South America 24 : Day 37

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Day 37: El Calafate

Afer a great day of hiking in El Chalten I rode to El Calafate, the town that is the gateway to the Perito Moreno glacier. A bit over 200 kms between the two towns and tarmac’ed the whole way. I found a hostel that had off street parking for the bike and had a private room available. It’s pretty basic with a minimal kitchen, however, it has heated flooring! Very nice.  After sleeping rather badly, I rearranged the loading of the bike for a return trip to the Perito Moreno glacier staying at the same hostel for two nights. The glacier is 250 sqr kms in size and together with the 47 other glaciers in the area holds 1/3 of the freshwater in the world! The glacier is nor shrinking or expanding meaning it is fed the same amount of snow as it is loosing, The glacier grows in the months of June through December and recedes between December and April. Glacioligists debates the reason for the glacier being in equilibrium with other glaciers in the world, often, shrinking.

The height of the ice at the highest point is 70m. The glacier advances two meters every day, and calves every minute and I heard several of these events giving up an almighty roar every time. Very impressive!After spending 3.5 hours at the site I packed the bike and rode back to El Calafate and the hostel.

Day 39: Puerto Natales

After the impressive glacier sightings, I moved on towards the south and Puerto Natales, which is the gateway to the Chilean “equivalent” of El Chalten, Torres del Paine. Along the way I see a lot of Guanacos which is a smaller relative of the domesticated Llama. There are fences 50m on either side of the road but the Guanacos get over them easily and often forage close to the road. They get to be 1.2 m tall and weigh close to 100 kg so you definitively do not want to hit one. I need to relax some more so I will definitively stay two nights at this nice hotel like hostel, Sendero.

I have plans to make a day-trip to Torres del Paine, but unfortunately, it’s raining quite heavily today and the forecast for the next few days does not look promising so I’ll spend my time in front of the Woodburner.

Day 41: Cerro Sombrero

With no good weather in the forecast for the next few days, I got on the bike and rode to Tierra del Fuego. It was a very windy day which made riding feel dangerous with the bike tilted over one way for all of a sudden the wind changing direction making the bike tilt the other way. Not enjoyable riding at all!To get to tierra del fuego you must take a ferry and I chose the shorter and more regular option leaving the mainland at Punta Delgado. While waiting for the ferry to arrive the wind was very strong and I was worried the bike would be blown over. Scary stuff you never think of when traveling in a car.After an hour the ferry arrived and it was really struggling against the wind to get to the loading position. On board the ferry without problems I had an hour for some refreshments before getting off on Tierra del Fuego.

I carried on until I got to Cerro Sombrero where I stopped to fill the tank. I asked the attendant the directions to a hotel and I found a really nice and cozy one, hosteria Tunkelen, and they had a room. I had dinner with a guy who is organizing motorcycle tours in South America. He was returning from Ushuaia after having guided a group of bikers on a 23 day trip. He would soon be guiding a group of Italian bikers organized through Dainese. This was his job! The envy of many bikers, I’m sure!

Hosteria Tunkelen

Day 42: Ushuaia

I was considering staying another day at Tunkelen hosteria and wait for a less windy day, but in the end I decided to go, It’s a 400 km ride, first through Chile and then Argentina. It was very windy until the last 100 kms, with the last 50 kms going through mountainous terrain over Paso Garibaldi, and, of course, it started raining and the temperature sank to 4C. It was so cold on the bike! But I made it 🙂

I rode around town to find somewhere to stay and in several places they were full, I finally found a 2-star hotel close to the center, Hotel Vitalia.

The flight is 3 and a half hours reflecting the distance I’ve covered which was 6000kms! Quite a way.

Progress to Ushuaia and back to Punta Arenas.

Day 47: Santiago

I landed in Santiago and found a Best Western hotel in the Centro area.  The hotel room is nice but the localtion not so great with no restaurents or caffes anywhere near.  Neither is the hotel at a safe area and I was told to stay inside after dark which kind of meant I had to have dinners at the hotel.  For the next three datys I did some sightseeing but saw nothing very exciting.  

After 3 days in Santiago it was time to get on the plane to Houston, followed by legs to San Fransisco and Singapore.  The last leg is a 17 hour killer flight.  Not much fun being stuck in a chair for that long.