Nov. 14, Torres Del Paine to Rio Grande
We were on the road around 9:15, in 3 degrees, rain and sleetand with very little visibility (we lucked out having seen the towers; today there are many tourists who will see only fog and rain and sleet and snow, and no view). We climbed back up the mountain past Lago del Toro to our left, tracking back away from Torres del Paine, and we had at least 1.5 hours of sleet and snow that finally let up as we pulled into Puerto Natales for gas.
We continued southeast on Route 9. with more rain and sleet and intermittent sun. The prairie was very flat with very short trees resembling mesquite (will explain more about these later). Soon, we drove up in altitude to bare, high plains again with more sheep and cows scattered in every direction (I thought I had seen a lot of sheep before this, but no!)
Around 1:30, we turned north on Route 255 to follow the Straight of Magellan and its tributaries to Punto Delgada to take the short ferry across the straight south onto Tierra Del Fuego. As the common knowledge professes, and I will confirm, YES, it is VERY windy. Hard-to-open and close-the-car-door, windy. WEATHER is the story again! And the VASTNESS of the LAND! We kept on, and saw literally nothing except prairie until the Straights of Magellan appeared, and we came upon shipwrecks on the beach in the abandoned town of San Gregoria. We waited an hour for the ferry, which turned out to be large but not a double-decker, with lots of commercial trucks aboard and maybe 5 passenger cars. It was a 30-minute crossing with a partially cloudy sky.
We drove off of the ferry to…Tierra del Fuego, the weather clear, sunny, and very windy, 11 degrees. Again, there is nothing much to see, but, oddly, it is breathtaking! It is flat. Patagonian horses, more sheep and guanacos dominate the view from the Amarok..and, then there is the sky. There is so much sky, above a ranch or two here and there. With 3 hours to go to Rio Grande.
The plains go on forever and ever… it’s an enormous scale impossible to describe and even harder to photograph (although, I tried!), with no mountains in the distance, only clouds of all shapes on the horizon. We drove through more weather and at one point, we followed a half-arc rainbow for 15 minutes, and I was able to get a few shots.
By 6pm, the temperature was falling fast, down to 5 degrees. We finally reached the border (to enter Argentina again) with more variable weather. We had an easy crossing and then more of the same, but now we were seeing many very large estancias (ranches) with literally thousands of sheep and even a few oil pumps. Clouds on the horizon all around could be mistaken for snow-covered mountains for a time, and then we turned south along the Atlantic coast, and rows of colorful houses along the shore and seaside cliffs appeared in the distance just outside Rio Grande.
We didn’t have high expectations for the city of Rio Grande (a necessary stop on the way to Ushuaia) but it was impressive. It is an industrial town with warehouses, manufacturing, construction, computers, auto, and logistics buildings, all glistening with light from the water at sunset. With a population of around 100,00 people or more, Rio Grande consists of the industry mentioned, and lots of split-level homes and apartments in the center of town.
PHOTO LINK FOR TORRES DEL PAINE TO RIO GRANDE LEG IS HERE:
Himmel Blau Rentals: We stayed at an Airbnb-like apartment, where everything was automated. A beautiful 2 bedroom apartment in a lovely neighborhood with cafes and shops; we entered the building and the apartment with the codes given to us via WhatsApp, and that was it for the night. Quiet, clean and very efficient!
