Percussa Resurgo

A week is a long time to be stuck in Punta Arenas. I filled it mostly with looking around souvenir shops, drinking coffee and reading. I did a lot of that, especially on Sunday when the entirety of Chile closes. There was one coffee shop - which served the best coffee I'd had in Chile - where I got talking to the waitresses and after asking me if I like to dance for some reason, there was a bit of hustle and bustle and one of them came back with a notepad and pen. On the pad there were several questions in English about me, to which I wrote the answers as best I could in Spanish. She went back to where all the others were watching, and a few minutes later came back with a second set of questions, the last of which was my phone number. I let them down gently (I think), explaining I have no phone. To this day I have no idea which of them it was that was interested :)

From time to time I would drop in on Gonzalo to see how the bike repairs were going, it transpired I would need a new clutch pin made. By Wednesday the replacement o-ring chain had arrived and Wednesday afternoon Gonzalo went off to pick up the clutch pin. His friend Stepay, who I had first met on Saturday, volunteered to take me to a duty free shopping mall in his truck. Stepay was a huge, friendly guy and it would be difficult not to like him. As we chatted I started to wonder what I'd done with my life... he'd been a miner in the desert, he'd been in the navy, and now worked in the oil industry. He left me in a guitar shop whilst he tried to get family Christmas presents, and just ended up getting himself a pair of shoes. I think guys are the same the world over ;)

Back at the garage, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Red 5 was fixed. She had a waxed new chain, the clutch worked and all was right with the world. Gonzalo looked very tired and very stressed. He had a lot of work on - I think he must be the only person in Chile who works Sundays too :)

But the trip finale - Ushuaia, on Tierra Del Fuego - was back on. After settling up with Gonzalo and thanking him for a great job, I said my goodbyes and went back to the hotel, noting how nice it was not to have a death rattle from the chain at every set of lights. Punta Arenas seemed to have a large amount of dogs hanging about on street corners, and there was nothing they liked more than chasing motorcycles. At one point I had three chasing me, and in typical dog fashion when I had to stop at a set of traffic lights, all they did was stand there barking at the bike :) I suddenly realised on Wednesday night that it would be my last in Chile, I had a couple of border crossings but no more planned stays, so at dinner I made the most of aji, a sort of chilli sauce, and Cerveza Austral beer which is really good. I got talked into dessert and the waiter returned with a full one eighth of a very sickly cake the size of a small coffee table.

Thursday morning I set out knowing I had a fairly long day ahead of me if I wanted to make Ushuaia. I had taken Stepay's advice and rather than catch the ferry from Punta Arenas, which runs once a day and takes a couple of hours, I headed north to Punta Delgado and caught the ferry there. I was incredibly lucky to turn up as they were about to lift the ramp, so I rode straight on and the ferry left. By the time I had got the bike sorted the ferry was in the middle of the Magellan straits, and I had just enough time to spot a couple of black and white porpoises and have a quick chat with the deck crew (they were surprised I was English - almost all the bikers they see are German, or American). Approaching Tierra Del Fuego, I tried to imagine what Magellan must have thought as he sailed up these desolate waters, and saw the Ona fires on the shore which give the island the name "Land of fire". If my thoughts were anything to go by it was probably "Blimey, everything is grey". The only break in the colourless monotony was white caps on the waves, driven by the strong wind.

As far as the Ona were concerned, their fate mirrors one that seems to have repeated all the way down this huge continent. They lived on Tierra Del Fuego, subsisting off the land for centuries until the coming of the Europeans who by turns hunted them or arrogantly tried to convert them to Christianity. No Ona survived the 20th century.

Riding away from the ferry I was soon on gravel roads again, which got progressively tougher on the bike until San Sebastian. There are two San Sebastians on the island, one is the Chilean border post and the other the Argentinian border 7km further on. Arriving at Chilean San Sebastian, there was another bike coming through the border in the opposite direction, so I jumped off and went for a chat. The guy was German, and had been on the road around the world for SIX YEARS. I felt like a numpty amateur cricketer meeting Sir Garfield Sobers.

After clearing the border formalities, I walked back to the bike and my two gallon spare fuel canister - my FULL two gallon canister - was gone. I immediately grilled the customs officials, assuming that as I'd had problems before it had been "confiscated". They professed to know nothing about it, and told me it had probably jolted loose on the road. It had survived the worst that the Carretera Austral had thrown at it... I just couldn't see it, and started hunting around. Stupid. Eventually the SAG guy asked if I was going to ride back and find it, and I realised that it just wasn't worth it. It could have been stolen, it could be anywhere along the 130Km gravel road. The worst thing was I didn't mind the wasted fuel so much as the thought that I had carried the container since Fairbanks, and now it wouldn't make the end of the journey with me. Sentimental AND stupid :)

The northern part of Tierra Del Fuego was desolate - just grass, sheep and Guanacos. Dotted about on the Argentine side were a few estancias, sheep ranches, and a few official-looking signs proclaiming that Las Malvinas were Argentina, the islanders obviously have some depth of feeling. I'd been warned about the wind across the island, but to be honest it wasn't really as bad as around Calafate or Punta Arenas. The landscape started to change from flat or rolling grass into hills and then mountains, part of the Cordillera Darwin. There were even trees. The wind was cold now, and it seemed a long time since I had been sweating on the Carretera Austral. It was getting late, too, and I knew the sun would soon be setting. I was counting down the kilometers to Ushuaia and thinking how like Deadhorse in Alaska it was. There was a pass across the mountains, and then the final run into the town.

Crossing the "Ushuaia" sign, there was no jubilation, no cheering, I was just tired and wanted to find an hotel. It was about 9.30pm when I got off the bike, stiff from the wind and the long ride. I managed to catch sunset though, across Isla Navarino on the other side of the Beagle Channel. Reaching the very end of the road would have to wait until morning :)

The title of the post - percussa resurgo - means "struck down, I rise again" and it is meant to be the Jordan family motto. As a child I remember seeing it over the kitchen door in my grandparents house. It kind of seemed appropriate after recent issues.

Frase.