It was quite an emotional day leaving the Abra Ushuaia..... Marga and Hector had been exceptional hosts to us and we had enjoyed practicing our Spanish on them almost as much as they had enjoyed practicing their English on us.... The hostel dog, Kaitek, knew something was up because she was pining around us all day as we made our final preparations to leave. So after getting our bikes and gear in order we mounted up and headed down ruta 3 with Marga and Hector waving us off literally until we were almost out of sight. We had no set destination for the first day choosing instead to play it by ear - or more correctly, by aching thighs.
The road out of Ushuaia took us up through our first little Andes. Finally crossing over them at the Paso Garibaldi. The road between Ush and Garibaldi is excellent - paved, without too much traffic and with absolutely breathtaking views... There was only a light breeze blowing and we ended up climbing up and out of the Paso Garibaldi at about 3pm, we had gone from near Sea Level to 490m above sea level in the space of a day.... this was our first taste of altitude but it won´t be our last.
On our way up to the Pass we noticed that the people tend to bib their horns and wave encouragement to you on their way past.... we´re guessing that they´ve seen a lot of tourists in their time!
Before we descended out of the Pass to our first stealth campsite by Lago Escondido we stopped at a Mirador (Viewing Point) to get some photos of the view over Lago Escondido and also Lago Fagnano..... Interestingly here was one of the first reminders that the Argentinian people still seem to hold the issue of the Falklands quite close to their heart..... the Mirador is graffitied with two slogans, the first: "Islas Malvinas = Argentino" (Islas Malvinas is the Argentinian name for the Falklands) and "Ingleses son piratas" (The English are Pirates)..... Photos of this fine political rhetoric will be on the website soon!
From the Mirador we had about 5km of pure downhill along a winding road cut into the side of a cliff face - it was fun! Especially after climbing for most of the day.
We stopped off the road just past the tiny Pueblo of Lago Escondido and were all asleep by sunset.
There is not much to report on the third day - it was simply a transit day really. The landscape became slightly more bleak and the wind got up a little bit but we pushed hard all day to reach what we thought would be a fair sized town - Tolhuin, on the Shores of Lago Fagnano. We needn´t have bothered!
It´s wrong to badmouth a place when you only spend a night there but the town of Tolhuin was in all honesty a bit of a hole. It looks like a back water town that has twigged that it has massive tourist potential and then upped all the prices without offering any service. I think the worst offer we had was a shared room in a hostel type centre for 200 pesos..... when you consider that we only spent 120 pesos on staying in the Abra Ushuaia for a week you can see how this annoyed us a bit. All the roads were ripio (unpaved) and everything had a run down / decrepit look about it. We were finally directed in the direction of a campsite right on the banks of the lake. We rode down to the site expecting nothing.... we were pleasently surprised to discover Camping Hain. A beautiful campsite on the shore of this beautifully blue, millpond lake surrounded by imposing tree covered hills. All for the princely sum of 8 pesos a night! We were also privileged to meet Roberto the dueño of this little site. We spent a very pleasant night here before starting our turn north up towards Rio Grande, where apparently there might be some wind..........
The road out of Ushuaia took us up through our first little Andes. Finally crossing over them at the Paso Garibaldi. The road between Ush and Garibaldi is excellent - paved, without too much traffic and with absolutely breathtaking views... There was only a light breeze blowing and we ended up climbing up and out of the Paso Garibaldi at about 3pm, we had gone from near Sea Level to 490m above sea level in the space of a day.... this was our first taste of altitude but it won´t be our last.
On our way up to the Pass we noticed that the people tend to bib their horns and wave encouragement to you on their way past.... we´re guessing that they´ve seen a lot of tourists in their time!
Before we descended out of the Pass to our first stealth campsite by Lago Escondido we stopped at a Mirador (Viewing Point) to get some photos of the view over Lago Escondido and also Lago Fagnano..... Interestingly here was one of the first reminders that the Argentinian people still seem to hold the issue of the Falklands quite close to their heart..... the Mirador is graffitied with two slogans, the first: "Islas Malvinas = Argentino" (Islas Malvinas is the Argentinian name for the Falklands) and "Ingleses son piratas" (The English are Pirates)..... Photos of this fine political rhetoric will be on the website soon!
From the Mirador we had about 5km of pure downhill along a winding road cut into the side of a cliff face - it was fun! Especially after climbing for most of the day.
We stopped off the road just past the tiny Pueblo of Lago Escondido and were all asleep by sunset.
There is not much to report on the third day - it was simply a transit day really. The landscape became slightly more bleak and the wind got up a little bit but we pushed hard all day to reach what we thought would be a fair sized town - Tolhuin, on the Shores of Lago Fagnano. We needn´t have bothered!
It´s wrong to badmouth a place when you only spend a night there but the town of Tolhuin was in all honesty a bit of a hole. It looks like a back water town that has twigged that it has massive tourist potential and then upped all the prices without offering any service. I think the worst offer we had was a shared room in a hostel type centre for 200 pesos..... when you consider that we only spent 120 pesos on staying in the Abra Ushuaia for a week you can see how this annoyed us a bit. All the roads were ripio (unpaved) and everything had a run down / decrepit look about it. We were finally directed in the direction of a campsite right on the banks of the lake. We rode down to the site expecting nothing.... we were pleasently surprised to discover Camping Hain. A beautiful campsite on the shore of this beautifully blue, millpond lake surrounded by imposing tree covered hills. All for the princely sum of 8 pesos a night! We were also privileged to meet Roberto the dueño of this little site. We spent a very pleasant night here before starting our turn north up towards Rio Grande, where apparently there might be some wind..........
