Riding out of Santos felt great!! A bit like riding out of Singapore on the first day actually - a sort of deja vu… We were reluctantly leaving a very good new friend in Reynaldo (and his cozy house), but we were bursting to see what South America had to offer us. The first kilometers felt liberating but after another couple of hundred our butts started to hurt. We forgot what it’s like to sit on a motorbike for hours on end… On the first day we reached Curitiba and stayed with a fellow motorcycle traveler - Reginaldo. Reginaldo plans to travel in Central Asia soon. We swapped stories, got some good tips on the route in Patagonia and were on our way again taking the most direct route for the Argentinian border, where the price of fuel (US$0.85) is almost half that of Brazil.

We bypassed Iguazu Falls, Paragway and Uruguay knowing that we’ll visit them all later. At the border with Argentina things were super easy. Actually there wasn’t even a Brazilian checkpoint! The only issue we had was with Iza’s bike. The customs guys were a bit confused about Iza traveling with a Polish passport, on a Brazilian motorbike, claiming to reside in Brazil and not knowing any portugese!! Apparently tourists cannot take a Brazil registered motorcycle out of the country. After some convincing that Iza does in fact live in Brazil (we showed them her CPF - tax number and address) they sent us on our way.

Finally in Argentina! The land of wine and steaks. Actually we’re still to taste a REALLY good steak (probably because of the low budget places we go to), but we can definitely confirm that Argentina has some great ‘chorizo’ (sausage) and cheap, good wine. Even a wine for as low as US$1.50 comes in a nice looking bottle and tastes pretty good
The 800km’s or so to Buenos Aires was straight, flat and boring. Things seemed very developed. Fencing ran along each side of the highway, the road surface was perfect and a fully stocked service station (complete with WiFi) was no more than 50km away. Then again, maybe our perception of what is ‘developed’ has changed somewhat after Africa…

We were coming into Buenos Aires on Ruta14, infamous for its crooked cops. Surprisingly however, we didn’t get stopped once at any of the checked points and reached Buenos Aires in one piece, none of our pesos ‘missing’. This time BsAs (as it’s known) was only a transit point to pick up some packages that were sent to us via the house of a ‘friend of a friend’ - Gustavo. In a matter of hours Gustavo and his family became our very good friends as well! We speak limited espanol and they don’t speak ingles, but with the help of a little wine and google translator we had a fun evening. Gustavo used to race 55cc scooters and he was apparently pretty good at it too…

The next morning we set off south for the 3,000km+ journey to Ushuaia - the southern most town in the world - or so the guide book says, but it all sounds a little fishy to us. We took Ruta3, which finishes just past Ushuaia and is supposed to be the most ’southern ending’ highway in the world as well The days were long and boring, the hours dragging on as we ticked of the kilometers along the flat and featureless landscape. We enjoyed the open spaces and the wild camping was cool, but the novelty eventually wore off and as one day turned into the next and the temperature dropped, we couldn’t wait to finally hit the hills of Tierra del Fuego.

7 days later we finally crossed the Megallan Straights and entered this mythical ‘land of fire’. By this time the temperature had dropped into single figures and it was raining non-stop. We were freezing! Our travel worn boots were useless in this weather and each night we would take off wet socks, only to put them back on the next day, colder and a bit stiffer
Our gloves weren’t better either. With the winter ones still ‘missing’ in Morocco, we were forced to improvise. We developed our own 3-layered glove: 1.a thin handyman’s glove 2.a pair of rubber dish washing gloves and 3.a thick handyman glove. For a total price of about US$10, they weren’t too bad!!

Other highlights during the first 2,500km were Magellan penguins, a first flat tyre for Kamil, a first oil change in the Bros and a bee sting on the neck for Iza… ouch!

There were also two border crossing in and out of Chile, which seemed really pointless but were unavoidable if we wanted to reach Tierra del Fuego itself.

The ride into Ushuaia was better than we expected - others had told us it’s an anticlimax. The rain had eased and we could enjoy the scenery of pine forest, lakes and snow capped mountains. The town itself is nothing special - again better than expected, but lacks uniqueness for something at ‘the end of the world’. Actually it’s a lot like something you’d find in Austria. The prices of accommodation are also similar to that in Europe, so we decided to camp. Brrr… we had the coldest nights of the trip so far…

Not having the cash to go further south (it’s about US$4000 to visit Antarctica), we’ll do an about face and head north, back towards Buenos Aires. This time we’ll track along Argentina’s western border with Chile along Ruta40, also crossing the Andes into Chile itself.