Change of Plan

Meeting with the trucking company folks yesterday they advised that due to a backlog of cargo and the upcoming Christmas and New Year’s Holidays they wouldn’t be able to truck the bike from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires until mid January, and that it was a four day trip.
We return to Ushuaia, from our cruise on 4 January. Although Ushuaia is a fine little city the though of sitting there for a couple of weeks killing time waiting to truck the bike wasn’t appealing. What to do?

Although many have warned us of problems with the police in Argentina coming down to Ushuaia from Bariloche we had no problems. Talking with locals they say the real problems with the police are in northeastern Argentina up around Buenos Aires. This was a factor in planning a route to Santiago, Chile. I don’t want to ride roads already covered to came up with a new plan.

On 4 January we dock at 07:00 in Ushuaia. Sara will fly on the charter back to Buenos Aires and I’ll get the bike at the B&B where I left it and head for Santiago. The new route will allow me to re-cross the Straits of Magellan (another 80 miles of gravel and sheep to get there) and continue over to El Calafate and see the glacier. I’ll then drop down to Puerto Natels and board the Evangelistas and cruise to Puerto Montt (4 days) . From Puerto Montt its another three days to Santiago.

With luck I’ll arrive in Santiago on Sunday the 15th of January and process the bike to be sent air freight to Los Angeles (LAX). Hopefully this can be done in a day or two and I can then fly to Reno.

Again, the Adventure is teaching me patience and improving my ability to make changes ‘on the run’.

While on the MS Fram we cannot send photos as there isn’t enough band-width on the satellite connection. We’ll send out the Antartic photos when we return home or are in a port with Wi-Fi having the band-width to send photos. Many places say they have Wi-Fi, which they do, but they don’t tell you that its dial-up so pretty much useless in today’s world.

Also while I’m on the Evangelistas (10-13 January) there is no satellite connection or cellular coverage.

I’ll resume my blog (http://DeadhorseToUshuaia2011.blogspot.com) on 4 January. Those of you following me on SPOT are probably aware that we’re so far south that it has a difficult time connecting to the satellite so many times there won’t be waypoints for the day and very seldom an “I’m OK” message. This will pretty much be the case as I travel from Ushuaia to Santiago.

Sorry for such along explanation but I thought it would be a good idea to bring everyone up to date on what is happening with Doug and Sara.

Rgds./Doug


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Location:Jorge Cafrune,Ushuaia,Argentina