A long day to Puerto Natales

Származási hely: Ushuaia-Puerto Natales

We left Ushuaia at 7 in the morning and had more than 800km difficult curvy, partially gravel road in front of us including the straight of Magellan. So we hit te road with our Hilux....

Let me some words about the car we have on our trip;
Toyota Hilux 2.5D 4x4 with an extended cab; 325Nm max torque and a 165km/h max speed. Maybe you remember it is the car, which made in Top Gear with J. Clarkson to the north pole.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0okxnPNWpb0&feature=related

I had high expectations; which were actually fulfilled after the first day:>, although its top speed should be a bit higher:>


We've got some new snow /don't forget it is summer here/ during the night again, which capped the mountains, we were driving through in the first 2 hours. Around 11 a.m. we reached the Chillean border, which was already on a flat pampa. It took us more than 1 hours to check out on 1 side and check 10km s later on the other side. I have to say it could been 15min shorter, if we wont have had an affair at the Chillean side, because of smuggling...... What we were smuggling???? You will wonder about it...We had a /morron/paprika left from our breakfast, which we forgot to declare to the customs. Like in the states you are not allowe to enter the countries here, with any fruits or food. They take it really seriously, I have to say. The customs guy found the single peace of paprika routinously in a few minutes.
I can recommend him, if you don t find any food next time in your fridge or at home at all:>>>

Just after the boarder the asphalt road finished. That far we made an average of 105kmh according to the GPS. The time of the Hilux and me stated here:>
I wanted to keep the tempo we had that far and reach the ferry at the straight of Maellan as soon as possible. After some adaptation and switching to 4x4 we were travelling comfortably through the pampa. We saw some guanachos /lama type animals/ lambs and some big trucks slipped away from the road. At 1 p.m. we reached the straight of Magellan and luckilly, we could drove directly on the ferry without waiting a minute. You have to know here, that the ferry circulates only onces every 2 hours....

We drove already 400kms at that point and saw only a single fuel station. So the next task was to find an other one. We' ve got the advice from a local guy to drive a 40km to the next one, which we found just close to an oil raffinery, but it was closed unluckily. Opening times 9-10 a.m. and 6-7 p.m..>
At that point the story tarted to be exciting in the middle of nowhere.... At the end we found an other one 100km s furthe on the road in the last minute. Next problem; no cards are excepted, cash is the king.... We solve that as well somehow. After 200 more kms we reached our destination Puerto Natales and had a nice lamb steak for dinner at Tata s restaurant.

The latest pictures;
http://picasaweb.google.de/szaipandras/UshuaiaPuertoNatales#

Summarised it was an exciting and exhausting day as well. Probably I wont blog in the next two days, because we go kayaking, horse riding and hiking the Torres del Pain.... I think it might happen that I won t find internet in the wilderness..