Day 387 Wednesday 4 February Puerto Natales to Rio Grande 601km

Today is the 2nd day that I have to apologies for giving you the wrong information, once again we are not in Punto Arenas, but this time I can blame it all on the weather. We always have one eye on the Weather Apps, and these Apps are telling us that the weather window we have hoped for is closing due to a “Front” moving in from Antartica, which is only 1000km away. So, our Big Day to swagger into Ushuaia was Friday, but that is the day the big winds and rain will be meeting us along the way. So we made a call to change our route and cut out some Lekker Adventure stuffs and rather “hit it hard” today on the more traditional route which includes a ferry that runs every 40 minutes, and by pushing and not allowing us any Play Time in the sand and gravel, we can get to only 220km away from Ushuaia and making up one day. So tomorrow, with still a bit of sun, low winds (only 40km per hour with gusts of who know what.) Today we already had very strong winds pushing from the right, so all our necks are in spasm tonight and we will only be able to talk to people sitting on our left as we can’t turn our heads to the right hand side. We head for Ushuaia tomorrow, one day ahead of schedule.

The sun only sets here at 21h30, so yesterday we walked around the little Port Town and felt like locals. There are many tourists traveling through this town and stays for 1 night. There were many restaurants to choose from, but eventually Peens found the one where the locals were eating and that is where we decided to eat. Their speciality was Lamb on the Spit and “Chop Steak” and several seafood dishes as we are very close to the sea now. We took the lamb and chop-steak.

Washed down with excellent Chilean red wine.

Our rooms were very big, each with 4 beds, and a very small minute bathroom. It had a very fancy shower with even some nozzles that will spray water onto your stomach, chest and………… more delicate parts, plus your legs. it also has a main shower head and then a hand-held shower head. The problem is that it comes without instruction. This morning while Peens was still busy sawing through the last of his logs, I attempted to shower. Luck was on my side and I got some ice cold water coming out of the hand-held-shower. I wanted to get the water to come out of the main shower rose\head and decided to try and adjust some levers and knobs, which very successfully directed a full blast of ice water straight from the upper-body-stomach nozzles right onto me, who was still in my T-Shirt and shorts standing outside the shower. I will be lucky to get these clothes dry before I fly back home.

Note all the many nozzles below.

This is some Mystical Creature from the local tribes that stayed here before the Spanish killed them all. Pie read up about this red person with the penis, and I can’t remember the story, but it was a very interesting story and it included a lot of their culture and rituals, for which the men dressed up in red paint and there was a very sexual part to the rituals, and of course a pointy hat. I have now asked on the group WhatsApp for Pie to refresh my memory so that I can enlighten you, but, Dog has just let me know that Pie and Peens are in the street in front of our hotel with large quantities of Brake Fluid, and are now replacing all the bikes old and used brake fluid with new clean fresh brake-fluid. So here is the photo of the red-man with story about him to follow tomorrow. And I will also send photo of the Brake Fluid Change in tomorrows Blog, which is rather messy, not recommended to do on a pavement.

Some of todays photos:

There are many shrines at the sites where people have died, it give me chills every time I ride past one, it is a reminder of how dangerous this traveling the world can be. Here a family of 4 died, or that is what I suspect as there is a family photo on display, shame, very sad. I immediately slow down and consentrate more when I pass these:

We traveled South East for most of the day and finally reached the Atlantic Ocean:

Next time I travel around the world I will be printing some stickers, I feel unadiquate as a World Traveler without a sticker, almost feel naked !!!!!!

It was a big ferry which could take many cars and even a few trucks. They loaded the ferry like one would put sardines in a can, and if you look below you will see that Pie’s bike is so close to a silver Golf that the driver of the car could not even get out of the car. Well, if you look more closely you will see Rockie’s bike right up against Pie’s bike. Well, you know Murphy’s Law, (the bastard,) he was also on the ferry and when we got back to our bikes Rockies bike had fallen onto Pie’s Bike, and his pannier was now gently “resting” on the Silver Golf’s door. Long Story for another day.

Pie was “stealing with the eye” and I suspect his Prison Break Market in Kayalami will be getting a Sun Dial soon. but he did point out that this Sun Dail was not accurate enough and was out with a few minutes.

Our Ferry below:

We had only about 150km after the ferry docked before we got to the border to cross back in to Argentina, and once again old Murphy was one step ahead of us and we arrived shortly after 2 double decker busses with tourists arrived, so rather long queues of people and it took us two hours to get through the border. Then Murphy was waiting for us at the one and only Fuel Station where a big fuel truck had just stopped to re-stock the fuel at the fuel station, and for an hour no one could pump fuel. So, we were “lucky” to have our lunch at the little tuck shop next to the fuel station. Sadly there were no Empanadas or coffee today and we had to devour our lunch at 15h00 consisting of Fanta, Coke and a few packets of Lays crisps.

Our town tonight is very industrial and rather big. Our hotel has no parking, so we had to remove as much as possible from the bikes. There is a little town square near our hotel so we hope to mingle with the locals and get a feel for this town as there are no tourists here.

Luv Ja madly Your’all

Fleisch