Day 35 - 09 Jan.2012 - Rio Gallegos

Yesterday on the campsite arrived a guy by bicycle. His name was Yura and he told us he had been on his way since July 2011. He said that he had never had a bicycle before and then one day he decided to cycle to Fireland! It is a bit like Forrst Gump, but on two wheels. Yura set off in Texas (USA) and has not stopped since then. With the minimum luggage and no map, using the sun and local people as his guide he has been on the road to the end of the world for approx half a year. And it was only while chatting to us when he found out that you have to cross through Chile before you can reach Ushuaia and as an Ukrainian citizen he would require a visa to enter Chile. He was a bit disappointed, as you would be after having done so many thousands of kilometres, but he said he would do anything to reach his destination – would it be flying back to Buenos Aires to get the visa organised or crossing to Argentina on a fisherman boat to bypass the border. And we keep our fingers crossed for him!
Today we set off shortly before ten. It seems pretty late considering that Yura left the camp site already at 7:00 in the morning! As there is only one way south here, that is Ruta 3, we were sure to meet him again somewhere along the road. And so we did. We stopped to have a brief chat. Yura mentioned that that he had not managed to get internet access yet and it was still not clear for him how to cross the Chilean part of Fireland to get to Ushuaia, as he requires a visa for Chile. Then suddenly he smiled and said “Or maybe I will do that Ukrainian style and cross the border illegally…yes, I might just do that.” We wished us good journey (Щасливої подорожі ‘Ščaslyvoji podoroži’ in Ukrainian) and went our way. It is a shame that most likely we will not meet again on our trip, as our pace of travel is so much apart. We still find it so amazing that he does his ‘caminho’ by bike. Just imagine that all the way from Texas in USA down to Fireland – incredible! And what a story! You meet guys like Yura and think that there is no such thing as mission impossible.
We arrived in Rio Gallegos and checked in into the hotel. The first person we met was Bob from Denver. He is travelling with his BMW motorbike from Middle America all the way down to Fireland. He said he did that trip some 9 years ago on a bicycle from Alaska but was getting too old for the bike with his 67 years. In any case both times quite an achievement considering his age.
As we were approaching 10,000km on the road, an oil change was necessary for the car and got it done at a local YPF service station.
Once back at the hotel, we met José and Flores and their families from Poços de Caldas (Minas Gerais) in Brazil. As they had only one month holiday, they are doing almost the same trip as we do in 30 days – a lot of road to get trough for that tight time scale. We arranged to go out for dinner and had a nice evening together.