Oregon Cycling Magazine

Biking from the “End of the Road” in South America

by Peter Marsh

The Spanish word “Patagonia” seems to resound in English with a strange and mythic ring to it and I’ve longed to visit the southern end of South American for as long as I can remember. My fascination began in a geography class when I read about this region as one of the “last frontiers.” But over forty years have passed since that time, and it has become a popular tourist destination—especially after the crash of the Argentine currency.

Now there are new roads and hotels on the Argentine side, giving easier access to the southern Andes and the rock spires and ice caps that continue to challenge the world’s best mountaineers. In January 2006, I finally ran out of excuses. All I had to do now was pack for the heat of Buenos Aires in late summer and the cold of the Straits of Magellan during a rain storm… and check out my faithful folding Bike Friday.

At the end of January, I finished my monthly editing assignment in Portland, and left the cloudy skies of Oregon behind. The next morning, one stop in Chicago and 7,300 miles later, I walked out of Ezizza Airport carrying my backpack and rolling my suitcase. I caught a slow but ridiculously cheap bus ride to the city center. Buenos Aires seemed unlike any other Latin American city I had ever visited, a cross between New York and Mexico Cities that seemed to combine the better aspects of both.

I spent four days sampling the city’s tango halls and biking past its architectural wonders before setting off on the long bus ride south. The sixteen-hour overnight ride was tolerable, thanks to the reclining seats with footrests that allowed a semblance of sleep. By the time the sun rose, we were passing through the typical featureless, flat landscape that I would eventually discover stretched for over 1,000 miles.

Later in the morning I stepped off the bus in Puerto Madryn, the town that marks the northern edge of Patagonia. I unfolded my bike and rode down to the waterfront where a very familiar scene greeted me: a cruise ship was docked in this small port and the waterfront was full of tourists. A day’s bike ride south from here, I arrived at Trelew, where the Chubut River flowed into the sea, creating a thin strip of fertile land in this otherwise arid scene. It was here in the 1870s that a pioneer migration every bit as amazing as Oregon’s took place. It consisted entirely of traditional Welsh communities who wanted to farm their own land and preserve their language. (They all gave Welsh names to their settlements.) Many generations later, there are still enough people speaking Welsh here—as a second language—to continue their traditions.

I still had a long way to go, so after a weekend tour of the valley, I was ready for the 18-hour bus trip to Rio Gallegos, the Argentine town nearest to the fabled Straits of Magellan. The landscape did not change in all that distance, but the weather did! Here at the southern end of the continent, I quickly donned my pile jacket, warm hat and gloves, for the wind blew without a break with enough force to make long-distance cycling practically impossible.

I thought I would be one of the few who had any interest at all in the far south, but au contraire—the hostel was packed with backpackers from every wealthy country (except the US of course) including half a dozen Israelis who had just got out of the army. Their goal was Ushuaia, the most southerly city in the world, on the big island of Tierra del Fuego, and every seat on every bus south for days was booked. Finally, I found there is a bus twice a week to Punta Arenas, capital of Chile’s Magellanes province. Like it or not, this was my only option.

Three long days later, I was back onto a bus for a shorter ride along the straits and across the border into Chile. Now the dry vegetation turned to endless expanses of grass, fed by the rain clouds that blew in with the gales from the Pacific. A century ago, fortunes had been made here in sheep ranching and some of the money had been spent to build the mansions and banks that lined the streets at the center of Punta Arenas. Now it was the fleece-wearing tourists who were reviving local fortunes.

The Inter American Highway runs from Alaska to Panama-stops at the Darien Gap—then continues from Colombia all the way to southern Chile. I decided to ride the final stretch of this road as close as I could get to “the southern tip of the American continent.” Fortunately, I ran into a friendly couple from Georgia in the tourist office in the city plaza, and they kindly offered to give me and the Bike Friday a ride in that direction. I raced back to the hostel, pulled on my cycling clothes, packed a few essentials, and met them outside their hotel.

With the folded bike in the trunk, we set off south past farms and fishing boats pulled up on the beach for the summer—which we learned is the off-season! The road was tarmac for 30 kms, then turned to dirt, which was actually more mud as it had been raining during the night. We climbed a forested hill to reach a reconstruction of a wooden fort built there in the mid 1800s when Chilean missionaries and pioneers arrived in the area. From here, we could see the road winding around the bay past small cabins and showing no signs of quitting.

My hosts were not as interested in finding this mythic end-of-the-road as I was, but generously drove on for another 10 kms, across a bridge that was supposed to be the end of the line—then past a vacation camp that appeared to be run by a trade union. Finally the coast road turned into a trail, and it was time to get out! (There were definitely no signs saying “Most Southerly Road on the Continent!”) I quickly unfolded the bike and was off. The car passed me and I was alone.
I found the road was wet but still hard enough so that progress was easy, but it was around 5 kms to the bridge where the car was there waiting and my friends took a couple of pictures to mark the moment. Once that was taken care of, I settled in for the long haul. To my right was the beach and the Strait of Magellan, beyond that—Tierra del Fuego. To my left the land rose up into sheep country.

The further I went, the more traffic had driven down the road to the weekend getaway cabins, and the more rutted the surface became. But this was my day and I was ready for anything. The sun came out, and when I sat under a tree for a snack, I saw a school of dolphins swimming close to the shore. After about two hours I had covered 30 kms of dirt and could see the welcome sight of the tarmac road running over a small hill. I took a photo and continued happily on, only to find a strong wind in my face.

This is the weather that Patagonia is famous for, and I was glad that I had made aero-bars part of my standard touring equipment. With my head down and a smooth road under the tires, I made reasonable progress. After another 30 kms I could see far ahead the clipper ship wreck that we had passed at speed in the car. Now I had time to stop and admire it. The decks had clearly been cut away for scrap, but luckily, someone had decided to leave the rest as a monument to the Cape Horn era, and the iron plates were slowly rusting away. (Back home, I learned it was one of the Iredale fleet, like the Peter Iredale on Clatsop Beach.)

The wind continued to build in strength, and that night it was truly shaking the building and finding every little gap in the rather loose construction. From the hostel window, I could see the power lines bouncing and every loose item blowing down the hill. And this is summer!

So this sounds familiar: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 41. North northwest wind between 9 and 18 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.

Possibly Related

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• January 2008: Journey to the center of the world
• August 2008: Bend's Big Fat Tour
• September 2006: Oregon randonneurs take off
• June 2007: Biking across the roof of Mexico