Travel to Ushuaia by BUS


We boarded a bus in Puerto Madryn that took us to Rio Gallegos. The Bus ride started at five pmish and we got there after watching a couple of movies so it felt anywa …. There was a few hours of sleep… some of us more than others. The bus ride was comfy enough, but the chance to see Llamas running around in the morning mist was something that became fascinating and kept me from sleeping as we trundled across the mind numbingly flat and largely featurelss landscape. The arrival into an entirely non descript town was a little depressing, there was a HUGE Carrefour, some large Army barracks and nothing more really. The buildings are all little run down one storey shack types and we didn’t really want to hang out all day. There was only one bus a day to Ushuaia and the bus ride had been long enough, so we had made the decision to make a break. We walked around town and killed time for the day, Jen cooked a superb stew and we enjoyed some more cheap wine with our fellow travellers in another nice little hostel type place. The bus ride the next morning started out as an interesting ride... we didn’t move for an hour after arriving at eight thirty for it. There was another bus that looked a little nicer than left earlier which left a little more promptly.
Eventually, just as Jen had gone to the loo off the bus, it started to close the doors and reverse. I headed to the driver and had a few words in broken spanish made it clear he was being an asshole as he has just watched Jen get off the bus and the two extra minutes to his hour delay did not justify this lack of patience… I don’t think he understood or cared too much. It became clear the journey would be a long one, more that we expected, not more so, than at the first border crossing into Chile. The road does not follow an easy route, the terrain is highly politicised and borders seem to have been drawn by crayon at an asylum and make no sense. So, on the way to a city in Argentina, we crossed into Chile, most people handing over packed lunches and fruit to the border guards who must have a terrific lunch each day. They made it complicated to say the least, but it seems to be a LOT better than it used to be, with the border building now shared.
The Logical workflow at this border station would be to check in with the Argentians on one side and trapse through the building with bags to be Xrayed then reboard the bus. No. First enter and line up to leave Argentina. Then reboard the bus. Then get out again, take bags to the border desk and line up to have bags Xrayed infront of the Argentian border desk. The repack the bags and stand in line to have your passport stamped… at desks which sit behind the Argentians… very muddled, confused and time consuming. I suppose at least they have to make it appear they work for a living.That took three hours.
Through the beautiful but featureless landscape we trundled, as we had crossed into Chile the infrastructure was not really present, and the roads were dirt. The crossing of the Beagle Channel was fun. Driving down to the shore on a narrow concrete ramp we boarded a boat and started crossing through what appeared to be a very fierce current. Arriving the otherside and the first signs showed warnings of mine fields. Still not sure who the were to keep out. I then found a tangerine in my bag that had been X Rayed… and was pretty pleased. Ha.
The trip continued along the coast line and we had views of the roughest seas in the world on a calm day. It was wild and beautiful but quite flat. We had been warned that it might still be covered in snow by two travellers we had met who had been holed up in Ushuaia for a few days extra, but all we saw was green grass and lakes and rivers with wind whipping up the water into white caps. This continued for a good two hours until we were around ten hours into the trip when suddenly trees started appearing on the landscape..very deformed oak and beech trees we think. Then the bus stopped and we changed to a smaller older bus and were told it would be one more hour. The human landscape was very functional and not promsing, we drove slowly into the mountains which we had been waiting for with bated breath almost, looking for the path the road would be taking through the mountains into the pass beyind and the southern shores. It finally came and with it the rain and snow. It bucketed it down and well into the next day, so we arrived in the pissing rain and went walkies for a hostel which we found to be pricey but nice. Thirteen hours in the bus, thank god we hadnt continued on the day before and had a day break in Rio Gallegos…
MT