Day 195: Feb. 26, 2008 Río Gallegos - Punta Arenas
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2007
1
198
202
Trip End
Mar 01, 2008
Punta Arenas,
Chile
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
We got up at 8:30 and had a great breakfast before checking out. I tried to get a flight to Buenos Aires on Aerolineas Argentinas but they were booked through March 8th. We tried to take the truck to a car wash but they all had lines. Next, we went to the bus station and I bought a ticket from Punta Arenas back to Río Gallegos for tomorrow, a 4-hour trip, and a connecting bus to Buenos Aires, a 36-hour trip. The lack of signs toward Punta Arenas put us into a maze of streets for awhile but a guy on the street pointed the way and we escaped from Río Gallegos, with Liz at the wheel once again.
We quickly arrived at the border station at Monte Aymond. The Argentine side was chaos, as usual, and took us 45 minutes to get through
Pali Aike Cinder Cones Near Monte Aymond
. The Chileans, as usual, were much more efficient and we were through in 10 minutes.The standard drizzle, that seems to always be present along the north shore of the Straits of Magellan, obscurred the sun until we got to the junction with Ruta 9. It was bright and sunny as we headed south into Punta Arenas, although ominous clouds were gathering in the south. We drove right to the apartment, arriving around 4:00, and I called Juan Carlos from a phone across the street. He brought the key over in 10 minutes and we agreed to meet at 7:00 to settle the truck rental matters.
It was great to return to the beautiful apartment. We immediately started a load of laundry as I had almost no clean clothes left. After we meditated, we went across the street to the internet place but the connection was so slow that after half an hour, we gave up, accomplishing nothing. I went back to the apartment to write while Liz went out to look for things to buy. She returned with a grin of success on her face. We watched CNN International until Juan Carlos arrived at about 7:30. He asked about the bumper damage from the February 14th incident. We agreed that he would take it to a mechanic friend to get a repair estimate. He returned half an hour later with a $520 estimate for the bumper and a broken reflector. That seemed like a fair deal to me, given that we had driven > 6500 km, including more than 1000 miles of gravel roads. The vehicle was excellent and never let us down once. Juan Carlos is a true gentleman and I will contact him whenever I return to Punta Arenas. I recommend him highly. His email is inmorent@123.cl, if you are interested in renting the beautiful apartment or an excellent vehicle.
After we settled our financial matters, Juan Carlos drove us to Sotito's where we had an excellent final dinner together. We walked back through the deserted but very pleasant streets of Punta Arenas for roughly 12 blocks to the apartment. Surprisingly, there was no wind. We turned in after bring the laundry in and watching the evening news recap. I took a folded pile of clothes I was discarding and the shoes I was wearing downstairs where I laid them neatly on the sidewalk so that they might continue being useful to someone here.
