30th December Torres del Paine – Lago Roca Nat Park des Les Glaciers 223 miles

Rose and packed up camp and finally left the park, over a 3 -4 mile stretch the temperature drops from 23.5 to 20 and then rises to 25, bizarre. We are heading towards a border we are unsure whether we will be able to cross. If it is open it will save us at least 90 miles.
Lots more ripio, we have been on this for 3 days now and it seems to phase us less. We approach a small town off to our left and a few buildings on the cross roads with a barrier 50 metres ahead. We pull up by the barrier and an official waves us through and indicates for us to park. We then go to this building show our passports and hand in the temporary import document for the bikes and thats it, took about 3 minutes. So we are now out of Chile and head towards the Argentinean border which is 10k away. We arrive at this little outpost and clock in to migration, they have a power cut so no computers. Passports stamped and we walk 2 metres to custpms but no officials, we can smell food and hear voices but no one shows. The office looks like a front room, sofas, easy chairs, tv and dog lazing in front of the fire. We thought that perhaps they were waiting for4 the power to return but a coach driver just said ‘siesta’. After about half an hour nthis chap appears and 10 minutes later we are out of there.
During our wait we had started chatting to a couple of families with about 5 kids between them, they were also waiting for our official to show his face. They enquired about our trip and when said we were heading up to the North and going into Columbia they were really excited as that is where they were from, even one of the fathers who had so far been quite quiet started talking rapidly in Spanish and asking his wife to translate. We now have some more places to visit on our way through and apparently it is really beautiful, we will look forward to that.
Outside it was the normal routine of photos by the bike followed by photos on the bike, it would be quite profitable if we had a pound for each person who has sat on our bikes. It is fantastic for us to raise so much interest and everyone is so friendly and helpful, trucks and cars flashing us as we pass.
Moving on from the border we have a bit more ripio then tarmac, a gas station pops up out of nowhere so we top up as is our routine now. The Columbians call at the same station and then move on and we stop for a quick coffee.
Now we can do 150 miles on tarmac or 70 miles on ripio, and this is Route forty, we take the ripio and it is not bad at first but then we have boulders, or so it seems and finally, terra as the coach driver explained it, hard packed soil. Alexandro in Puerto Arenus had advised us to use this route but not if it had rained the previous day, the hard pack soil is extremely slippery after rain. It was no problem and sadly we sort of enjoyed doing the ripio on route 40, speed is up now to 50 -60 and it doesseem a liitle easier as we are keeping the front wheel light and it dsoesn’t wander as much.
On our way to El Calefate we reach an altitude of 750 metres, nothing strange about that other than we did not realise we had been climbing. We now have a fantasic view looking down towards a lake with the Andes as a backdrop, more photos, naturally and I unsuccessfully attempt a panoramic.

Now dropping 500 metres we arrive in El Calefate to get money and some provisions. Funnily enough we see the pimped Audi Quattro look alike we had seen on the other side of the country, we give him a toot and a wave. Now off to the campsite recommended by the German couple in Cerro Sombreroand we start on a ripio road. Martin asked if this was OK, its about 30 miles this way or 60 to go round, we always do ripio immediately after buying fresh eggs!!
Well we heading directly into the sun which is now low in the sky and a van came towards us and passed and we could not see anything for about 60 - 90 seconds. This is ridiculous, I am riding one handed and shielding my eyes against the sun with the other, no we will go the long way round. We eventually weave our way down to the road we should be on dirve again with the sun straight into our eyes. At least now we are not worried about the surface and there are no white outs as a vehicle goes by. Martin however is most put out for having travelled all the way round we now have 20 miles of ripio to do, thankfully without the sun. He later discovered that we did at least half of the route we were originally on, such is life, we are here now safe and sound.
Quite late now so we get the tents pitched and cook a meal as it gets dark. When in Ushuia darkness came at about 11pm, we are now moving North and it is dark by about 10.35.
Tomorrow, Moreno Glacier and we will stay the night in Calefate and try to catch up with some Wifi as we have been incommunicado for about 3 or 4 days now, also it is New Years Eve so we will see if we can find a few people to share the evening with.