Fin Del Mundo

We left Rio Gallegos determined to reach Ushuaia, but were worried about how two border crossings (into Chile and back to Argentina), a ferry crossing, and a long stretch of dirt road would impact our time, so we set out early.  More of the Big Empty, and our only companions on the road were the occasional Semi-Truck/Trailer, herds of Guanacos,  those ostrich-type birds that I keep forgetting to look up on the net, and the startling sight of pink flamingoes on the roadside ponds.  We were feeling cheated because we had not experienced the gruesome Patagonia winds that we had heard so much about...until today.  We encounter 65+mph wind by the time we reach the Chilean border, and the sight of two Euro/American bicyclists leaning forward, pushing their bikes up the road against the howling wind made us cringe.  Border crossings in this part of the world are a snap.

Soon after we entered Chile, we came to the sea crossing that enables us to Tierra Del Fuego.  What a great feeling to see a line of cars and trucks loading on the ferry as we drive up...bam!  Five minutes, and we are on the water, watching black and white dolphins and penguins escort us across the waters. 

Once on land and $50 poorer, we hit the road, which quickly turns to dirt and gravel for about 70 miles of washboard driving.  We grit our teeth at the thought of any car trouble so close to the end, but continue to think positive.  Aside from the ignition trouble, which seems to be temperature related, we have had no trouble with the Little Red Truck.  Being very cold this far south, the ignition issue has all but disappeared.  

Dirt road ends at the Argentine border for the last crossing.  We are the only migrants at the crossing so everything went smoothly, until they asked me where the Reciprosity Sticker was on my passport.  This is a fee that the Argentines charge in retaliation for the fee the USA charges foreiners entering our country...gotta love Homeland Security!  I don't have a sicker because I have never paid the fee.  I got away with it at the first Argentine crossing by thinking that I did pay it in 2010, so they looked it up on their computer and produced a reciept from 2010, for a certain Douglas William Carlson...good enough for me, I say, so a tired clerk said OK, gave me a copy, and let me through...not so fast this time, as the alert clerks notice that the name and passport number does not match up with mine.  Staring at another meaningless $130 fee at the tail end of the trip, I implement my only, but effective defense...play stupid, shrug a lot, and act confused. Yes! Outlasted, the strategy worked again, and the fatigued clerks waived me through.   

Gasing up a the next town, Rio Grande, we wait for 30 minutes in long lines at the station.  We look at each other and agree that this town is yet again another South American version of a Wyoming oil boomtown that we are glad we are leaving.

Thirty minutes later, we are excited to finally see the end of the desolate Patagonian plains, and we actually see..trees!  Beech tree forests and distant high mountains...back to the Andes!

We gradually climb in elevation are delighted with the change of environment...mountains, forest, alpine lakes the last 50 or so miles...then rain...then snow!  Yes, we left Utah in the winter, and then found it again the last driving day of the trip.  If our southern latitude were flipped north, we would be in Juneau, Alaska.  The weather and scenery are carbon copies of the Alaskan Panhandle.

We drive into Ushuaia about 6:30pm, a smalish port city, the most southerly located city in the world, or as they say here, Fin Del Mundo.  What a feeling of relief to finallly make it here...over 12,000 miles from our start in Utah.  After some difficulty finding a hotel room, we settle into comfortable digs and a good dinner.  The quest:  get rid of the truck and book airline tickets home.

Today, we try to sell the truck by aproaching an auto dealer, and the waiters and bartender of our lunch restaurant. Both are aware of the importation regulations that prohibit anyone from lawfully buying our truck and liscensing it in Argentina.  We finally, and sadly, accept the fact that we can't sell it.  But we also understand that if we abandon it, Jim may be cited by Customs the next time he enters Argentina.  Hmmm, what to do?  We go back to the auto dealer and cut a deal to leave the truck with him, using my iPad Translator to get us through the transaction. He will "keep" the truck at his parents place, and if he ever gets any cash for it, he will surely send it to Jim...surely.  This arrangement is really the safest way to dispose of the Little Red Truck with the least legal exposure for Jim.  Jim is sad to leave the LRT behind, with 24 years of history.  The hero of the trip is the LRT.  It performed beyond our wildest expectations...we just hope it learns to speak Spanish...it would also be nice if both of us did too.  Perhaps someday...

