The Motorcycle Diaries: Day 5: No Passage

Rafael awoke me to a beautiful sunrise (as one travels further south the sunrise occurs earlier during the summer. 5:30am this morning. Although I am a night person by nature I started to appreciate the benefits and beauty of the early morning hours). Following the same pattern as all week, we quickly packed our things and continued the race south, to Ushuaia, Argentina, only today would be more extreme: Highway, a quick stop at the gas station barely long enough to use the bath room or have a quick snack, then back on the road heading south. Gas stations in this region were becoming dangerously scare so we decided (given the fuel consumption of our bikes) we better stop at every gas station (about every 150km), just in case. By now the vegetation had become practically non-existent featuring a few yellow stains of grass here and there. Surprisingly there were more sheep visible (later I learned that this species of sheep actually likes this yellow grass and lives quite well in these conditions). The roads were getting a bit windier, at times following the coast line, at times cutting through the continent with every day traveling south the wind was blowing stronger and the temperature dropped. I even felt that the color and glow of the sunlight was changing (the locals, however, kept telling me that this has been an unusually warm and tranquil summer, so I should feel lucky).

After 10 hours on the road and 800km we finally reached our destination for the day: Rio Gallegos, the last city on the mainland before crossing into Chile. Rafael still had energy left and wanted to proceed to cross the border some 70km further south. The Argentinean exit procedures were easy until we entered the custom’s office where we were told that the motorcycles had to stay in Argentina. No problem, we thought, our friend Fernando had prepared the necessary papers with a local attorney and notary allowing us to exit the country with our bikes. We showed the official all our documents but they were unimpressed telling us that they were invalid and that foreigners cannot leave the country with an Argentinean motorcycle (the only exception being a rental contract and special rental customs form which of course we did not have since the bikes were purchased not rented). All our attempts to “fix” the problem were unsuccessful and even the chief of customs had no sympathy for us. We were left no option but had to return. This was one of the few instances in my time traveling in Latin America were “no” really meant “no” with no way around it. The day was getting late and we returned to Rio Gallegos for the night.