November 13
This is our longest vehicle travel day. We left the hostel at 0400! The sunrise was nice but nothing extraordinary today.
We continued through the vast open landscape arriving at the first gas station on empty. (It is in the middle of nowhere) We were only allowed 1/2 tank of gas. We got to the next town with more than the first station.
This stretch of highway is the worst we have been on so far. Lots of potholes and a few places that are unpaved. We did get warned with these signs that literally mean pothole zone. Although it took us a while to figure that out.
We arrived at our first boarder crossing. It only took 8 minutes to go through the Argentina exit, 40 minutes to enter Chile. We were required to put all our luggage through an x-ray for agricultural screening. When interesting thing to be aware of, is that as you pull up on the highway to the check station cars just stop Get out and leave their car there and go do the immigration paperwork. If you’re not paying attention, you may think you’re in line to drive through. After you finish, you go back to your car and you pull around through the cars that have just stopped on the road.
We arrived at the port for the ferry at 1010. The line today is the opposite of when we previously crossed. Only a couple of trucks but about 20 cars. To our amazement we made it on the first ferry! ⛴️ We set sail at 1020
We left the ferry on the opposite side of the Strait of Magellan and continued on towards Ushuaia. The guanacos continue to be everywhere. I also get reminders that Jesus is always with us both with the cross and the wide open areas full of wildflowers.
We are getting the hang of this border crossing process. Back out of Chile and into Argentina one last time less than 10 minutes for both this time.
The highway travels along the eastern coast of Argentina. The ocean peaks up occasionally.
We are both getting a bit hungry so we stopped at a small panderia. We got a fresh loaf of bread and a couple of sweet pastries. Both were very tasty.
We regularly are passing roadside memorial markers. They are often times in the shape of a house or church. We also are seeing a lot of signs indicating fatal accidents.
We stopped to get one last tank of gas and saw another hiker trying to hitch a ride to Ushuaia, so of course we stopped and picked him up. Yann is from Belgium.
We begin to head back to the mountains. We will go back through them to get to Ushuaia. On the way out of Ushuaia at the start of our trip I did not get any pictures of the mountains from the highway.
One interesting site is a ski resort with lifts and runs going over the main highway.
We dropped off our riding guest and continue to our Airbnb arriving at 1600, 12 hours after leaving El Cheltan. The view from our rooms are great. We had a little downtime from our drive then went some dinner before we settled in for the night at 2230 after a long day on the road.
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