We made it!

CHAPTER 39

We filled up the tank one last time on relatively cheap Argentine gasoline in the town of Rio Gallegos, and then made our way south about 40 miles to the Chilean border.  From there, it was a short drive through more featureless terrain till all of a sudden we crested a hill on the highway, and there it was, stretched out before us, the Straights of Magellan- a vibrant blue horizontal streak, across the bleak okra canvas that typifies this region of Patagonia, separating mainland South America with the Island of Tierra del Fuego.  The road abruptly ends at the Punta Delgada ferry landing, and we took our place at the back of a long queue of cars and semi-trucks waiting for the next ship.  I’m not sure how often the ferry makes the crossing, but we were lucky, and there happened to be one there waiting for us.  A few minutes later, they started loading vehicles on to the ship- the crew packed the trucks and cars on like a 4-wheeled version of Tetris.  Once we were parked, we climbed the stairs to the cruising lounge, where they sell beers and hotdogs, and burly trucker types sit with a slightly annoyed look on their face, as families of screaming kids run amuck up and down the long narrow aisle.  This wasn’t quite the scene I was envisioning for such a momentous milestone in our journey, so we pushed our way through to the outside deck.  It was cold and windy, but that couldn’t change the smiles on our faces, or the building sense of triumph in our hearts- I felt like Washington crossing the Delaware- the waves rolling off the bow of the ship, the Chilean flag snapping loudly in the stiff breeze, the objective of our whole journey almost painfully close at hand.

After bouncing down the coast of South America, exploring any inlet that looked promising, Magellan finally found the illusive straights that bear his name- and to his astonishment saw hundreds of fires glowing along the barren shores.   He fittingly christened the island Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire, and soon was introduced to the local inhabitants who kept these fires glowing as a crucial part of their lives- now known as Fuegians, this stocky, hardy, though sadly now extinct, race of people wore few cloths, and aside from their eternal camp fires, only covered themselves with the grease from whale and seal blubber as a means to stay warm.  I appreciated this fact immensely considering we were bundled up in multiple layers of high-tech wind and waterproof gear, and were still pretty darn uncomfortable.

We rumbled down the ramp of the ferry, and the truck seemingly galloped forward as soon as its tires hit the ground- it was as excited to get this far as we were!  After a few turns in the highway though, our excitement turned to dejection- what had deceptively started off as a smooth concrete roadway, had inexplicably turned into a mind-jarringly rough, washboarded and potholed, rutted track.  Unbelievable as this may sound, this was one of the worst roads we had traveled in all of South America, which is saying a lot.  If you have ever played the old Nintendo game Spy Hunter, where a helicopter tries to drop shells on you from above, and if you don’t avoid the giant craters caused by this bombardment, then it’s pretty much game over- this was the same thing.  Car swallowing potholes would materialize in front of us, leaving only seconds to swerve out of the way, inevitably into the line of another monstrous cavity waiting to devour the Golden Gringo.  I am sure that they would never admit this to be the official reason, but to me it seemed pretty obvious that Chile was playing the part of the contemptuous child that has been told to share- though they had jealously guarded their foothold on this meager slice of Tierra del Fuego, they were loath to maintain the highway through their territory just so travelers could continue south the Argentinean portion of the island.

A hundred miles and as many close calls with malevolent potholes, we had run the gauntlet and arrived a bit rattled, and a few hours later than we had anticipated, once again, at the Chile-Argentina border.  We were now astonishingly close to the ultimate goal of our trip.  Only a few hours separated us from the southern extreme of the Pan-American Highway.  Our little drive through Chile had set us back, and if we continued on, we would have rolled into Ushuaia well after dark.  So, we found a nice camping spot at a gas station in the next, and second to last, town on the road, and mixed ourselves up some improvised Tierra del Fuego cocktails to celebrate the day’s accomplishments.

Early the next morning we were packed and ready to go.  Shortly after leaving Rio Grande, the scenery changes from flat devoid pampas to craggy, glacier carved mountains, covered in a dense mosaic of autumnal shaded foliage- primarily made up of a squat gnarled species of Beech whose twisted limbs speak to the severe climate of this most southern of forests.  We made our way along the circuitous highway, over high rocky passes, and through deep shadowy valley’s, some filled with vast elongated inland lakes, that for lack of a connection to the sea, would have been considered fjords.

