Recently I looked through an old travel diary after I had told a story on driving in Tierra del Fuego (literally Land of Fire), which I had to some extend already written about [1], but there's more to tell. I've been to Tierra del Fuego in 1990, 2006 (all happened during this trip) and in 2017.
We were rushing from El Chaltén to Cerro Sombrero on Tierra del Fuego, which wasn't planned this way as we had to cross the border from Argentina to Chile and take a ferry, and on top of this we were driving about 630 km mostly on gravel tracks and this takes time. We intented to stay in Rio Gallegos, but it didn’t look too nice, so we went on. After crossing the border to Chile, we thought to stay in San Gregorio, but all rooms were taken by workers repairing the roads (a paved road on this stretch). It had already been far into the evening. Then we had to catch the night ferry at Punta Delgado to cross the Magellan Street and reached Cerro Sombrero around midnight. It's about 80 km from San Gregorio to Cerro Sombrero.
The next day was to be an exciting day - different landscapes and an accident. In the morning we went to get gas and noticed that one tyre had lost some air (left front tyre). We pumped up the tyre and drove first to Bahía Inútil [2], looked at remains of an estancia and an old graveyard; didn't care too much about the car. These stops had been 80-90 km after we've left Cerro Sombrero.
Another 66-65 km later a tyre blew out while driving down a slope. The car didn’d react anymore and I feared that it turned over, which luckily it didn’t do. Off road we were sliding down on that slope despite breaking, but we were lucky, as our car was caught by a livestock fence. And our streak of luck continued! Two minutes later one of the few vehicles on this lonely road stopped – a bus of and to the border post - and the border guards helped us changing the tyre. Now, we still had some problems: we had to go back to Villa Cameron, about 25 km away, the spare tyre had hardly any air, one break wouldn’t loose it’s grip (right backward wheel), and we had to call the rental agency. So we went back to Cameron, where we asked for help at an administrative building: we called (with the help of a nice young lady) the rental office. They had a compressor to pump up the tyre. With the help of the janitor (the husband of the local nurse, who serves more than 10,000 sqkm) [3] I was able to fix the break. Rosa, the nurse, didn’t want us to leave as we had to go about 100 km and she feared we might not find the remote Hosteria Las Lengas in the darkness. I remember her saying: „Pero la Sra. alcalde también pasa por aquí. Puede llevárselo.” But we decided do go on. And soon we were well into the night. When we got there, we knew, Rosa's fear wasn’t without reason. We asked at the border station, someone answered vaguely and wedrove for about 25 km through woods, through little pools, swamps to reach the remote hotel. When we stopped once (see picture), my friend's wife thought we had to spend the night in the forest. But „Praise the Lord, I saw the light“ [5], much like in Hank William's gospel song … no, but I saw a light behind some trees and we soon reached the hotel. Our hostess had to travel from her home in Punta Arenas, which took about 8 hours; I think she mentioned not driving via Villa Cameron but Rio Grande in Argentina and crossing the border at Rio Bellavista. Anyway, we were 3 hours earlier than her at our destination.
We've spent some time at Las Lengas and Lago Blanco. We also had to see the police to get a certificate about the accident, which we did and could settle this affair. The husband of our hostess, who owns the Hosteria and I don't know how much of the land and the lake, came for the weekend and brought us a new spare tyre from Punta Arenas. So we were lucky again! Don Alfonso also has been the mayor of the region [4]. The next day he had business in Argentina and drove with with his car through a ford of Rio Bellavista in frond of us, where we left for the Argentinian part of Tierra del Fuego, especially the border post.
About 20-30 km past the border we watched the left front wheel moving ahead of us and disappearing in the bushland to the left. The wheel suspension hit the gravel. I went into the wilderness and found the tyre. We had failed to retighten the screw-nuts. So I went back on the gravel road to look for the screw-nuts, which I didn't find. O.K., time to go back, I thought. In the mean time my friends met two Catalans, who spoke good French (my friend is Swiss and his wife is French), who helped with putting the wheel back into place. So the wheel was fastened only with three and not five screw-nuts. I had to retighten them every few kilometers. We reached Rio Grande and found a very able mechanic. But still I used every stop to make certain that the screw-nuts were tight.
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| Curious guanacos |
We had to go back to Las Lengas as we still had one tyre there and arranged for another stay. This time crossing Rio Bellavista wasn’t as easy as before, as the waterlevel had risen. Driving [6] into the river, one huge wave swept all over the car. When the car levelled inside the riverbed, the water reached to the windows. But I drove on and we got out ford and water without having problems with the engine. Only very little water entered at the left rear door. The river could have rolled us over. So again we were lucky!
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| My friend closing the border |
I think I've learned a lot during travels, even in unintended areas.
Links and Annotations:
[1] https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2009/04/2006-patagonia-chileargentina.html
[2] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%ADa_In%C3%BAtil The name had been coined by Captain Phillip Parker King, who verified that the bay offered no possibility "neither of anchorage nor of refuge, nor any other advantage for the navigator".
[3] At the time we didn't know that Villa Cameron [3a], this hamlet, is the administrative center of Timaukel [3b], which is a little less in area (12,850 km²) than Connecticut [3c] (14.357 km²), but Connecticut has 3.605.944 inhabitants and Timaukel just has 405.
[3a] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_(Chile)
[3b] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timaukel
[3c] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut
[4] I just tried to look up his full name, which is Don Alfonso de Lourdes Simunovic Ojeda, who had been alcade for about 40 years, starting from 1989. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?i=91053 and more recent article: https://archivo.laprensaaustral.cl/cronica/alfonso-simunovic-ojeda-alcalde-de-la-comuna-de-timaukel-daremos-prioridad-a-proyectos-que-vengan-de-punta-arenas-y-porvenir-para-poblar-pampa-guanaco/
[5] "I Saw the Light" by Hank Williams. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtolv9kM1qk
[6] I had written „diving into the river“ and corrected it to „driving into the river“, but diving isn't far from the truth.
PS. Here's the picture. I could not find. Coming back with the wheel in between the border and Rio Grande.
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