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Crossing the Strait of Magellan

We were supposed to leave at 7am since it’s an approx. 500km drive from our bush camp to Ushuaia. We also have to cross the border going from Chile into Argentina again which can take a while. Some people in our travel group seem to be early birds and even get up two hours or so before the scheduled departure to do whatever. As soon as they start to make some noise, like putting down their tents, my night is over as well. When I got up around 6:30am it was 12 degree which is not too cold for sleeping in a tent. Personally, I find camping in high altitude much more uncomfortable.

Breakfast was a truck breakfast again, meaning we were eating while being on the road in order to save time. Today’s cooking group served some yoghurt and bananas. The special feature of the bananas were little texts on them like “The WiFi password is: Banana” or “You have a nice bush” which we all enjoyed.

After driving for 30 minutes we arrived at the Strait of Magellan which is separating the Argentinian mainland from Tierra del Fuego (“Land of Fire”). Interestingly, Argentina mainland is not connected to Tierra del Fuego and when you want to travel there overland you have to cross Chile. The Magellan Strait is approx. 500km long and named by the explorer Magellan who was the first one successfully driving through the passage and ending up in the Pacific Ocean.

Luckily we were one of the first ones lining up for the first ferry boat crossing the Magellan Straits at 8am. The ride was approx. 30min and while hanging out on deck I met a Chilean business man who is in the tire business and had a quick chat with him.

We stopped for lunch half a kilometer before the border in San Sebastian. We had to consume all fresh food such as vegetables, fruit and meat because it’s not allowed to take it into Argentina and we didn’t want to end up in trouble in case they inspect our truck. Since it started to rain, the cooking group prepared all sandwiches for us in the truck while we were chilling out in a little café close by. The café had a very unique atmosphere since it was decorated with local antiques. One of them was an old gas lamp which was not just illuminating the room but also heating it up a bit.

We arrived in Ushuaia around 6pm. We will stay here for three nights with six people sharing a room in a local hostel.