Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Like Bariloche, 6.30am on Sunday morning is still definitely part of Saturday night in Rio Gallegos. I decided to head for the waterfront, partly in the name of avoiding too many road crossings which might involve encountering drivers of unknown sobriety. It wasn't a terribly scenic run, but then I've been rather spoilt in that department in the last week. The run itself felt a bit like the morning after the day before, but the Achilles warmed up eventually.

This was the prelude to the last long haul southwards - once you hit Ushuaia the only ways to go further south are to hit the air or the water. It was a longer haul (in time terms) because by far the narrowest point of the straits between Tierra del Fuego and the mainland are in Chile, so there were two border crossings as well as the ferry crossing. These are proper borders too (not the sort you find in Europe where the only way you find out you're in a new country is that the colour of the road signs has changed). There's even the odd minefield left over from skirmishes associated with a late 1970s border dispute, which failed to escalate to a full-scale war after the Pope told both parties to the dispute to stop it or they'd go blind (or words to that effect).

The northern half of Tierra del Fuego, like eastern Patagonia, is windswept and treeless. Coming towards the end of this was Rio Grande, which announced itself with a grandiose sign proclaiming it (in Spanish and English) to be "the city of your dreams". The only people for whom it was likely to be a city of dreams were those who had the good sense to sleep for the duration of our transit - it was actually one of the most dismal places I've seen on this trip (although it does get a few points for having a bowling lane in the bus station). As I understand it, local economic activity mostly involves either digging (or pumping) stuff out of the ground, or taking advantage of tax rorts incentives; the place also comes from the we've-got-lots-of-room-so-let's-use-it-all school of urban planning.

The trip, as expected, got a lot more interesting after that, getting into hillier and more forested country in the first 100 kilometres before building to a crescendo of glaicated mountain ranges in the last 100 into Ushuaia (unfortunately, there was too much gunk on the bus windows for good photos - there's still a fair bit of gravel road on the Chilean side - but I'll get another chance on Wednesday). Got into Ushuaia at 8.30, an hour earlier than expected, and will be here for the next couple of days, setting various furthest-south milestones and, depending on the weather, seeing some of the surrounding mountains.

Snow to sea level is a possibility on Tuesday night (the air should be cold enough, the main issue will be moisture).