2023 south amEriCa part 2

while brushing up on a bit of Magellan history. Strangely there wasn’t an office to buy a ticket, rumour was that it was part of the national highway so crossing was free.

Typical Estancia bus shelter

Pressing on, we stopped for a quick lunch at the Hotel Rubens and travelled at our own pace across the plains and valleys of southern Patagonia before reaching the Atlantic along the Strait of Magellan.

The ferry arrived, we rode on, and then went up on deck for the crossing. With the end in sight, news came that we actually needed to buy a ticket and so we joined a queue. David got to the window to hand over his 8300 pesos and the ticket printer broke down. There was no back-up plan such as another printer or just letting the few remaining punters get a freebie, the printer just needed to be fixed or no-one was getting off. Luckily it was fixed as the ramp was lowered, and the late leavers had to dodge between moving vehicles to get back to theirs. No-one was inspecting tickets so the whole thing had been a bit of a shambles, but we’d successfully reached the Land of Fuego. A bit of an open fuego and a hot chocolate would have been appreciated about then, the wind was getting strong and it wasn’t exactly tropical.

Looking worried, but this wasn’t the real ferry

A bit further and we reached the end of the South American mainland at the Punta Delgada ferry terminal. We were a bit early so wandered about, nothing was open and it mainly became about sheltering from the sun and the wind that had been off-shore here for 10,000 straight days

Lined up and ready to board

A final 42km into Cerro Sombrero, which means Hat Hill, and pointing into the wind saw us fuelled up and into the accommodation with various other adventure motorcycling parties. Hat Hill is not a thriving metropolis, so the dinner was in-house and frankly magnificent. In a strange twist, the Hosteria Tunkelen accommodation in Hat Hill is the most expensive of the trip, a good example of supply (very little) and demand (lots). Up not too early for Day 17, the ice was attacked using the heated seat, before heading