in-hand means the opponent can then put their ball ANYWHERE on the table.
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| Nate Moyer |
B.A. is a late-night city where bars and clubs don't really get going until 3AM. We made a night of it, not getting home
until around 6AM. This morning we slept until late (after noon), and then took a stroll around Nate's neighborhood. B.A. is
loaded with beautiful old buildings. Nate himself is in the process of renovating two such buildings. Nate is a professional
dancer and has started a business called dance abroad. He has a few students already signed on so he is under the gun to get
his places suitable to serve as a sort of hostel to accommodate them. Nate has been a great host, setting us up with a cell
phone and nice rooms. Eli, who will be here for a couple weeks longer, has put an hour or two into setting up one of Nate's
rooms as a pimping little Eli pad.
Right now Eli is napping in his cozy little room down the street and Nate and I have been hanging out at Nate's other place.
We had a couple sandwiches and finished off the bottle of rum that we got into last night. (Ron Abuelo we brought from Ecuador)
I just grabbed a shower and am feeling all freshened up while Nate and his house mate Mariano have been having a little guitar
jam-down. Now it is about 10:40 PM and we are going to head out and see what is going on around here tonight. We'll just
have to see!
Last night turned out to be my latest night yet. Got to sleep around 10AM or so. The folks here are tough to keep up
with. (When I finally got let off the hook to sleep, they were still hanging out like it was 2 AM). Nate's (and Nate's
friend's) bar closed at 6 AM but they just got everyone out, locked the doors and we enjoyed the bar for ourselves. I hung
with the staff for hours after that. A few owners of other bars trickled in and the head of the district police even got let
in for a beer or two. He had to leave eventually to go beat up a couple people that they were holding for him down at the
station, he told us. Charming! So today I slept most of the day and now I am up and wondering what I should do. I think Nate
is done for the night. Eli is over at the other house, napping. It is my last night here in Buenos Aires and, for that matter,
on this trip, so there is no question that I am going to make it count. Time will tell and it is still very early for here.
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| Justin and Nate at the Parilla |
Today I spent my final day of this trip hanging out with Nate and Eli. Last night I dug up Eli and we caught a
cab to the Palermo district and wandered around to a few different bars. Being Easter night there was pretty close to
nothing going on. We still had a good time of ourselves, with a two beers for 15 pesos special at an Irish pub and a
few vodka tonics at a bar with a heavy pirate theme. (Probably should have been drinking rum, come to think
of it, but the swarthy staff didnīt force us to walk any planks.) It was a fairly reflective evening for the two
of us, recall strings of events that took place over the past three months...there was a lot of love. The only folks
that were out were other tourists and the atmosphere could have been that of a bar in any city in the world. (Boring)
Somehow we managed to call it quits early (around 4 AM) and thatīs about all there is to say...I wish there were more events
to recollect but we had a nice time all the same.
Today was a beautiful day. Nate and I had a long drawn out coffee session at an outdoor
corner cafe. Ate toast with marmalade and butter, I had a great glass of orange juice. Eventually Eli came wandering
by and joined us. After coffee, I went to lie out up on the roof top terrace, catching a last bit of
sun.
For lunch, Nate took us out to a great Parilla (grilled meat restaurant for which Argentina
is famous) It was a great meal with salads and different types of grilled beef, choriso sausages, blood sausages and
grilled sweet breads. I even tried the sweet breads and they went down much more smoothly than the beef heart and liver
that I encountered earlier on this trip. We drank a couple bottles of Malbec wine, had coffee and even postres (dessert),
joked around...definitely there for a few hours. After lunch we went back to Eliīs place (Nateīs other place) and chatted
over a few liters of beer. That was pretty much it, I packed up, said my goodbyes, we tried to make a recording but
the batteries died on the recorder, I managed to fire up my laptop to transfer our last photos off the cameras and onto the
computer. Then I caught a cab and I am here in the airport as I write this to you all.
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| Saying Goodbye to Eli and Nate |
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