1-3-06
Yellow Dog at Straights of Magellan X


We got up early and went down and had a nice breakfast of eggs, toast, cereal with milk, and coffee. It was the best free breakfast we have had so far. Most of the time it is just bread rolls with maybe some butter and jam with coffee. We had a lot of time to kill before the ferry left. Jim was showing me how the zipper I fixed on his riding coat had broken totally and the zipper would no longer work. This is a BIG deal down here in the summer because it is dang cold, windy and this morning it was raining. I told him to go ask the desk lady if there was a place where he could get his jacket zipper fixed. It turned out that the lady’s husband took him to a seamstress and they put a new zipper and new snaps on his jacket and they only charged him 15 bucks. He has been really pissed at it because it leaks now after several years of hard use and the zipper finally gave out. He is very happy about his coat now.
New zipper X

 

 

 

 

We finally made it down to the Straights of Magellan and I pulled up and took a photo of the yellow dog and a cruise ship out in the Straights.
Dog cruz X

We thought we could get a cheaper trip over on this boat but the crew was pretty wasted from the landing the night before.
Cheap ride X

 

 

 

We ended up taking the ferry that we had reserved a space on the day before. It cost us about 14 bucks for us and our bikes, each. Not too bad a charge for two and a half hour trip.
Ferry X

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we were pulling out we went by a Princess cruise ship that was in at the dock. This is a very different way of seeing south america....
Princess X

 

 

When we pulled in and got off the ferry I had to take this photo of a Mercedes Benz Uni-mog truck. I have always wanted one, the ads used to show it working on the farm field during the day and taking a couple dressed in evening clothes to a fancy opera house in the evening.
Uni-mog X

 

 

 

 

 

 

1-4-06
We found a fairly nice little hostile last night after we got off the ferry in Povenir. It rained a little last night and still raining this morning. It looks like a cold wet ride today and I don’t think we will make it as far as Terra del Fuego. I have been really fortunate not to have had much rain on this trip. I think there were only two half days of rain so far but those were not really cold days. Down here it will be different. We saw on the tv weather last night that it was supposed to be 8/14 for temperatures. Jim says to double the number and add 30 to get F temperature, so 46/58 should be the range today. They had a satellite photo and the girl casually pointed down here to the end of the world and made some comment, probably like, ‘they are screwed again’. Jim has been talking with the locals and they seem to be in agreement that it is mid summer down here, but I heard from Bill who was down here last year about this time and he said that snow was in the air. It is time to get the hell north for sure as I guess it is mostly cold and wet down here in the summer. Winter must be really bad although Jim said the hotel lady said it didn’t snow much but was rain and ice all winter.
We went out last night looking for an internet place but couldn’t find one. We asked several people and even kids and evidently there is none in town at this time. They sent us to a couple of different places but they didn’t do internet in one place and the other we never could find. It there was internet here I am sure the kids would be hooked up and messaging or emailing back and forth like other towns we have been in.

It was really sh*ttty day to be out riding. It was very cold and somewhat windy and it has rained all day. I followed Jim about five miles and then couldn’t take the road at 35-40 mph. It was a pretty good gravel road but it was wet and the potholes were full of water. I liked it much better at 65-70 or so. The main problem I had was the fogging on the inside of my face shield. We made it to the border area and stopped in at the Frontier restaurant for something to eat. Jim noticed that they had apple pie so we had a piece after our meal. It was nothing like good ‘ol American apple pie but not that bad for something at the end of the world. They had some cool old stuff hanging around the place and I spotted this can of sheep livers that I put in here for all my sheep friends.
Sheep livers X

We then hit the Chilean border and that went rather smoothly. A few miles down the road was the Argentina border and when Jim pulled in his bike quite running. We made it through that border in good time too but I knew Jim was worried about his bike. When we went out and stood by the bikes, Jim said he was going to try putting it on reserve as it seemed like it was starving for gas. He tried starting it a couple of times and it ran and quite. About the fourth time it took off and ran well, so we took off down the road and made it as far as Rio Grande and took the first room at a hotel that we stopped at. It is a fairly nice hotel but since we are back in Argentina, the price was not bad for the quality of the place. It has internet service so I should be able to post this tonight. We came in dripping rather badly all over the lobby but the guy didn’t seem to mind at all. Jim went out looking for a drink and I headed for the shower. Wow, was there a lot of hot water that I just soaked under. That sure did take the chill off the old body after that cold wet ride. I had forgotten to zip up my coat to the top and secure the Velcro strap so I had allowed some water to leak down my front inside the coat. I have done that several times and you would think by now I would have learned. Not so, short term memory loss still a fact. After we got way down in southern Chile and Argentina, we have been having rooms with bathrooms that have bidet in them. The toilets are of the European type that have just a small amount of water in the very bottom. In these toilets when you take a shit, the turd will leave skid marks on the way down depending on the consistency and texture of the product digested. I found these toilets for the first time in Iceland when I went several years ago. I learned there that they always leave a little brush in a holder to clean off the skid marks. These bathrooms also have had toilet seats and paper in the holder unlike most places up north. It is true that most of the ones up there were much cheaper so maybe we have moved up scale now. You still have to put the used toilet paper in the little wastebasket, which is the same as I do at home with my outhouse.
Toilet X

Rio Grande is much different than any town we have ridden into. It seems to be all rather new construction and big wide streets with fancy shops. It doesn’t seem to be a tourist town but just more European. We are not sure what is the reason for this town but I we did pass a couple of small oil pumps on the road I as well as I saw photo of a off shore drilling rig on a map showing the Straights of Magellan. That would make sense if that is the reason why this town is on a roll and the people here have money. In Puerto Arenas there were lots of nice buildings but they were dated from the 1930’s. We both wondered why that little city was there and what brought money to the area as there didn’t seem to be enough fishing or sheep to make much money sense.
We went down and had supper a little bit ago and we both had bife completo, which is a steak with French fries. Wow, what a good steak even though it looked like no steak I have ever eaten. They gave us each a large plate of French fries and a basket of bread. They can sure feed down here. there was too much to eat and we both left half of our French fries. The fries were good ones too as they use good potatoes. I think it cost me about $6 bucks and that was with a coke.