Puerto Natales, Chile to Ushuaia, Argentina (2-05-09 to 2-11-09)

WE’VE DONE IT!!!!!!!!!!!! WE MADE IT – to Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city in the WORLD!!! And Pat held true to her promise made way back in Creel, Mexico – she truly did follow Ralph to the “end of the earth”!!!

Jamie(Ausie), Matt(Nebraska),us and David(S. Africa) Fin del Mundo!!!!

 

And now for “The rest of the story”!

We left Puerto Natales after 2 days of rest and socializing with the many other bikers riding this part of our trip. We have met so many bikers in the last month of this trip and have yet another “small world” biking story for you. While biking from El Chalten to El Calfate (last blog – sorry, forgot to tell this one then), we met a Swiss lady biking north. She asked us where we had started our trip. When we told her “Alaska”, she said, “My boyfriend also started in Alaska and I am biking to Bolivia to met him“. Turns out it is our friend Damian who we met in Canada the first time and have run into 2 other times on this trip! (Crazy all the connections with other bikers in a distance of ONLY 18,000 miles, across 2 continents and half way around the world!)

T h i s o n e s f o r Crystal ! ! !

 

From Puerto Natales it is was a paved road going east across the pampa, the dry, barren, boring grasslands of Argentina. We were fully expecting to be blown to our next destination by the Patagonian wind we had heard so much about from bikers who had traveled this section already. Well, the wind decided to take a day off, in fact, several days off, while we pedaled toward Punta Arenas. The locals all said it was very unusual to have a day without wind in Patagonia which is known for being one of the windiest areas in the world! So we used our own power and pedaled on! We rode one side road to get off the boring pampa and went along the Skyring and Otway Sounds. It was great to hear and smell the sea again! On this section we were joined by a very strong Brazilian rider, Andre. He was interesting to talk with and he was amazed we were as old as his Mom and had biked so far! Just before reaching Punta Arenas, we camped along the rocky beach of the Straight of Magellan. It was amazing to think, we were camped on the waterway that nearly 500 years ago was the route Magellan took to pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific on his voyage around the world. We remembered way back to 5^th grade history class, how back then when we imaged what the area must look like, and now – Here We Are!

searching for Magallen

 

Once in Punta Arenas, we took a combi and visited a penguin colony at Seco Otway, where we got to observe over 1000 penguins waddle around on the rocky beach and the adjacent pampa. It was surprising to learn that they dig burrows in the ground beneath the low bushes to get shelter and raise their young, then by the end of March they swim all the way along the southern part of the continent to Brazil for the winter months and in the spring arrive back to the same spot they were born to start the cycle all over again by hatching their own eggs and start a family. We also found out there are many, many species of penguins and some are small, some tall and some in-between! This colony was some of the small ones known as the Humbolt penguin.

Penguins

 

penquins

 

and more penguins!

The next morning we caught the ferry across the Straight of Magellan and landed near Porvenier on that little “whoop-de-doo” at the southern tip of Argentina you see on maps of South America. We had finally made it to the last land mass on our trip – the island of “Tierra del Fuego”! Suddenly it seemed we knew everyone on the boat, we were joined by bikers we had been with off and on for the last couple of weeks – Carlos (from Spain), Emily (from France), Rike & Malte (from Germany) and Andre (from Brazil), and all with Ushuaia as our final destination! We all stocked up on supplies for the 3 day desolate ride across the windy pampa of Argentina and once again had hardly any tailwind to help us along. By the end of the day the wind did pick up and we had to ride until we finally found a small gully to camp in, down out of the wind, complete with green grass and a puddle of water. Shelter from the wind is a precious commodity, so we considered ourselves lucky to find this spot. Water is also scarce, evident by the fact that we actually used the murky water in the puddle (which we filtered first and then boiled and used only for cooking and coffee). Carlos did mention, after taste-testing his meal as it was cooking, that he was having “mud chicken”.

Tierra del Fuego - less than 300 miles to go!

 

The next morning, shortly after we had woken, Emily and Bernard (from Germany), came blowing by (they had camped 20 km back). Surf was up!!! We finally have the great Patagonia tailwind!!! Yahoo! After a quick breakfast of oatmeal (yes, again!), we nearly effortlessly pedaled east to the border and entered Argentina at San Sabastian. To give you an idea of how strong the wind was blowing, Ralph decided not to pedal starting from a standstill and got blown 3 miles over gently rolling terrain without a single pedal stroke!