Tickets purchased, Jim leaves in the morning, me the following day...I just hope it stops snowing so I can get some pictures of these spectacular mountains tomorrow.  Homeward bound at last...

Patagonia, Size Large

Bariloche, Argentina gorgeous and is nestled in the Andes on the shores of a huge lake.  In the winter, it is a ski center, in summer, it is known for hiking, fishing, and being a place to enjoy the good life...a cross between Lake Tahoe and Jackson Hole.  We spend the evening there, and do a little shopping in the morning, before heading southeast down the road on Route 40.  As we head out the scenery changes, reminding me of Glacier NP...100 miles further, we seem to be in Wyoming, on the sage plains.  The goal for the day, Comodoro Rivadavia on the Atlantic coast of Argentina.  Once leaving the Andes, Patagonia becomes the "BIG Empty".  Flat plains, and occasional rolling hills...but empty.  The scale of this country is enormous, and beyond my ability to accurately describe...one has to experience it to understand.  At the time of this posting, we have travelled 1,000 miles through the plains and we are not done with it.  We have chosen this route because it is the fastest, not necessarily the prettiest or most interesting.  The Little Red Truck seems to be showing signs of stress, and we are anxious to get to Ushuaia without major trouble. 

Comodoro Rivadavia is a rough blue collar city on the Atlantic...the name of the game here is oil.  As we cruise toward the city, we see oil wells everywhere, and again, it reminds me of Wyoming.  We arrive late in the evening, and get lost, of course.  We stopped at the only restaurant we see, and it tunes out to be a good one, packed with locals who look like people we want to be very, very nice to. Luckily, the head waiter has spent some time in the US and he draws a map to our hotel, which we previously selected on-line.  This means we only have to stop at two more gas stations for further directions.

There is nothing to keep us here in the morning, short of a trip to a bank, but I do catch the sight of a Mormon Church, and four missionaries on the sidewalk along the way...who we choose not to torment.

The day is incredibly boring on the Patagonia steppe...lots of straight lines and emptiness...for another 500 miles to Rio Gallegos.  All Patagonia routes converge on this grubby Atlantic Coast town for the entry to Tierra Del Fuego.  Along the way we observe some strange and interesting wildlife...ostritch-type birds, about four feet tall...wild llama looking animals, Guanacos, that hang out on the prarie, like Pronghorn back home...a Patagonia Hare, the size of a small dog.  All in all, a good day for making progress.  The two police/military stops were uneventful...the police behaved themselves and our papers were in order.  Rio Gallegos is knwon for having a bank hit by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for over $100,000 in gold and silver.  The thought of them traveling this far south by horse, boggles my mind.

 

Chile Sur

We cruise into Santiago on freeway-type roads, and the GPS leads us right to the hotel in a historic section of town with no problem...the easiest entry into a major metro ( 6 million pop.) area of the trip.  We must be doing something right, as we have big city karma tonight.  A cool, affordable, historic hotel on a cobblestone street, a good dinner in an Italian restaurant, a good nights sleep and we are on the road again by 9am.  We feel like long haul truckers, but we are determined to get to the end of the road without delay.  Chile seems to be a cut above any other South American country so far, in terms of economy, infrastructure, and development. We don't worry about police anymore...the three times we have been stopped, they have been nice, fair, and professional.  The road south is basically equivalent to a US Interstate highway, but with numerous toll booths.  We don't mind, as we are making good time, averaging between 400 and 500 miles per day.  

We make it as far as Temuco, through Chile's Central Valley wine and fruit country, and settle in by 6pm.  An uninspiring blue-collar town, Temuco has come through for us with good pizza, great wine, and a very helpful hotel clerk.  The power shut off in the morning, and we had a candle light type breakfast.  We met a young American family who has recently moved to Chile from the Seattle area.  They are looking for a new environment to raise their children, after selling their small business in Washington.  Southern Chile seems to do it for them.  It certainly looks like Washington State, with rolling hills, forests, and a Seattle type climate.

