World Tour - Europe, Asia, North and South America - Entries for: Argentina
10° | sunny / rainy | km 790
Ushuaia and the Irish Pub
on 2018-02-07 in Argentina
[Basti] The small border to Argentinean Tierra del Fuego is open only in summer and getting through it was a piece of cake. With sunny weather I continued riding South. One week earlier another Africa Twin rider wrote me via Facebook that he together with his wife would also be on his way to Ushuaia and if we could meet for a beer. As it happens I catched them on their last night and we arranged a meet at the Irish pub Dublin.
To my surprise I hit some mountains just before Ushuaia. With nice curvy roads almost like a gratification! After the first hostel I tried was closed apparently because of license issues I found thanks to iOverlander a surprisingly cheap place to stay which was additionally just 2 streets away of the Irish pub. I shared my room with Angelo who sadly couldn't speak English but instead was very quick with google translate.
That way he wrote me that he would go out and I should have the only key. It would be at least till 1 a.m.
To my surprise he was back at 9. Therefore I went out with the key to the Irish Pub at around half past 10. Despite being it fully packed I found Borja and his wife in the crowd. He was following us already for a long time and he considered our experiences by his choice of equipment.
He was so thankful that I wasn't allowed to pay :)
We had a very nice evening together and because they were following my route in the opposite direction I was also able to give them some advice for what's coming next.
Of course it wasn't just one round of beer and I went home not before 1 o'clock.
While the weather was quite mixed the next day I drove a little bit around in Ushuaia and rode up to an overlook.
In the evening Angelo came back from his work and was eager to know where I was yesterday. When I told him about the Irish pub he couldn't believe how fast I met people and now he desperately wanted to go with me.
Initially I wanted to relax but I just couldn't say no to him. Prior to the pub we went to have dinner. Somehow he managed to accidentally order a ridiculously small meal for himself. Something I was very familiar with, but he was a local. He was from Rio Grande, the biggest city in Tierra del Fuego and only about 200 km away. He lives there with his wife and two kids. To Ushuaia he comes only for work.
Incredible how well you can "talk" to each other using google translate!
After that we of course met soon other travelers at the pub and a connection was easily found. One of them was Viktoria from Lower Austria.
She was happy to be able to talk to me in her strong accent, because people from Munich would definitely be able to understand her - at least she was sure of it!
That way we talked a strange mixture of Spanish, English and German or to be more precise Lower Austrian and nobody wanted to go home. Almost dutiful Angelo left at 3 a.m., after all he had to work the next morning.
Viktoria and me stayed until they threw us out and with it I buried my plan to leave Ushuaia the next day.
As it turned out a good decision because it was raining the whole day and the day after was indeed sunny again!
I drove to the national park Tierra del Fuego and went to the most Southern post office of the world. I got the obligatory Fin del Mundo stamp in my passport and send a few postcards away.
Apart from that the national park is not worth seeing and absolutely not worth the money. The most interesting thing to see was a beaver dam.
That is why I didn't loose much time there and drove east of Ushuaia into a small gravel road. It leads to the true most Southern American point reachable by road.
Because this point is not touristy at all there is not even a sign for it.
Quite close to it I found a nice camping spot and stayed the night. Of course it got quite cold at night, but I slept very well at the most Southern turning point of my trip. The next day I was ready to go back up North.
Believe it or not when I passed Rio Grande all of a sudden I saw Angelo with his family driving right next to me! Somehow all of Patagonia is like a small town. Without any trouble I reached the border back to Chile the same day. This time I took the bigger one at San Sebastian.
To my surprise I hit some mountains just before Ushuaia. With nice curvy roads almost like a gratification! After the first hostel I tried was closed apparently because of license issues I found thanks to iOverlander a surprisingly cheap place to stay which was additionally just 2 streets away of the Irish pub. I shared my room with Angelo who sadly couldn't speak English but instead was very quick with google translate.
That way he wrote me that he would go out and I should have the only key. It would be at least till 1 a.m.
To my surprise he was back at 9. Therefore I went out with the key to the Irish Pub at around half past 10. Despite being it fully packed I found Borja and his wife in the crowd. He was following us already for a long time and he considered our experiences by his choice of equipment.
He was so thankful that I wasn't allowed to pay :)
We had a very nice evening together and because they were following my route in the opposite direction I was also able to give them some advice for what's coming next.
Of course it wasn't just one round of beer and I went home not before 1 o'clock.
While the weather was quite mixed the next day I drove a little bit around in Ushuaia and rode up to an overlook.
In the evening Angelo came back from his work and was eager to know where I was yesterday. When I told him about the Irish pub he couldn't believe how fast I met people and now he desperately wanted to go with me.
Initially I wanted to relax but I just couldn't say no to him. Prior to the pub we went to have dinner. Somehow he managed to accidentally order a ridiculously small meal for himself. Something I was very familiar with, but he was a local. He was from Rio Grande, the biggest city in Tierra del Fuego and only about 200 km away. He lives there with his wife and two kids. To Ushuaia he comes only for work.
Incredible how well you can "talk" to each other using google translate!
After that we of course met soon other travelers at the pub and a connection was easily found. One of them was Viktoria from Lower Austria.
She was happy to be able to talk to me in her strong accent, because people from Munich would definitely be able to understand her - at least she was sure of it!
That way we talked a strange mixture of Spanish, English and German or to be more precise Lower Austrian and nobody wanted to go home. Almost dutiful Angelo left at 3 a.m., after all he had to work the next morning.
Viktoria and me stayed until they threw us out and with it I buried my plan to leave Ushuaia the next day.
As it turned out a good decision because it was raining the whole day and the day after was indeed sunny again!
I drove to the national park Tierra del Fuego and went to the most Southern post office of the world. I got the obligatory Fin del Mundo stamp in my passport and send a few postcards away.
Apart from that the national park is not worth seeing and absolutely not worth the money. The most interesting thing to see was a beaver dam.
That is why I didn't loose much time there and drove east of Ushuaia into a small gravel road. It leads to the true most Southern American point reachable by road.
Because this point is not touristy at all there is not even a sign for it.
Quite close to it I found a nice camping spot and stayed the night. Of course it got quite cold at night, but I slept very well at the most Southern turning point of my trip. The next day I was ready to go back up North.
Believe it or not when I passed Rio Grande all of a sudden I saw Angelo with his family driving right next to me! Somehow all of Patagonia is like a small town. Without any trouble I reached the border back to Chile the same day. This time I took the bigger one at San Sebastian.