Long Way Round

Day 28-29: Puerto Natales, Chile. “Have we got any of that fire-water left that we bought back in Brazil”, I asked Karen as I rummaged around in her rucksack for the small bottle of throat burning sugar cane spirit that we purchased in Paraty. Unpleasant as it may have been, after the journey we had just been through I just needed a drink. Any drink!

Argentina and Chile share (often reluctantly) the island of Tierra del Fuego and so our journey north westerly from Ushuaia in Argentina to Puerto Natales in Chile looked fairly straightforward. The inch or so on the map represented a mere two hundred and fifty miles which felt like a relatively short 'hop'. But that was before we added the 'Fuegan Factor'

Such is the remoteness of this entrancing island that doing anything comes with it challenges. With huge mountains, vast lakes and very little in the way of transport infrastructure, our short little 'hop' turned into an epic 15 hour bus and boat ride through some of the most stunning scenery imaginable: Peat bogs and moss-draped lenga forests rising into ragged snowy mountains, eventually giving way to the barren northern plains where gale force winds howled across the desolate Patagonian Steppes home only to a handful of extremely hardy llama, the odd sheep with the occasional rhea or flamingo for company.

And the border crossing to Chile must go down as one of the most memorable we have ever encountered. Dropped off in the most desolate of locations 30 miles west of San Sebastián, the combined Argentinian and Chilean authorities took a good four hours to process our paperwork and finally let us continue our journey. During most of this time we stood shivering in the freezing southern winds, half blinded by the dust storms blowing off the arid southern deserts in an environment that reminded me so much of our travelling through central Mongolia three years previously.

But as we've come to learn from our previous travelling experiences, life always finds a fair balance. There is always the Yin and the Yang. For each Chilean border guard that I wanted to do horrible things to, there would always be a magical place to us to visit; for every pain in my back from that awful road to Puerto Arenas, there would always be an unforgettable memory for us to share; for every chill in my body from that incessant southern wind there would always be a new life experience.

And so it was today. For RN3 which winds it's way northwards from Ushuaia is also the road that led us to the historical Estancia Harberton from where we were able to secure a a boat to the tiny Isla Matillo, home to a rookery of over 15,000 Magellan and Gentoo penguins. This private island controlled by a local body of conservationists strictly limits the number of human visitors to just a handful every day and so for Karen and I to have the opportunity to have the island practically to ourselves and to walk amongst these beautiful birds in their own natural habitat was one of the absolute highlights of our trip so far.

You know - all of a sudden I feel warm and content, my back no longer hurts and I want to throw a great big party for all those border control guards out there. Yin and Yang in perfect harmony!