From Temuco, we head south, then east toward the Argentine frontier.  We expected a steep switchback climb over the Andes, but were surprised to cruise to the border in a forested valley.  Along the way in the rain, we were surprised to see lots green parrots flying between the trees.  We eventually did climb up a canyon, but it was gradual and casual.  The border crossing was an hour and a half of pleasant bureaucracy, far removed from our Central American experience.  These people just want to do their jobs, and get us through with the least amount of trouble...we certainly hit the Easy Button on the Argentine border.

First stop in Argentina:   Bariloche, a ski and tourist town on the banks of a huge lake, that reminds me of a combination of Lake Tahoe, Jackson Hole, and Sand Point, Idaho.  As we descend the Andes to Bariloche, it reminded me of leaving the east side of Glacier National Park.  

At this point, we are tired, restless, and homesick, and having decided not to take Chile's Careterra Austral route south, we just want to cruise through The Argentine side of Patagonia to Ushuaia with haste.  The Little Red Truck is doing well, but we know we are on borrowed time with it.  Duct tape is holding the rear shell window in place, and we are afraid to turn the engine off during the day without being on top of a hill so we can start by compression when the ignition goes on strike, which is often.

  

The Atacama

Arica, Chile is a surprisingly clean, orderly city near the border of Peru on the Pacific Coast. Immediately, we noticed a difference from Bolivia and Peru...the drivers seemed to understand the concept of traffic laws.  No endless and annoying honking.  No heart ing the throat, white nuckle driving...no screams emanating from the Little Red Truck. The roads were good.  We had no hotel reservations, as we intended to go on to the next town that evening.  But realizing it was 200 miles up the road, we called it quits for the day.  Observation:  In Chile, the wine is half the cost, and gasoline is double the cost.  Unfortunately, the Little Red Truck does not run on wine.

We set out early the next morning for Antofagasta, a large city of 250,000+ about 465 miles down the road.  The trek took us inland on the Pan Am up above the coast in the Altiplano, in the desolate Atacama Desert.  We leterally have been driving in the desert since entering Peru days ago, but the Atacama took us to the top of the food chain for deserts...nothing grows here...nothing.  Two hundred miles later, we intered the town of Iquique, a venue I have visited before on a paragliding trip.  It was fun seeing the places I've flown, but this is not the time of year to fly here, as the winds are too strong...besides, Jim is intent on keeping us on the move.  From Iquique, we chose to deviate from the Pan Am and follow the coast for the rest of the day, thinking that it would releave some of the monotony of the drive.  

We cruised into Antofagasta at dusk and realized that our GPS could not help us find the hotel. It would not regognize the address. Antofagasta is an elongated city along the coast, and of course, all Latin American countries save loads of money by not putting up ANY street signs.  Yes, that means we got hopelessly lost again and returned to our most expensive navigational tool, a taxi.  

Coastal Chile is supported by one major economic engine...mining.  First, Nitrates in the 1800's and now, copper.  Coastal towns are drab, and dirty.  We observe the dominance of the mining comanies everywhere, and every hamlet seems to be a "company town".  As we proceeded south from Antofagasta the next day, we alternated between the coast and rising over the coastal mountains to the Altiplano and back several times, each involving altitude changes of 7,000 feet in elevation.  Another 300+ miles later, we settle for the day in the town of Copiapo...yes, a drab, working class mining town.  Copper is King.  The restaurant we visited for dinner was titled "Bavaria", but when I asked about the Schnitzel (sp?), they thought I was crazy.  There were 31 patrons in the restaurant, 30 men and one woman, and even her gender was in question...had we stumbled onto Chile's first gay eatery?  Or, is this such a rough town that women just don't go out at night?  Who knows...

Tomorrow, 500 miles or so to Santiago, leaving the Atacama about half way along the trial.

