It’s time to say good-bye to Ushuaia. After experiencing the end of the world we drive north again towards El Calafate. In order to go there we needed to leave Argentina, cross a part of Chile and enter Argentina again, all in one day. So the day was mainly about driving and crossing boarders.

Crossing into Chile was the same procedure as last time. We first had to see immigrations to get stamped into the country and then customs. Especially the customs officers take their job very serious since we again needed to get our whole truck inspected for fresh food and wood products. In addition our whole luggage got x-rayed and we needed to show the customs officers those products we are not sure about to find out if they are actually fine, need to be declared or get confiscated. The whole procedure took approx. 60 to 90min time.

While driving through Chile we again needed to cross the Strait of Magellan which is separating the South American mainland from the Tierra del Fuego. We needed to wait a few minutes for the ferry boat to arrive and Stuart, my fellow traveler from the UK, went for a walk along the shore of the channel. When moving the truck for about 500m to get to the place where we actually board the boat we drove by him and he thought we forgot him and might leave him behind. This made him hurrying up a lot to not miss the truck and the boat.

The crossing of the channel itself took 30min. The channel is quite wide and considered the most important natural waterway between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean. When we crossed the channel a couple of days ago the ferry was very crowded with all kinds of vehicles but this time we were the only big truck on the boat.

After driving for a while we crossed again the border into Argentina. Then we drove until it started to get dark and set up our camp next to a place which seemed to be a natural attraction. There were a number of cars parked and people looked at a crater filled with water which honestly wasn’t too exciting.

Today’s cooking group, consisting of Stuart and Kim, had a special challenge since due to the border crossing into Chile they weren’t allowed to buy any fresh food products since they would have been confiscated at the border. Given the special circumstances they did very well and prepared some lovely pasta with tined tomatoes and other types of tined vegetables.