April 8, 2010.  Today was a big day for us.  After 633 days on the road and 40,734 km of driving in Central and South America, we were finally arriving in Ushuaia (population 100,000), considered to be the “southernmost city in the world.”  Making the day even better was that we were driving into Ushuaia […]

Since we’ve arrived in Patagonia, we’ve seen literally thousands of sheep.  We pass them driving all the time, grazing in their pastures behind an endless fence that marks off each estancia (ranch).  We’ve passed gauchos (cowboys) on horseback followed by their herd of sheep or cattle herding dogs.  It seems that each gaucho has at […]

There are certain places Volkswagen buses shouldn’t be.  Today we discovered two of them.  First, a little background on the day.  There are two official border crossings in Tierra del Fuego where cars and people can cross from Chile to Argentina and vice versa.  The primary, more heavily traveled crossing is on the north end […]

With our successful river crossing out of the way, I felt like I could drive Mango to the moon.  We didn’t quite make it.  Darkness was setting in, so we decided to find a camping spot for the night.  About 10 km down the road, we noticed a side road that culminated a few hundred […]

As much as we try not to drive at night, lately we seem to arrive at our destinations as the sun is setting or just after.   This day was no different, and we arrived at Lago Blanco just past sunset.  Luckily, there was still enough light to illuminate the road and we saw our first […]

We rose early today and drove north across town towards the Punta Arenas ferry terminal.  There we had a date with the Transbordadora Austral Broom “Crux Australis” to sail across the Strait of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego and the town of Porvenir.  We’d been staring at Tierra del Fuego from the shores of Punta […]

A few weeks ago we visited the Perito Moreno Glacier, near El Calafate, Argentina.  It was an amazing experience as the glacier is immense, spanning more than 3 miles across and several stories high.  The glacier has the rare distinction of being classified as “stable”, meaning it is neither growing nor receding.  We sat for […]