Friday 17 March 2923 500Km
The weather this morning is cold as I head out of Ushuaia North on Ruta 3. Todays weather forecast promised snow on the mountains, looking at the mountain as the road climb towards the Garibaldi Pass I could see more snow had fallen whilst I had been in Ushuaia. The bike’s external temperature gauge started to fall, when I reached the pass the temperature fell to 1℃ and snow was falling. There was some slush on the road surface, although thankfully not enough to cause me any concern, by now I was cold and looking forwards to descending the mountain into what I hoped was warmer weather.
As I rode the 209 Km to Rio Grande the sky cleared and it got warmer, a pleasant ride retracing my steps North. At Rio Grande I refuelled the bike and then went back a few miles before turning onto a gravel road heading to Lago Blanco. Lago Blanco is a beautiful lake, our accommodation tonight is a very isolated farm on the banks of the lake. When I was there last in 2018 all the electrical power was provided by a generator which was switched off when everyone went to bed so there was no power and lighting during the night.
I was looking forwards to the gravel road heading to the Chilean border and Lago Blanco, I remember from my last trip there are good views with isolated buildings that have red corrugated roofs and a gravel surface that allows a good turn of speed. I turned onto the road in warm sunshine and set off at a brisk pace, taking care over the brow of hills and around bends in case the surface changed dramatically.
After 70KM I reached the Argentinian border post, this is on one side of the river, the Chilean border post was over the bridge on the far side of the river. Unusually there was a heavy metal barrier that looked locked, I waited with some of the others in the group whilst 3 soldiers headed in our direction with two lively dogs in tow. One of the soldiers was in shorts and it all started to look on lot less formal than most border posts. The soldiers told us that the bridge over the river had been washed away and the border post had been closed for 2 years. No wander the dogs were so pleased to see us, they obviously hadn’t had many visitors recently.
The bridge has gone, no border crossing here
We walked and inspected the river to see if we could get the bikes over which wasn’t going to work anyway, there were no customs or immigration staff at either border post, if we could have got the bikes over there was no one to process us and the bikes out of Argentina and into Chile. The soldiers tell us the nearest border post is San Sebastian which is 120Km away and is the border post we entered into Argentina on the way to Ushuaia.
Nothing for it, we all head back the way we have just come. We met Paul the guide on the way back and explain the situation, the plan is to head back to Rio Grande and sort out what to do next when we get there. By the time I get back to Rio Grande Paul had booked accommodation at the hotel we stayed in at Cerro Sombrero 3 nights ago. After a detour of some 240Km I arrive at the hotel, tired and happy that the day was such a good adventure.