With about an hour of driving left until me reached Ushuaia, we came around a turn on the road and were surprised to see dozens, maybe even hundreds of people and cars gathered at the side of the asphalt and even down in the roadside ditch.  Whatever was going on had to be important, so we pulled over and asked what all the fuss was about.  Unwittingly, we had stumbled upon the annual Vuelta a la Tierra del Fuego moto-cross rally- a 200 kilometer amateur race for dirt bikes and 4-wheelers across the bottom portion of the island.  We scampered to the other side of the track and got a good view of a giant mud hole, where without fail, every rider would go barreling in nice and clean, and emerge on the other side completely covered in mire like some motorized swamp monster, wheels spinning and dirt clods flying, to the great amusement of all the spectators- some of whom were now thoroughly covered in mud themselves after trying to help evacuate a stuck rider.

We had more important things to do though, than sit around all day watching adults play in the mud, so we climbed back into the truck and turned on to the highway one last time…

This was it, this is what we had been waiting for, striving for, extruding all our energies for- over the past countless months this was our ultimate goal, everything we did was oriented to take us to this spot, this small town at the end of the world.  And as we drove past the “welcome to Ushuaia sign”, we looked over at each other with a quiet smile of triumph on both of our faces- and then we knew we had done it!  Simultaneously we broke out in wild yells of victory, highfives, and even some congratulatory kisses (probably not the safest idea while driving, but hey).  We cranked up the stereo with our favorite song from the trip (Say Hey by Michael Franti) and sang our way through town down to the harbor.  I was a little disappointed at the lack of fanfare- where was the band, and the ticker tape parade, and the throngs of people waiting to celebrate our arrival?? Apparently we weren’t the first people to drive all the way to Ushuaia, but even so, we were still pretty proud of it.  On a nondescript gravel patch above the water, with the colorful houses of Ushuaia climbing the snow peaked mountains in the background, we parked the truck and got out the last bottle of 2 Buck Chuck that we purposefully saved from the long ago finished case of wine bought at our departure from California, and raised our plastic camping mugs to a continent now conquered!

We made it!!!  Fort Collins, Colorado, USA to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina- after traveling for 252 days, through 16 countries, 22768.6 miles, 95.385 degrees latitude south!  Kacey and Dave = 1, Central and South America = 0.

We sat in our fold up chairs and marveled at the uniqueness of our surroundings, and the novelty of our situation.  And as the wine started to take effect, we settled into a contemplative mood.  This was a peculiar feeling.  Everything we had worked for over the past year was, in a moment, done.  My mind was reeling with competing emotions- elation at our herculean accomplishment, and a sense of melancholy brought on by not having an answer to the question: “well, what do we do now?”  Somehow we had changed from wide eyed and hopeful dreamers, to successful and experienced doers, in the matter of an instant.  I would have thought this would be a welcomed change to my frame of mind, but a small part of me wished I was still the innocent, naive traveler, about to set out from home, who doesn’t really know how small the world is.  Now the idea of driving across an entire continent, through strange and foreign lands, seemed oddly pedestrian.   This change certainly hadn’t happened in the last few minutes, but rather over the course of the entire trip.  Slowly but surely, with every hurtle we overcame, with every joy we had experienced, we were imperceptibly working towards this point, and only now were we in a position to realize who we had become, individually and together.

I looked over at Kacey.  The melancholy drained away, like the wine from my cup.  What are we going to do now?  Whatever we want.  The world is ours!

A small part of me thinks that this would be a fitting place to end this tale of our journey, especially considering how far behind I am in the relating of this story.  We have long since returned home, gotten married, found jobs, and are generally stuck knee high in the “real world” once again.  But, obladi, life goes on.  There are a hundred more adventures that will hopefully one day define the story of our lives, not least of which is our return journey from this southern most city.  Like my alpine friend Austin always says “Summiting the mountain is only half of the climb”- we still had to make it back to the US in one piece.  So, if you’d like to continue indulging me in my decidedly strung out attempt at keeping a blog, I will be happy to keep on writing.  And really, I’ll keep on writing regardless, for my own good, because every time I open the laptop and start typing, it makes me think back to the glories of this adventure, and to dream of the next one to come.

