It has been decided that we will not be able to make it down to Ushuaia! I am a little devastated to say the least. The two weeks wasted while waiting for the bikes and the length of time it has taken to get this far has put paid to the plan and my dream of completing the Tip to Top trip. Hopefully I will get to the end of the road in Alaska! Fortunately the last 600 kilometres to Ushuaia has been travelled by myself on the trip with Kath so I console myself by saying I have seen it before and would merely be traversing already covered ground. I am still bitterly disappointed but I do need to be practical, better to spend the time on new ground rather than old.
The plan for today was to get up early! I set the alarm for 7.00 am as I knew that 6.00 am was not going to happen due to all my failed earlier attempts. The alarm went off at 7.00 as planned and I promptly moaned and pressed the snooze. I lay there feeling guilty as there was about 400km to cover today and a border crossing, I roused myself before the snooze alarm was activated and called several times for Paul without a response, then his garble answer came “I’ve been awake for about four hours”. For some reason I doubted it!! It was freezing this morning, how do I know, the seat on my bike was iced up!! Packed the gear, had a coffee and headed out to the old bridge near the entrance to the park to take photos of Torres with reflections in a very still pool.
The asphalt to start with was nice and we soon came upon the lake I had told Paul about. Kath and I had camped here in the van. We had chased Pink Flamingos up and down the foreshore all evening trying to get a close up photograph, to no avail I must admit! The following morning whilst lying cosily in bed I had woken to a magnificent site of the sun striking the towers in Torres del Paine, I merely rolled over grabbed the camera, opened the window, took a shot and promptly went back to sleep. At the time it was due to amazing vista overload! Paul and I on the other hand spent a bit of time taking photos as the morning was magnificent.
The asphalt ended and the Rippio started and up on the pegs we went, the Rippio ended and back on our butts we went and so it went all the way to the border! We managed to get through the border posts quite quickly, especially the Argentinian side as we entered the exit Argentina line which was shorter than the entering Argentina line due to a bus load of tourists entering the country. No problem, we signed in, then the bikes through customs and off we went. Hopefully we didn’t inadvertently exit instead of enter, will find out when we try to leave Argentina for Bolivia.
The rest of the day was spent riding the very, very long distance to Tres Lagos and the lovely Hosteria we stayed in when on our way to El Chalten. The ride is extremely tedious in that the roads are long and straight. This time however, unlike the ride down to the south, the weather was fine and the views we had of firstly Torres del Paine, the canyon country and then Fitzroy, Cerro Torre and that entire range helped. Although the sun was out the entire time, not a cloud in the sky, I froze. I had thermals, a woollen jumper, a fleece, my motorcycle inners and jacket on. I had winter gloves and the heated grips on as well! By the time I got to Tres Lagos I was shaking and took quite awhile to warm up.
We booked in to the Hosteria, shot around to the Mercado for some cheese and ham for breakfast then back again to the Mercado for crackers as the Panaderia (bakery) was shut. We had a lovely hot shower then went out for a rather average Milanese at a Ristorante Bar as the previous restaurant we had been salivating about all day was closed. An update on the blog, wrote this then hit the hay for another very long day and a ride on a road that we had hoped we would not revisit. Bugger!
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