Farewell, trusty steed...

Established, back in the hostel, I write up an A4 "For Sale" poster for my bike (right) and my camping stuff and distribute it to all the other hostels in Ushuaia. Before I went in Antarctica I´d put up a number of internets ads (pricipally on http://www.horizonsunlimited.com  but no cigar !).

Why am I selling it ?? As I still do want to go the 3060km to Buenos Aires. Well, I think the Argentine Ruta 3 is genuinely dangerous on a low powered bike and I think I´ve already stretched my luck about as far as it will go. And I´d like to realise some value in it, the back tyre is nearly gone, the chain and sprockets are worn too. For me Ushuaia was always going to be the end of the road.

Back to the hostel, I wait and I wait and I wait, 4 days go by and I hear absolutely nada......nobody bites. I thought the camping stuff would go quick (it´s expensive down here), but I´m wrong. So I have a much needed haircut (nearly 1 year since the last...) and spend the time doing cultural stuff in Ushuaia, visit the museums and the parks, ride out to Enstancia Harberton and a lighthouse on the Beagle channel. For this reason, cue the history bit....

A very potted history of Tierra del Fuego

Patagonia, in terms of human development, is still in a very youthful state. The original pioneers, Drake and Magellan were down here in the 17th century but a full two hundred years went by when Europeans, and others, seldom landed here (although of course hundreds transited (& were often wrecked in) the Magellan Straights or Cape Horn) so there is little recorded history during this time.. The local indigenous tribe, the Yamanas were aggressive to outsiders and were left mostly to themselves, several attempts were made by 18th century Anglican Missionaries to land, but they were chased off.

The Yamanas were an interesting tribe. During the day they went about this very windy, freezing cold, place completely naked !! It´s almost unbelievable !! They covered themselves only in Penguin fat. They were a tribe that stayed principally in their bark canoes. For this reason, over millenia, they adapted and  developed short spindly legs and enormous shoulders and arms, they were, apparently, ungainly on land. 19th century sailors, partly because of the smell no doubt, considered them more animal than human and treated them as such. When the European and American colonisation of Patagonia began in the 1850´s sheep were imported in large quantites. The Yamanas called them "White Guanaco" (A Guanaco is the Patagonian Llama), they were easier to hunt no doubt, and so they ate them ! This led to very uneven "battles" between rifle carrying settlers and bow-and-arrow equipped Yamanas. As a result, and typically of the period, the Yamanas were wiped out in a few decades, by the 1950´s, as a seperate tribal group, they were gone. There are no current native Yamana speakers left.
It´s worth noting that Ushuaia was first settled by Europeans (Thomas Bridges and family in Estancia Harberton) as late as 1877 !  A penal colony and prison was established in 1897 and that lasted until 1941. The road to Ushuaia was only constructed in the 1950s !! until then all transport was by sea, and later air.  As little as 30 years ago there were no apshalted roads in the whole of Patagonia !!

With new owner

There is a "Latitud del Sur" motorcycle club meeting in Ushuaia over 3 days. On the first day I place my poster behind the guy taking registrations. The very next morning a guy turns up, out of the blue, and buys the whole lot, he does not ride the bike or even look at the camping stuff. He hands over $500 (I wanted $560) and rides off, so that´s $340 for the bike and $160 for the camping stuff. I give him everything that I had that´s bike related, the lot !! (hat, jacket, gloves, waterproofs, levers, guage, patches, pump... etc..). He is from Ushuaia and is not interested in the paperwork either, and that´s a definite plus, as I´m well aware that selling this bike, here, is strictly, illegal !  I feel a pang of sadness to see it disappear around the corner, that bike looked after me for 2/3rds of South America, now it has a new "life" on Tierra del Fuego.

In the afternoon I am walking through Ushuaia, there is a noisy motorcycle club convoy. And there it is again ! It´s the first time I´ve seen someone else riding it, and I had not realised how small it is ! This guy is shorter than me and he looks faintly comical riding it, I hate to think what I looked like. Later on I see it again in the centre of town (left) , which is handy as I really wanted to keep the Peru plate as a souvenir, and the new owner kindly agrees. I also catch up with Alfredo, the guy who I previously met (a month before) at the petrol station in Rio Gallegos. Back at the hostel that evening I´m amazed by how little stuff I now have !!

Next day I realise I`m almost done in Ushuaia, but the following day is my birthday, so why not stay another day...? Me and a few others, I´d bribed, hit the Dublin Bar in Ushuaia for a birthday pint or two. I bale out fairly early. Heidi (a German girl from my room who crawls in at 6am and wakes me up by kissing my cheek) tells me she really enjoyed my birthday party, even though I wasn´t there !! Fantastic !!

I take the bus to Rio Grande and luckily find the only hostel. Soon decide it´s not worth stopping there long. Make an early start for the bus to Rio Gallegos and discover why most people go to Ushuaia by air !!! The bureacracy of stamping out of Argentina, into Chile then back into Argentina is crippling, time wise. It all takes 10 hours and we only drove for 4 hours.

Argentina appears to be the only country in SA that links immigration documents with vehicle temporary imports. This was a bit of a worry. I was expecting to be asked at the border "So.... where´s the bike then ??". My immigration slip (a carbon copy from a triplicate) had the bike´s number plate and details on it, but with yet another piece of carbon paper (from a shop), I´d blanked it out with the edge of a coin (though, then it looked a bit shifty....). I need´nt have bothered, no-one asked anything.

Patagonia gives us a proper send off, the wind is howling, we can barely walk and get nicely sand blasted into the bargain. The Magellan Straights ferry crossing is interesting too, on full power it cannot maintain station against the wind, it has to keep pulling off the concrete ramp and driving back on. Some of the vehicle drivers don´t want to drive off while the land is sliding past ! until, that is, they get yelled at by the crew ! All the vehicles get a nice salt water bath. It´s a luxury to be back on the buses, so much less to worry about !!

Then it´s an overnight bus trip on a swishy "ANDESMAR" double-deck bus North, up Ruta 3, to Puerto Madryn. On these Argentine buses you get food, good food !. I also have a new, cunning plan, for overnight bus trips, WINE ! I get 2 seats to myself, down a bottle of red, and it´s lights out til the morning, it works ! It´s the first time I´ve slept on a bus this entire trip ! (all good except for the headache next morning....).