HEY, so somebody has biked to the "end of the world" can you guess who.

Actually it isn't me...yet, I still have about 15 miles to go before to road ends, but I think I'll do it tomorrow, or some day soon. I am currently in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world, and the last time I wrote this thing I was a few 1000 kilometers away in El Calafate, Argentina, so I'll fill in the spaces:

After my friend Caitlin left to go back the US, I left the very next day form El Calafate for the south. El Calafate was a nice little oasis in the middle of the very dry, desert-like pampa, and as soon as I left it I was back in the windy wasteland. Not exactly a wasteland, but if you like things like trees, it is severly lacking in thast department. Fortunately after a few days (some of it on long dirt roads, Oy) scraggly trees began to appear, and a few days later when I reached the Chilean border I was in a genuine forest! Fantastic. I corssed back into Chile, in order to bike to the town of Punta Arenas, where I could then take a boat across the island of Tierra del Fuego. The border crossing into Chile happened at the town of Rio Turbio, which is very close to the hiking hub of the Torres del Piane, which everyone said were great but I decided to skip, because they were a littl out of my way.

Headed south form near the town of Puerto Natales (didn't actually see that either, but I was very close) and two windy days later I was in Punta Arenas. The wind was actually a blessing these days, because it was at my back. My second day I did 150 kilometers, about a hundred miles, in maybe 8 hours of biking. Pretty cool for a slow guy like me. Coming into the city I caught up with two other cyclist, Claudia and Joel from Germany, who were planning on doing the same route as I was for the next couple of days. We decided that we should bike together for the coming days, and after going out for dinner that night decided on a rest day in Punta Arenas before taking the ferry two days later across the Straight of Magellan.

I don't really know what they did on their rest day, but on mine I paid about 20 bucks for a PENGUIN TOUR!!! It was my first time seeing penguins in the wild, and it was really cool, we went to the Seno Ottoway (spelling?) penguin colony in a bay about 70 kilometers away from Puna Arenas. These knee-high little guys were really cool, spreading their wings and barking, waddling in from the sea after hunting, going close to their fuzzy babies that at this time were almost as big as the adults were, and were starting to lose their feathers. Pretty neat. Spent about 2 hours there, marveling at how unafraid these guys were, they would walk right across our path, totally great.

Back in town I saw a movie for free (the attendant snuck me in because I was late, one more point to Chile) and got readçy for tyhe ferry the next morning. I had thought that the ferry was at 9AM, which it was for the previous week, but on the day Claudia Joel and I wanted to go it was at 4PM.... great. We got on (myself standing for a long time in a huge line, afraid that I would miss the ferry, which has definately happened before in that country) and crossed safely, arriving on the "Island of Fire" around 6PM. The three of us had a bit of a tighter schedule than the OTHER German cycling couple we met on the ferry, so we decided to do 50 km of dirt road that night before sleeping, giving us the following day of only ("only", ha!) 100 km of dirt road before the border with Argentina at San Sebastian. That first night was easy, we went quickly and camped on a beautiful cliff overlooking the ocean. The next day however was not easy. We started around 11 AM and didn't stop untill about 11PM when we finally reached the border and PAVEMENT! The day had been pretty, in the klind of barren, boring dry pampa kind of way. We saw flamingos and lots of sheep, but that is pretty much all I remember. That night we split (third-ed) a hotel room because we were all pooped.

Then the next day was another 100 km to the town of Rio Grande, the biggest in tierra del Fuego. I thought the pavement would help, which was fantastic, but this day seemed even harder than the previous one. Partially because of the fog that had rolled in, making it seem like the three of us were doing the same 100 feet of road over and over again. I actually had this vision that if I dropped of the back 8I was the last in our little duck line) that they would dissapear forever in the fog. Fortunately that did not happen, and we arrived safely into the weird looking, kinda smelly town of Rio Grande. I wanted to go there because there was another couple, Americans from Oregon, who had invited me to go in a rental car for 5 days with them. They wanted to drive all around Tierra del Fuego, to see the whole island and go places where most tourists do not go. I was really excited about this idea, because they would be going down all these tiny dirt roads which, on a bike, I would wimp out and opt NOT to go on, but in a car was of course no big deal.

Elyse and Matte happened to be staying in thew same hostel that I htrew my tent down in back, and we were all really excited about the next 4 nights. Joel and Claudia continued on the next morning (Claudia with a wheel that looked like it was not long for this world, cracking and bending, not a good sign. Actually I am one to talk, my back wheel was bending a lot, not just the normal wobble, but probably a weak rim because of all the braking that I have done in the last four months. I tried to fix it as best as I could, but there was reallky nothing I could do except A. pay to get it fixed or B. just not brake on the back wheel and hope for the best. Option B worked, and I made it here! whoo! Sorry for the long rambling parenthesis...). Matt and Elyse got the car ready and we headed off in the late afternoon.

I could talk about each of our nights, but that would be silly. Lets just say that we ate AMAZING food the whole time, Matt being a master fisherman and Tierra del Fuego being the trout capital of the world (or so they say). Both of them love to cook, so I pretty much ate the best thatr I had all my trip. We went further south than Ushuaia on tiny roads, into National Parks, through Ushuaia and pretty much all around this beautiful area. It was a little lame that I was seeing all these places before I would have to bike throuhg them, but also amazingly cool to see so much more, and much more quickly, than I would if I was just on my bicycle. The cost to me (food, gas, etc...?) was about 20 dollarts for the 5 daysa. Sweet.

So we arrived back in Rio Grande, I biked for a day in the rain, another day in the freezing cold (my feet took about 5 hours to warm up in my sleeping bag) and this morning I arrived in Ushuaia, passing through the same areas that I had seen a few days earlier in the car. Eh, what can you do?

I had/may still have grandiose plans of crossing over to the Isla del Navarino, a Chilean Island that is actually SOUTH of the southernmost city in the world, to do some nice hiking trails. I can see this island, and could probably swim there if I had to, but the ferry across is 220 US DOLLARS. A completely absurd and touristy price, and I don't think I can do it...., unless I bite the bullet and just go. If I stay in my hostal the whole time it will be actually less than it would be to cross this dinky little channel, so I may be confined to hiking trails more close by. I say "confined" becaue due to a lack of understanding how amazingly speedy I am :-), my flight from Ushuaia to the capital, Buenos Aires, is in 10 days. I am pretty sure that if I stay in this town 10 whole days my head will explode, which nobody wants. So, I'll figure out something to do in the meantime. I'll try and do pictures (I think I always say that) but it is poissible that my USB drive ate about 150 of them. Lam, I am just not having great luck with electronics on this trip.

I hope everyone is well, I miss people, and hope to see/hear from you soon!----Collin