Ushuaia to Punto Arenas

Hello!  Well, things are underway.  But, not quite in the rapid, eating up kilometres like they were chocolate way in which I naively hoped.

Firstly, I rigged the bike up, attached my saddlebags, rucksac, jerry-rigged handlebar bag, said farewell to the friendly folk in the Ushuaia hostel, and left.  The wind had been picking up for half an hour, but I thought the rattling, whistling and whooshing must just be sound effects, a bit of atmosphere to create the right 'end of the world' feel for the start of the journey.  Left the hostel, went twenty metres down the road to the junction, stopped to wait for a gap in the traffic.  Almost got blown over whilst waiting.  Checking out the meteorological stats later, the wind was apparently 70km/h, with 100km/h gusts.  I decided to wait for the next day.  Later experience would prove that I had probably erred on the side of caution, as later events showed this to be a minor squall.

Feeling chargin, and a sense of shame at being so easily defeated, I decided at around 5:30pm to climb the Martial glacier just north of Ushuaia, by which time the wind had died down somewhat (by del Fuego standards anyhow).  Enjoying some bracing hail on the way to the foot of the mountain, I then took a path through some beautiful forest towards the glacier, before becoming convinced that I had in fact taken a circular route, and not the summit path as I had hoped.  Some ducking and diving work through the forest followed, then a successful effort at fording a small river, and I swiftly hiked up the mountain; time was getting on, and although it stays light until 10:30pm-ish, I didn't really want to be stuck up an icy mountain in the dark.

The Martial glacier is not really a glacier in the stereotypical sense of the word, it is just a large patch of ever present snow at the top of the mountain, which, at around 1200m, is pretty damn small by the Andean standards, of which it forms just about the last outcrop.  Still, it appears a lot higher than it is by the conditions that prevail up there, basically by dint of the whipping gales throwing powder into the air, with the microclimate ensuring a constant stream of snowdevils whirling and eddying around the upper reaches of the glacier.  This explains my general get-up in the pictures below - it was certainly cold and windy enough to numb any exposed skin in no time at all.

Looking up at the Martial Glacier

Attempting, and failing, to capture the snow eddies

Looking down towards Ushuaia and the Beagle Strait

Me, knew the balaclava was a good purchase

After sledging down from the top on my arse (intentionally, I'm not quite that much of an unco!)

Anyway, the next day I set off for real.  Took it relatively easy the first day, and probably only cycled about 80km, not helped by the fact I set off at 2pm after some red wine fueled fun the night before.  This, and the fact that I had to climb and descend over the two corderillas that dominate the bottom of Tierra del Fuego, meant I felt reasonably happy at calling it a day.  Unfortunately, once I had come down from the spectacular mountains, there was nowhere particularly inspiring to spend the night, so I ended up tucking my tent into a little alleyway into an inpenetrable scrub forest.  The problem with wild camping here is that I'm not aware of the unwritten rules that prevail in this part of the world.  Invariably, in every part of TdF, you will be cycling along, flanked on either side by never-ending fences 10 metres back from the road.  Camping in this 10 metre buffer zone is obviously okay, but did Napoleon leave his undefended baggage train on the main Austerlitz to Vienna road?  I haven't the foggiest, frankly, but as a comparable military strategist, I suspect not.  So, I chose to camp behind the fence, in a postion where my well-honed senses would be able to detect the tell-tale snap of a branch as an interloper closed on my position.  Accordingly, I was plagued by dreams of off-road motorcyclists hunting my tent, which segued into a bizarre mixture of a Streetcar Named Desire and an imaginary 1950s Argentinian gangster movie as my sleeping mind did some calisthenics.  Despite this,
I awoke refreshed.

Disturbing glimpse into my unconscious mind nonwithstanding, I offer some pictures of the Corderillas,

Actually, they're all pretty much either between the ranges, or after, but a suitably bleak theme is evident

Not really an attempt to get political, more an attempt to look piratical.  One which I fail with flying, Jolly Roger-style colours.  Taking one timed photo is enough, so this'll have to do.