So without further adieu…

We figured that since we had taken the trouble to drive all this way, we might as well stay for awhile and see what the place had to offer.  We rewarded ourselves for the past couple of cold nights spent camping in the truck by checking into a cozy hostel on the fringe of town.  Ushuaia turned out to be a rather charming little village, if not somewhat touristy.  We toured the museum, lost some money at the casino, tried the beer flight at the local brewery, and perused the shops for the requisite “end of the world” souvenirs.  I parted with a few pesos for some trinkets to take home as gifts, and in doing so was reminded that technically we had not actually made it to the “end” quite yet.  Even though Ushuaia is effectively the finish line for any trip down the PanAmerican highway, the official termination point of Ruta 3 is in fact a dozen or so miles out of town in the Tierra del Fuego National Park.  I like when things have a succinct finish, so one overcast day we hoped into the truck and made our way to the park with the intention of taking a picture of ourselves in front of the large sign that declares the conclusion of the highway.  This turned out to be a bit harder than it sounds- when we finally got set up for our photo in front of the sign, a hardnosed ranger came over and demanded that we move our truck because this was not a parking space.  We tried to explain that we had just finished driving here from the US and that it would only take a minute to get the shot, but she was vehemently insistent.  Well, I am sad to say that the uncompromising nature of this ranger, coupled with the hoards of unaware tourists standing in the way, we didn’t end up with a very good photo of our expedition team in front of the sign, and had to settle for just one of Kacey and I.  Poor Golden Gringo.  I’m sure he understands though.

In an attempt to distance ourselves from this mess, we drove to another area of the park and went for a nice leisurely hike around a large lake that straddles the Chile-Argentina border.  At the end of the trail there is a plaque nailed to a tree stating that you are not allowed to cross the invisible frontier- but given our current frustration towards the Argentina National Park Service, and to Argentina as a whole by association, we were in no mood to heed such baseless dictates.  Obviously, the typical “standing on a border” hijinks came out en-force.  Have you ever peed from one country to another?   Well, I have.

Our last excursion from this famous town at the end of the world was definitely one of my favorites of the trip- we booked a tour of the Beagle Channel on a sailboat.  It was cold, but unfortunately not that windy, so the sails didn’t get much use, but nothing could take away from the excitement I had for being out on the water.  We visited two islands, one so crowded with birds that it was stained white from thousands of years of droppings.  It was funny seeing the constant activity of hundreds of birds contrasted with the laziness of the islands resident sea lions. The idea that Darwin was here a little over 150 years ago, probably looking at this very same island, and writing notes in his journal about the great ancestors of these very same birds and sea lions, was to me an incredible thing to imagine.

At the next island we were able to disembark at a small improvised landing.  To minimize human impact, it turned out that our tour company was the only one allowed to visit Isla H.  The price for this privilege was a mandate by the government to protect and preserve the island’s flora and fauna.  A narrow trail made a loop around the island, passing windswept bushes, and delicate grasses trying to maintain a hold in this harsh environment.  The most interesting thing we saw was an old camping site, used continually by the Fuegian natives for over 1200 years.  The earth of the camp was a fine mixture of broken animal bones, crushed seashells, and black cinders left over from hundreds of years of camp fires.  It was hard to imagine a group of people choosing to live in such an inhospitable place.  It was even harder to believe that they had been doing it successfully for so long, just to be rubbed out by the arrival of Europeans, with only a pile of domestic detritus left as a testament to their existence.

And that was it, our trip south was finished- our compass had abruptly changed headings, and was now pointed north.  There were still a few sights to see down in this neck of the continent, but we were slowly being pulled back into the lock step of the real world- we had a ferry through the Chilean fjords to catch, a cargo ship in Buenos Aires waiting for the Golden Gringo, and two plane tickets home that we were excited to think about- it was definitely time to go.