My mantra: "Ride the world"

Since I finished the Carretera Austral, I am travelling towards Tierre del Fuego. I crossed the Andes via Paso Roballos to Argentina, which offers you the greatest scenery of beautiful nature & marvellous landscape – pure Patagonia – you probably can’t even imagine. However, that was a 180 km ride on gravel, sand, rocks, mud and through deep water, combined with steep incline and decent, subsequently „sailing“ another 250 km with very strong sidewinds of 80-90 km/h … 12 hours ride without any cellphone reception and partly without GPS signal; stupidly only 2 litres of water with me. My thoughts were jumping between the „road“ and Vivi, who couldn’t know, where or how I am (apparently I myself underestimated the conditions). This is the reason, why she deserves the exclusive views of that day – sorry for all the others 😉

Once „settled“ in Argentina, I made a lot of kilometres straight forward.

It’s an endless „sailing“ in the sidewinds and obviously not very different from the ocean: nothing around you!

When you look on the map, you’ll see that re-entering Chile is necessary in order to go further south. After my first boarder crossing, where I was person number 6 crossing that boarder within 2.5 days, it was a bit different this time. I had to queue for approximately 2 hours.

In the meantime (while waiting) I finally decided to not go straight to Ushaia, but quickly stop in Punta Arenas. The reason for this was the abrasion, which my rear tire was suffering from (note to myself: drive slower, especially on steep gravel!), and the fact that apart from the one (1!) store in Punta Arenas, there is no other place in about 2500 km distance, where I can change the tires. In the end, I made it 😁

Thereafter, I strolled through the city of Punta Arenas and perceived/enjoyed South America, as it is: proud, less controlled by rules, lovely, „Latin“, …

Don’t get me wrong. There were also other sceneries; more „funny“ or potentially „frightening“ for somebody from Europe.

In the end, it’s a matter of interpretation or point of view what you see! Maybe the truck is the only vehicle owned by the family, maybe the Kia Sorrento without any profile on the tires is driven only very slowly, … At least for my hostel, I saw a place that was warm, offered a kitchen, and a hot shower 😋

Tonight, back in Argentina, I have a great hotel and currently enjoy a decent meal; preparing for tomorrow