Titicaca and Beyond

So, We headed inland toward the town of Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca.  This was a diversion from the Pan American Highway, but Jim and I felt that we would regret not visiting the high country of Peru and Bolivia.  We arrived at Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca at dusk.  Unfortunately, our GPS was on strike, and we were forced to figure out the city on our own...which was of course was an impossible task.  To make matters worse, Puno was in party mode, as most cities on this continent are at this time of year, and the central area of the city had closed off streets for stages and other festivities.  As we explored the center of the city, we found ourselves down a one was street that was blocked off for a stage concert.  As we stopped, I accidentally killed the engine, and as our luck would have it, the ignition problem returned and the the truck would not start.  We pushed the LRT to a 12 point reverse and solicited the help of four teenagers to push the LRT fast enough to start by compresion.  It worked, and we were on our way, down the wrong way, of a one way street.  By this time, we were again desperate. We overcame our pride and stopped a  3 wheel cab to lead us to a hotel we picked out from the Lonely Planet guidebook.  By this time, I was feeling sick with a fever, and unspeakable intestinal trouble.  We gratefully checked into the hotel and I faded into bed, heavily medicated, while Jim fended for himself for diner.  Puno is pretty much a dumpy town, so we left early in the morning for greener pastures...the goal, La Paz, Bolivia, via Copacabana.

The border crossing was easy, by our historical standards, and two hours of formalities later, we were on our way in Bolivia, along the shores of Titicaca.  The customs agent politely asked us to move the Little Red Truck past the chain, because he was closing the international border for lunch.

Copacabana was terrific...a quaint beautiful little villiage on the shores of the lake, filled with locals doing  their best to party in the middle of the day.  We are still a little confused about why every city is partying, but we suspect is still has something to do with Carnival.  Nevertheless, we are happy to see everyone else happy.  We see more angelos (95% Euros) here than anywhere else in South America...mostly the backpacker set.  After a nice lunch, we set off for La Paz.  This involved a four hour drive that included a ferry ride across a narrow Titicaca inlet, and a spectacular view of an enormous Bolivian snowcapped mountain range.  Again, we arrived in at our day's destination in the evening.  Attempting not to bore you with another tale of confusion and desperation, just let me say that two more hours of unbelievable congestion, road rage, fear and frustration later, we followed a highly paid taxi driver to our hotel in central La Paz.

We gratefully left La Paz early the next morning, With the goal of driving the Altiplano to the coast of Chile.  As we drove southwest, we worried about runing out of gas, as there are literally no gas stations along the way for our route.  We were amazed at the geography....we could have been in the Great Basin of the USA, but we were traveling most of the day above 13,000 feet in elevation.  Instead of seeing cattle grazing in the Bolivian version of sagebrush, we encountered herds of Llamas and sheep.

As we rose in elevation, we were surprised to reach the Chilean border.  Before us, was an enormous snowcappped mountain, which forced us to stop numerous times for photo ops.  The boarder crossing was again relatively easy, with us making friends with the Chilean customs agent, who turned out to be most interested in where we came from. "I am Mormon, he said, and you are from Utah...I hope to make it to General Conference in SLC this year", he said.  I quickly took the oportunity to endear oursevles to him by finding common ground, and we shared eceastical experiences with him.  I'm sure this greased the skids, and we were happily on our way.  The border of Chile is a whopping 15,380 ft above sea level.  Several lakes are present near the border, and we see pink flamingoes feeding in the shallows...pink flamingoes at 15,000ft?  Yes, weve seen it before in Patagonia...go figure.

From what seemed like the top of the world to us on a hellaciously bad road, we eventually started to decend to the coast.  Worring about running out of gas, we coasted where we could, but the decent was too steep, and we had to use the gears to control our speed.  Over the course of the next four hours, the scenery went from "Great Basin", with 20,000 foot volcanoes, to the Sahara, as we decended to the coast, and the Aticama Desert, the driest place on earth.

 In Arica at dusk,  we settled into a modest hotel to begin our trek down the coast of Chile.

Down the Peruvian Coast

We traveled 330 miles yesterday along contrasting views of sand dunes and barren, desolate, coastal mountains.  Even more contrasting and seemingly out of place, are the occasional narrow river valleys where large muddy rivers flowed west from the Andes into the sea.  These valleys are lush with rice fields and olive trees.  We stopped to sample the olives for sale in barrels, like pickles, on the side of the road...not bad...reminiscent of Morrocco last year.