Top of Garibaldi pass.  Don't know if it's named after the biscuit/Italian general.

Towards Tolhuin














After 40-50km of beautiful cycling the next day, I came to Tolhuin.  Water and caffeine levels were low, and the Panaderia del Union in Tolhuin is apparently an unmissable treat in these circumstances.  Tolhuin is a collection of loggers shacks, but the aforementioned bakery serves as a central hub for people from miles around; the area for which Tolhuin is the central village probably has a radius of 100km.  It has a great selection of empenadas, a selection of cakes and chocolates which would not be out of place on Upper St, and an aviary with parrots, toucans and parrakeets blaring their song out to allcomers.  After Tolhuin, I tried to get some distance towards Rio Grande in the remaining daylight hours, and it did indeed start to feel like the beginning of an epic journey.  The wind was enough to make cycling difficult, but not impossibly so.  More importantly, the landscape was like nothing I've ever cycled through before.  The mountains were grand, but in size and scope not too dissimilar to Scotland.  After Tolhuin though, the grasslands undulate for tens of miles in every direction.  Not in a flat, uninspiring fashion - that was to come - but with endless rivers meandering through the flat plains, hills rising here and there, and forests of dwarven trees bedecked with old mans beard keeping company with the road.  In a way it reminds me of the Teletubbies.  The land looks similar in places, rising and falling in such vast swathes that everything appears pristine and almost featureless; the only marks on the land at all are shadows and light cast by the sky on the undulating terrain.  Depending on your personal bent, you could say it almost looks like the world before most flora and all fauna was created (I'm thinking the Magician's Apprentice by CS Lewis, before the creation of things), or like a gaming
RPG, where the topography and physics engine has been established, but no detail has been added.

I'm aware I'm probably getting the gaming/programming terminology wrong, but hell, that's how it struck me.

Anyhow, camped in a magical forest type arena, photos below.  Saw loads of Guanacos stamping their feet and running from me, and a few red-headed woodpeckers flashing across the green woods, then went back to my tent for my camera.   Needless to say, such opportunities did not repeat themselves.  Also met a very friendly chap and his family from Rio Grande who were having a camp fire and playing football, who told me which side of the road/fence to camp on.  Apparently the left (heading north) is okay, but not the right.  He also invited me to stay at his place when I was passing through Rio Grande, but I respectfully declined, thinking the next day I would be well north of the city by nightfall.  I was wrong, and will go into this, probably, if this blog is anything to go by, at length, but for now I think it's time to stop babbling.

Okay, just to confirm, I'm not in Rio Grande now.  I'm not even in Argentina.  I'm in Punto Arenas, in Chile.  But my travails across the featureless plains of northern TdF are gonna have to wait until next post.  I plan to stay for two days when I get to Puerto Natales, 300km north of here, and will update everything then.  But yeah, the events in this blog happened a week ago.  I don't really go for structured, well thought out blog posts.  I make notes in my book when things happen, and then usually, after days rough camping, I get into a hostel, have a few glasses of wine whilst writing, and just write what comes to mind, totally ignoring my notebook.  I also mean to detail what I'm carrying at some point, probably in the next post, as this might cast some light on why it is so goddamn hard to cycle with the wind.  Basically, with bike and luggage I'm probably carrying getting on for 45 -50kg, possibly more when at full water/food levels.  Will take photos at some point of fully loaded bike, but suffice to say, it's quite different from cycling with no luggage, and lifting it over fences/up stairs is a reasonable feat, even for someone of my herculean physique (ha!).

Until later, x

Oh, actually, few more photosof dwarf forest camping ground. 

Southern Atlantic in distance!

Yeah?  Yeah.  Yeah!  Cheers for hat P, still going strong after twelve or so years!  It's seen so many staunch comrades come and go, but it never gets lost.

Yeah, formatting issues with text and pictures.  May sort out in future.  Yeah right.