Today was going to be an easy day with less than 400 kms to ride and only about 120 kms on gravel. We figured there wasn’t going to be a lot of scenery, but we would be taking a ferry across the Strait of Magellan. That was a bit exciting thinking back to my grade school days and history lessons about Magellan’s travels.
OK… easy didn’t happen. We started out in nice sunshine but windy. Very, very windy. Our worst day riding from Cardston to Fort Macleod didn’t come close. We parked the bikes after the first 87 kms at the Argentina Immigration building to get our departure permit stamped. My bike was on the side stand with the wind blowing against the other side. That is usually quite stable but not this time. After I came out of the building I saw my bike on its side and my now “broken in two” windshield flying across the parking lot into a field of sagebrush. The left signal light was also broken to bits.
Quite annoyed, we set off again to the Chile side of the border and this time parked the bikes in a bit of a sheltered area to avoid another situation. Our business taken care of we headed out for the next 35 kms to the ferry loading dock. 
Wow! There sure were a lot of cars, semis and busses here. I wondered why and soon find out that the ferry was not running due to the extreme wind. Apparently they hope it will be going again in 4 or 5 hours. This short easy day is turning out to be anything but.
About 3:00 PM the ferry pulls up to cheers from the waiting crowd. The ferry was loaded with about 1/3 of the waiting vehicles and the bikes were the last on, parked between the last cars and the “end gate”. Inches to spare, but we made it.
After disembarking on Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire) we continued our journey seeing many Guanacos along the way. They are animals similar to our deer along the highways, but seem to be much smarter. They look up to see what all the noise is about when the bikes pass, but never seem to feel the need to jump out in front of us.
We also saw lots of Nandus (Rheas) along the way, but they always ran away when I stopped to snap a picture. Of course we saw our share of sheep. There is no getting away from sheep in South America. They certainly like to stare at the passing motos.
At the second crossing the Chile Immigracions/Aduanas/Policia was lined up forever with vehicles and people.
Now what?? It was already getting late, and there was virtually no accommodation in this small section of Chile. I struck up a conversation with a local and found out this was the worst day of the year for lineups at the Frontier because several factories in Argentina close for 1 month for the holidays and today was the first day off. EVERYONE was heading north to “get away” for the holidays. We happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Good thing we had left ourselves some “buffer time” on this leg of the journey. About 90 minutes later we headed out to the Argentina border crossing which was much faster.
That hurdle out of the way we drove the next 80 kms to Rio Grande where we checked in for the night, at about 9:00 PM. 12 hours to go 384 kms was not “making great time”. But it was still light outside!! We are now far enough south that we are experiencing 18 hours a day of sunshine!! Those of you in Calgary experiencing 8 hours (if the sun is even out) can dream. Yes, it’s too bad you all can’t be here to enjoy “Summer in December”.