We followed the Atlantic coastline down to Rio Grande and the next day on to Toluain. We stopped there for some empanadas, and of course some great sweets too, at the famous “La Union” bakery. At this point it was beginning to get dark and 5 of us bikers had to find a place to camp. We ended up having to bike out of town about 3 miles, but found a “Wizard of Oz “ type meadow of 1′ to 2′ tall flowers with trees all around to protect us from the wind! Emily pitched her tent in the “hobbit-type” forest, Rike, Malte and us chose the flower meadow. It made for a soft bed!

Which way does the wind blow?

 

 

 

almost there!

getting closer! - getting COLDER!

Paso Geribaldi - almost 4,000 feet - now back down to sea level!

We started out our final day of riding (can you believe it?  The FINAL DAY of riding!!!) pedaling along the beautiful and long Lago Fagnano with absolutely no wind – a blessing, since we were headed straight west, the direction the wind usually blows from. This day found us biking in forested country and surrounded by low mountains – beautiful! As the day progressed so did the clouds and the rain. Biking up Paso Gribaldi we were greeted by the rain and chilly wind, had a bone-chilling very long descent down the other side and rolled into Ushuaia, the southern-most city in the world, fittingly cold, wet and tired! Fortunately, Ralph had the luck of finding a tiny bottle of Champagne (the size of a beer bottle) at a store several days ago. At the welcome sign we popped the cork and toasted to the end of the longest ride of our lives! It was a great mooment – we had finally made it to the destination we had been focusing on for over 1 ½ years. It actually didn’t seem real – didn’t seem possible! We were finally here!!!!!

Here we are 18,000 miles later!

Once in Ushuaia, we met up with 3 other biker friends we had met along the way that actually did the whole trip from Alaska too and 2 of them, Matt and Jamie finished the morning of the same day as us! David finished the second part of his trip on his BMW motorcycle and had started the trip with Matt and Jamie in June 2007. Along with a few other biker and backpacker friends we celebrated our accomplishment into the wee hours of the morning!

 

We are spending this week here in Ushuaia, cleaning and packing gear, resting, eating good food, but mainly decompressing from the trip and getting prepared for the shock of the real world again! We chose to put the bikes in a box, instead of ride them back, and fly into a world that we have not been in for 1 2/3 years. We are very excited to see our children, sleep in the same place for more than 3 nights, do our laundry in a machine, not have to dry our laundry on our bikes, throw our dishes in a machine, buy more than 1 roll of toilet paper at a time, have a wardrobe bigger than 1 pair of pants, 2 shirts, 1 pair of socks and 2 sets of biking clothes, have something other than oatmeal for breakfast, be able to park our butts on something other than a bike seat – preferably much more comfortable (a chairlift bench will do just fine for Ralph and a sofa for Pat), do something other than go south every morning, toss our bikes in the garage, take time to read our journals about the trip, look at more than 6000 photos of this awesome journey, reflect on the sheer magnitude of what we have done, and maybe, just maybe, start writing a book about our Epic Ride!!!

 

Here are some statistics from our trip:

It took us 20 months and 4 days (613 days) to ride 17,794 miles from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina! How much vertical? LOTS! We had 35 flats – that’s 1 flat/1000 miles/rider. (Not Bad!) We got about 5,000 miles out of each tire and drive-train. Our gear, especially our bikes, held up wonderfully. Moots, DT Swiss, Mavic, Patagonia, Northface, Stevenson Warmlite, Schwalbe, Granite Gear, Trico, Thermorest, OR, MSR, Pearl Izumi, Zoic, Hind, Sock Guy and Shimano make wonderfully durable gear – without them it would have been a much more difficult trip.

 We will most likely do an after-trip follow-up blog after the dust settles, for we are sure to have some reflections on the trip as a whole which we would like to share with you. Thanks for being part of our journey, your interest and input made it all that much more exciting!

Bikin’ On (not in the near future tho!)

Ralph & Pat

Villa O´Higgins to Puerto Natales, Chile (1-20-09 to 2-4-09)

waiting for the ferry

After a relaxing and social rest at Hostal Mosco in Villa O”Higgins with lots of other bikers, we hopped the ferry with 8 other bikers and loads of tourists across Lago Villa O”Higgins, a 30 mile long spectacularly turquoise lake. From it’s south shore we tossed our gear on a horse and rode, waded and swam (at least Ralph and the camera got to swim while crossing a creek) our way crossing back into Argentina at the crest of a shallow pass, catching some sweet single track on our empty bikes – haven’t done that in too, too long! We took another ferry across Laguna Desierto and camped in the trees next to a neon turquoise river (reminiscent of lava lamp turquoise). After a rain-soaked night, we pedaled to El Chalten, catching some incredible shots of Mt. Fitz Roy as the clouds lifted. We were also able to test our submersible riding skills because large sections of the road were flooded.

