Sunday, February 10, 2013

Day 15: Rio Grande – Punta Arenas

Last night, we slept in Rio Grande: hotel with sea view, please... and gas station in between the hotel and the sea. After a quick breakfast, we hurried to leave: we had one border to cross and 150km of gravel.

We crossed the Argentinean border without any problems and we thought the Chilean one will be the same. We didn't forget the red tape we had been through 2 days ago. Immigration: ok, custom: ok, agriculture: ok, luggage inspection: zealous lady. Yes, zealous lady. We had to open all our bags!! Just to give you an idea, it takes us up to 30 mins to pack everything on the bikes in the morning when we leave. We had to unpack and pack again everything. Miji didn't hide his emotions and besides throwing the bags loudly on the floor he did a quick strip with pants down to rearrange his clothes... Poor lady excused herself, but there was no need. We were just exhausted and she was just doing her job.

Before reaching Porvenir, we drove on a gravel road alongside the Pacific's shore. At one moment, Isabel shouted: "dolphins!!!!". Hadrien and Mijail braked like crazy knowing Isabel's fondness for maritime animals. The dolphins were jumping, doing flips and swimming backwards for us! What a nice surprise to watch this spectacle during our last day.




We had a good lunch in Porvenir, a small desolated town which once made the paper, a century ago, because of a gold rush.

We embarked our motorbikes into the ferry. The trip was surprisingly accompanied by diving and jumping penguins and we even spotted a group of sea lions.

Two hours later we reached Punta Arenas. It was then the rush to prepare the luggage for our flight, give back our motorbikes, have a last memorable dinner and sleep 3 hours before taking our flight.



Epilogue
Now this adventure is over. We didn't have one day of bothering rain, the weather was always perfectly on our side (except the wind which sometimes was on the wrong side). We are all tired, exhausted, done; but very happy to have made it, to have experienced all those amazing landscapes, delicious meals, excellent weather, good laughs and from time to time also a bit of grrrrr. It was entirely worth it but required a lot of preparation.

We are now taking a 1-week well deserved vacation. Mijail & Isabel are flying to Mendoza, Argentina, to spend time with Mijail's family. Hadrien is going for a few days to Buenos Aires and Montevideo.

We thank all those who followed us regularly on the blog, in their hearts or both and also all those who contributed to the fundraising.



Until the next one!!!!

6 comments:

  1. FELICITACIONESSSS DESDE MONTEVIDEO-URUGUAY !!!


    CONGRATULATIONSSS FROM MONTEVIDEO-URUGUAY !!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Que espectacular!!!!! me alegro de verles pronto para que me cuenten en vivo y directo!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congratulation on this ambitious adventure!
    I enjoyed following your trip these past 15 days.
    Glad to see Hadrien still has his legendary clumsiness. ;)

    Paco

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Paco!

      It is indeed le-gen-da-ry!
      :-D

      Delete
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