In late 2024 my partner Paulina & I decided to leave Berlin and cycle from Ushuaia, Fireland to Colombia via Brasil. By now we cycled about 5,500 km & 50,000 m of altitude. So far we cycled Argentina & Chile and passed Fireland, Magallanes 🇨🇱, Santa Cruz (Fitzroy & Calafate) Argentina 🇦🇷, Carreterra Austral 🇨🇱, Ruta 7 Lagos 🇦🇷, Costa Chilena (VIII to V Region) 🇨🇱 and crossed the Argentinian central flats mostly hitchhiking (on pick-ups). Now we are in Posadas, Argentina.
Since both of us are not too much into the Metaverse & “social” media such as instagram, we started a Telegram-Channel sharing short text snippets & some pictures of the trip. To spread it a bit more I would also like to share it here. So far we have written 12 texts and will continue. (Feel free to PN me to get the Telegram-link.)
Since I am new to Reddit, I will try to publish Thread-alike here. 🧵🐥
1 & 2: Estación Sur: la llegada (February 2025)
It’s already two weeks ago that we arrived after an unplanned 2 day pitstop in Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego with our bicycles Esmeralda & Pablo. 🙂
It’s “summer” here, Patagonian summer: temperatures hardly hit 15C. Chilly winds & humidity make it often feel rather around the freezing point.
Week 1: Starting off in Ushuaia at a Couchsurfer Dave we visited national parks & reserves hiking to the border with Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego. From Ushuaia we took seemingly endless roads that were at the beginning foresty mountainous, and then fast turned into a hilly landscape that finally flattened into Pampa. Luckily strong tail winds from South-West pushed us easily more than 200 km from Ushuaia to the other two Argentinians towns on Tierra del Fuego. First, Tolhuin where we stayed at a bakery offering free beds, free hot water and typical mate tea to cyclists. Second, to Rio Grande the Argentinian capital of Tierra del Fuego.
In Rio Grande two Warmshowers hosted us for 3 days since a cough and head winds (or rather storms) from North-West made it impossible to continue cycling & camping. Pitching a tent in these storms up to 100 km/h would rip probably any tent. So that cyclists are forced to seek shelter elsewere: in abandoned huts & barns, under bridges and behind buildings. Also motorcyclists are forced to pause due to storms.
Week 2: It’s about 240 km to the next and last village Porvenir on the Chilean and western side of Tierra del Fuego. In between not much except for Pampa, dusty but mostly asphalt roads, guanacos (sort of llama🦙) and some fountains of distant whales in the Magellan street. The only edible we found was lentil stew offered by construction workers and so called “Calafate”, bitter Sanddorn-alike berries. Finally, we made our way in 2 days and an incredibly calm night without any winds to Porvenir. Mainly, hitchhiking a truck and cycling against headwinds.
From Porvenir Fireland’s most western and only Chilean town we took a ferry across the Magellan street to Punta arenas.
by knOlle92