September 27: Day 0, Getting started in Ushuaia
Departure day today! The flight is at 2030 and I have the day off so it should be a leisurely day.
But it somehow ended up being continuously busy. Finding a good place for the AirTag. Backing up and cleaning off the memory cards. Buying and activating South American eSim cards. Checking all the gear to ensure I haven't forgotten anything. Then dividing it up into the pannier that’ll be with me in the cabin (so can’t have any bike tools or liquids) and the pannier that goes into the hold (which can’t have electronics or batteries).
The only real drama was the bikebox. I'd saved a cardboard box that I thought was right, but when it was time to put the bike in it was clearly far too small. I went off to the local bikeshop where I get the bike serviced, to see if they any - but the recycling truck arrived a moment before I did so it was too late. After a bit of phoning around I ended up finding one at Madmen bicycles on the next island, they had just finished building a new bike and let me have the box on the condition I recycled everything in it. Worth it! It also came with a few useful cardboard tubes which are handy for protecting the axle and frame.
That delayed things a bit and I ended up getting a taxi to the airtport during rush hour which is never good. Oddly the airport was as quiet as I've ever seen it, only a short queue at checkin and security. My bikebox was 21kg, each of the two bags was about 8kg, so my gear weighs about 37kg including the bike.
Getting everything sorted out was a very chill experience, except I then had McDonalds and my stomach grumbled uncomfortably for the whole flight.
The Buenos Aires bikebox was trouble-tree. I needed to stand in three different queues to get the bikebox paid for and deposited in oversize cargo. Forgot to get Argentinian pesos in all the excitment.
From left to right: The bikebox content for recycling. All the bags for the next ten weeks. Bikebox in Buenos Aires and Ushuaia. Bike assembled beginning and partway.
Ushuaia is rugged. It looks a lot like towns in the far south of NZ or the far north in Finland and Norway. Outside areas are very functional - I guess people don't really put that much effort into making them look nice, because there's probably not much of the year you can spend outside, and a brutal winter which grinds everything down. Grass doesn't really want to grow, trees look haggard. There's a lot of bare packed earth, but it's so dry that it hasn't turned to mud. The sidewalks and roads have occasional huge cracks and potholes: they're infrequent, so it's probably some localized subsidence or temperature-related cracking rather than poor construction..
The bikebox did get to Ushuaia safely! The handles had been ripped open but it held together.
From left to right: mountains around Ushuaia seen on approach. The Ushuaia airport building, looks like it’s been designed to handle some very heavy snow. Cash machine is available only from 0800-1300 Mon-Thur. There’s a Hard Rock cafe here, automatically less impressed. The view from my room.
I ended up getting a taxi to the hotel, I wasn't feeling great and was not tempted to assemble the bike at the airport. Felt a lot better after some hot lunch and went off to put the bike together. Then off to find a place to recycle the bikebox, and after that I was in town I thought I'd find an ATM and get some Argentinian pesos.
This was not good. There's several ATMs around, and they even have reviews on Google, with people complaining that the withdrawal limit is 50 euros and there's a 10% fee. This is indeed grounds for a one star review. But it was close by: so I put a card in to check that the costs were actually that bad, and it refused my cards. No problem, there's plenty of others - but the next three (seriously) all maxed out at 40 euros and asked for 14%. I grudgingly got a minimum amount of money out, I'll see if the next town is any better.
Next stop was the hypermarket, to pick up provisions and a rack bag. This was also worthy of a one star review: almost no dried fruits, little chocolate, few energy bars, no sandwiches. Even the far north of Norway was better. I scraped some things together, and got most of the way through the checkouts before realizing that they don't seem to have any sort of shopping bag available for me to use as a rack bag. I got so desperate I ended up looking around in the linen area, hoping to find a laundry bag I could use. Best I could find was a cheap backpack which will do the job, but it might be a bit small so maybe I'll find a better replacement.
And then back into town to find a power adapter. Argentina uses both EU and NZ style power sockets, I'd brought my EU plug and thought I'd see how it goes ... and it didn't work at all in Ushuaia, where all the power sockets are NZ style. Picked up an uncooperative universal socket which does the job but it's a bit fiddly.
And that should be all the things I need for tomorrow’s ride.
It’s 1900 and I’m trying to stay awake for dinner at 2000 - the timezone change and not enough sleep last night mean I’m out of energy. Tomorrow’s looking chilly and I’m worried about ice on the road, but if the sun shines it’ll be fine.