Mt. Fitz Roy

In windy, touristy El Chalten (hoards of backpackers come to trek around Fitz Roy) we camped at a campground among more tents than we have ever seen in one place, all hunkered down behind fences, hedges and trees to hide from the strong Patagonia wind. Mind you, we grew up in North Dakota, so we are used to wind. But Patagonian wind – now that’s wind! It is not uncommon to get steady 60 mile/hour winds! Trees and bushes all grow with a permanent tilt to the east.

The next morning we left town heading toward El Calafate on the Argentinian pampa. We once again had wonderful views of the Fitz Roy range. We’ve seen a mountain or two on this trip, but Fitz Roy is the most spectacular peak so far. The whole range looks like the readout of a seismometer during a major earthquake. The pinnacles are light gray granite with 3000′ – 4000′ sheer vertical cliff faces – unbelievable! They are surrounded by one of the largest ice fields in the world, the Campo Heilo Sur. Back out on the pampa we saw loads of hawks, a few eagles, a fox, some wild llamas and Patagonian emus. The emu is of the ostrich family, is gray and stands 2′ to 4′ tall at the back (toss in a couple more feet for the neck), and can rocket across the pampa 3 times faster than we can bike.

At the municipal campground in El Calafate we ran into Matt and Jamie, two bikers that started in Prudhoe Bay several weeks after us, and that we first met in Peru three months ago. It’s surprisingly a small world in the biking community. We had several days of R&R, and also viewed the Moreno Glacier nearby. The Moreno Glacier is one of the most active glaciers in the world, advancing an average of 6½’ per day! It has moved across a large lake, dividing it in two. Since it is so active we could hear it crack and pop frequently and saw several large chunks calve off into the turquoise water below. The glacier face is at least 50′ tall, is comprised of a multitude of 10′ -20′ tall pinnacles of white ice/snow above a light turquoise/white ice base. Add in the towering snow-capped peaks surrounding it and you have a spectacular photo!

Moreno glacier

morning sunlight on Moreno glacier

From El Calafate we traveled across the open pampa with another biker, Carlos. Carlos has been at it for 4 years, biking across Europe and Asia before his current north-to-south trip through South America. Our next spectacular destination was Torres del Paine National Park on the Chilean border. Here, millions of years ago a huge light tan granitic intrusion pushed up the surrounding black country rock, then has subsequently eroded into massive tan towers (torres), some of which have caps of black rock. Many of the surrounding peaks have small blue/white glaciers hanging off them and the large Gray Glacier oozes down a large valley at the range’s southern flank. This entire massif abruptly interrupts the otherwise low, rolling pampa of southern Chile. Once again, this is one of the most awesome set of peaks we have seen on our trip.

HOLA!

just another great day for a bike ride -in front of Torres del Paines

and another !

The Torres is a mecca for trekking. The campgrounds at it’s base are full of backpackers getting ready to depart or returning from 1-2 week treks around the park. Also a number of bikers park their rigs, put on hiking boots and hit the trails. We have found that while biking toward and around the mountains on our journey we are more than content admiring them from camp. We never get the same awe inspiring views hiking as we do approaching on our bikes. At the Torres campground we re-met Matt and Jamie and two new German friends. The six of us biked around the eastern side of the park. We were fortunate to have clear blue skies – something that doesn’t happen very often in the park – to view the incredibly beautiful peaks as we rode. We camped at the Pehoe campground with a stunning view of the peaks before leaving the park, taking a rolling dirt road to Puerto Natales, a small, friendly fishing port.

¨The Crew¨ in front of Torres del Paines

Jamie and Malta

W O W !!

At Puerto Natales we took a couple days off and actually slept in a bed for a change. Our friends opted for the campground which became a hopping place as more and more bikers rolled in to camp. We had a barbecue one night with 12 other bikers doing anything from 2 week to 2 year trips. We even met a couple from Missoula that are planning to climb Aconcagua, South America’s highest peak (23,000′+). He is an Adventure Cycling employee. Coincidentally, the founders of Adventure Cycling did the Alaska-Ushuaia trip in the 1970s (an amazing feat since mountain bikes were really not even invented yet, so they made their own!), and were the inspiration for Ralph to do this trip. Back in the early 1980 s´, while students at MSU in Bozeman, we went to a slide show presentation of their adventure, and from that day Ralph knew he HAD to do this trip! It only took him 25 years to raise two children, raise enough money, and most importantly, talk Pat into joining him. Pretty fast wouldn’t you agree? Once again we were blown away by the coincidence of all the chance meetings of people we have connected with in the distant and recent past on this trip.

From here we will travel across the windy pampa for the last 500 miles of our trip toward Ushuaia, the finish line! Stay tuned!

Bikin’ on. Ralph and Ralph