At the end of the day, the road swung east toward the Andes, and Arequipa, a city of 750,000, nestled in a broad valley beneath tall volcanoes of 18,000+ft.  Our GPS worked wonders all day, and as we entered the labarynth of the city, she directed us to a right hand turn that would deliver us to a hotel in the historic center, near the Plaza De Armas. Consistent with our luck, the road was closed for construction, and things went downhill from there.  Not recognizing one way streets, the GPS tried repeatedly to kill us.  Hopelessly lost, we ultimately pulled over and gave up.  Like in scene from a religious movie, we happened to look up, and with angels singing, we saw the lights of a hotel a half block away.  We followed the heavenly shaft of light to the lobby, and Jim secured a room in what turned out to be a terrific botique hotel for $45.

Daily Police Report:  Stopped twice for no reason at all.  "Where are you going...Papers please?", they would ask...to our relief and good fortune, they let us go, likely their pity outweighed their greed.

Shakedown and Shaken Up, or On the Lam in Peru

We are amazed at the stark, barren desert landscape of Western Peru. Our goal today was to beeline it 500 miles to Lima, so we got an early start on the day.  There is nothing to entertain us along the way, and the highway allows us to average 60mph. As we travel south, we notice the differences in the Peruvian scene fromColombia and Ecuador...a marked increase in poverty, and lack development...truly, nature's bounty has not spread this far south.  

The events of this otherwise long, boring drive were significant to us, and validated the stories we read and were told prior to the trip.  Aside from the Cop in Honduras that was in on the border crossing scam perpetrated on me weeks ago, we have been treated honestly, fairly and respectfully by police n all other Latin American countries.  However, it's a different story in Peru.  We were pulled over three times for little or no reason, while the cops looked for any reason to give us a citation...i.e., we weren't driving with our headlights on...in broad daylight!  The first cop asked for money immediately...we played stupid and told him we didn't understand the infraction.  After several minutes of confusing conversation, he stopped rubbing his greasy fingers together repeating, mooney, mooney, and let us go.

The second shakedown happened at a toll station.  The cop was fixated on our papers, and asked for our proof of insurance.  The officials at the border did not say anything about the necessity of Peruvian insurance, so we did not pursue it.  Evidently, Peru does not offer temporary auto insurance for travelers, as other countries.  One must buy a one year polcy for $500US.  Obviously, travelers do not do this, and the police know it, and use this to prey on foreigners.  We argued, asked questions, played stupid, stalled, and finally, Jim turned angry at the Cop when pulled us behind the truck and stated that he needed $300US for the infraction.  We were not going to pay this, and he was obviously not going to let us go.  We ultimately settled for $50US equivalent in Soles, and he ripped up the ticket.

We felt like we were raped.  As I was furious in Honduras, Jim was equally bitter at the corruption of the Peruvian police.  

As we approached within 35 miles of Lima, late that evening in a small town, we were again pulled over by the Police.  This time they immediately cited us for the burned out light that hovers over the rear liscense plate.  Then, for the same issue of no Peruvian insurance.  These cops were even more assertive than the two previous crooks, and it was obvious we were in for a rough time.  Standing on the edge of the busy highway, they motioned us to follow them to a more secluded spot for the shakedown.  As we followed, we noticed that the road forked and they took the left fork, pulling over safely to the side.  Furious at knowing what awaited us, Jim looked at the GPS and noticed it directing us to the right fork.  The decision was obvious...we took the right fork, leaving the SOB Cops to watch us depart down the Freight Truck Only route into Lima.  We were delighted to leave the Cops in the dust and took satisfaction in bolting from the corrupt law enforcement system of Peru.  At the same time, we were angry and discouraged for the treatment we were getting, and were fearful of a very, very, long and stressfull drive through this country.

The reward of a night at the JW Marriott in Miraflorez, an upscale neighborhood in Lima put an end to the abuse of the day.  As much as we sought to experience the true nature of the countries we visited, it was cathartic to retreat to a little bit of America at the Marriott to and recover from the events of the day.