Day 81

44,877 – 45,048    171  Miles (22,348 Miles Overall)

Ushuaia, Argentina – Estancia Moat, Argentina

THE REAL END OF THE WORLD

So late last night Lorin broke the news to me that where I went for the famous photo wasn’t quite the end of the road or the most south you can go here in Ushuaia. He found out there’s a more southern part. Well fuck me.

I woke up this morning and got some breakfast and met up with Lorin and his wife. We chatted for about an hour and then  on my way back to the hostel to relax i said fuck it im gonna go for this ride to the real southern most part. It was a 3 hour ride one way so I was in for a long day. Lorin said I could shave some off the ride since I was going solo with no luggage. I went home and made up my mind. I was hoping to leave tomorrow to head north so I wouldn’t have any more time to do it. I threw on all my heavy winter gear with my jacket and heated gloves and made a run for it. GPS said 3 hours and the roads were paved for 25 or so miles until I hit dirt. The dirt was quite nice. I was keeping it up at about 65-70mph most of the ride until the road got a bit worse and i was keeping it at about 50mph. My bike was taking a beating and my tire was bald as fuck but i didnt care. I was flying!

I hit a few turns and didn’t know how sharp the turn was and the back end started to go out on me between locking it up and taking my foot off the brake. I got real close to the edge of the road a few times. The road I was riding was along the Strait of Magellan. It was cold as hell and windy along the ocean here. I kept ripping along thinking about what to do for the rest of my trip. The hostel owner told me no one wanted my bike. Big surprise.

I came up on a turn and realized i might have fucked up real bad on this one. The road had a sharp curve to the right with a 2 foot berm on the edge and on the other side was a 15-20′ drop into a river. I locked up the back wheel and tried to get the bike to turn to the right but it kept sliding. I cant believe im about to eat shit and crash again. i start to realize i can’t lock up the back wheel and get my leg out this time because my braking foot is going to be hitting the ground unlike last time. I look to the right more and theres a large bridge coming up and if i dont straighten this thing out soon im gonna possibly kill myself on the bridge beam. I keep ending on the brake and kicking the back end out trying to lean the bike over more and more and im literally riding on thin ice for this whole part. The 22k miles I rode on my trip might have gotten me ready for this moment.

Between locking up my wheel and letting it ease up 6-7 times I eventually got the bike around the corner just inches from the edge. I didn’t crash! FUCK

I did this about 5 more times the rest of the ride. Really riding on the edge here on my last ride and my last time heading south on this trip. I told myself to calm down about 50 times but I didn’t listen obviously. I was having too much fun clearing my head. I got to the end of. the road at the lighthouse and took a few pics and turned around. There was a big storm coming and I was wondering what Lorin was thinking about me right now because it’s definitely raining back in town. I did the 3 hour ride in about 1:40. I was hauling ass!

I stopped for a bunch of pics here and there. The trees here are wild because they literally grow sideways with how strong the winds are all the time. The winds on the ride back were probably gusting to 60 which was scary. I got pushed off the road once and almost went down. A car swerved at one point when he saw me while he was on my side of the road and he spun out and hit the wall of dirt. I kept riding. Not my fault and I don’t need to be here when cops show up since I didn’t get insurance yet.

The temps were pretty cold with the wind it was about 41 degrees. I was happy to get back into town around 4:45pm. I got my bike washed at a shop which I needed badly. I don’t see myself riding too much dirt from here on out since the way up is all paved i think on route 3. I dropped off some money I owed Lorin and a bottle of wine as a thank you for grabbing my tire a few days ago from the post office. I got a shitty little dinner in town and caught up on a few things. I packed all my stuff up so I can head out early tomorrow morning. I have a 5.5 hour ride to the ferry with a border crossing and I heard they closed the ferry today for a few hours because the winds were so bad. There’s probably a line of cars with people sleeping at the ferry station because of how backed up it is with the end of the holidays.

I’ll try to get up at 6am tomorrow to get on the road to beat the high winds and hopefully before the ferry shuts down tomorrow for the afternoon.