24+ hours on 4 buses
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2006
1
280
551
Trip End
Dec 01, 2007
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Rio Gallegos,
Argentina
Sunday, March 4, 2007
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Saturday evening, we kissed goodbye to Fabio at Puerto Deseado bus station. Hector and his son Leandro arrived minutes before we left, to say goodbye and to sign my dive book. Hector had even brought us some english language tourist newspapers to read during the journey.
We took a ticket from Puerto Deseado to Rio Gallegos, with a changeover in Caleta Olivia. We had a beautiful sunset during the first hour of travel. In Caleta we just had time to buy some food and drinks, and to check that they had transfered all our luggage, which they didn't, and off we were for a night in the bus. A semi-cama this time, with less space than in cama, but I had a very good sleep. Lionel had to move to another seat because of the babies babling/shouting/crying behind us.
We arrived in Rio Gallegos aheadof schedule, at 7.40 in the morning. We found Bruno, the frenchie from Puerto Madryn and Punta Tombo, who had got there hitchiking a couple of days before. Got our ticket for the first bus, at 8am, had just time for a coffee and there we hoped on the bus to Ushuuaia. So we set foot in Rio Gallegos for 20 minutes only, but to the general opinion we did not miss out on much.
The 600km journey to Ushuaia started. I wanted to do it during the day because I was told the landscapes were worth it. Up to Tiera de Fuego it was Pampa only, and the weather was really shitty. Damn cold too.
The journey took the whole day: first we stopped and queued toexit Argentina. Then we stopped and queued to enter Chile. Then we reached the strait of Magellan,a great landmark, nothing much at first sight, but understandably important when you imagine that Magellan had to follow thousands of km of coastline before finding it. It's still pretty helpful, as its calm waters are certainly nothing compared to passing cape horn.
We waited for the ferry, crossed under a rain that looked like snow, and the wind was there all along.
Once on the Isla Grande de Tiera de Fuego, we drove a bit more to San Sebastian, the Chilean-Argentinian border. Get off thebus,queue,stamp out of Chile, get back in the bus, drive 10 km,get argentinian stamp, and by that time it was 5pm and we had 300 km left, along the east coast of the island and then back west along the southcoast, to reach Ushuaia.
Much expectation, but I was also warned that the end of the world feel would be mitigated. Already in the bus, there were frenchies and americans and israelis, the normal backpacking bunch, quite a change after the relatively untravelled atlantic coast.
The last part of the bus ride was full of promises. As we passed a saddle, there was snow on the side of the road. It was already dark, but I could see sometimes a moutain, dark or white, emerging from the clouds. We passed a few settlements, with little lights everywhere... a little bit like winter in the alps!
Finally we made it to Ushuaia, a rather large town, its nightlights stuck between the dark waters and the huge snowcaped mountains.
We found our hostel, I checked my emails to see where was the meeting point, and shortly after we were in a pub with the aussies that I knew from the spanish classes in BsAs.
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