Riding day 11: Punta Arenas - Ushuaia

The eleventh day was a special day cause we were supposed to reach our destination, a city called Ushuaia which is the capital of the territory called Tierra del Fuego which in English means "Land of Fire". (From Wikipedia: The territory was first seen by Europeans in 1520 during Ferdinand Magellan's expedition. He named the area Land of Smokes (later changed to Land of Fire), as he saw what were probably the fires produced by the local Amerindian peoples for heat.)

This was a semi long driving day, about 450km. 

We woke up quite early cause we had to catch the 9am ferry from Punta Arenas to Porvenir. We made a delicious scrambled eggs for breakfast at our cottage, or 'cabanas' as the locals call them. Mika is already pro in this. Actually the best breakfasts at the trip have been the ones we have made ourselves. Usually hotel/hosteria breakfasts include white bread with jam and with that you dont survive long on the motorcycle saddle.

After the breakfast we mounted two gopro's in time-laps mode to film our packing and morning routines to be added to our trip movie. May not sound interesting but I can assure that there happenes a lot of stuff in a brief moment.

An old torpedo boat at the Punta Arena harbour (we didnt travel with that, unfortunately)

The harbour was near, about five minute drive away and we bought the tickets straight from the counter cause they didnt have online reservation system. Tickets for one bike+rider were about 15000 Chilean pesos (about 23 USD)

The ferry trip took 2,5 hours so some of us got to continue the night sleep and  charge the batterys for the long day. 

After we got to Porvenir, we refilled the bikes and already then noticed that its going to be a windy ride. It was blowing hard at the coast. 

The first 150km was gravel road, accompanied with strong side wind. The scenery was cruel looking desert without nothing interesting to see. The only joy was to ride on the gravel.

Just before the Chilean border, in the middle of nowhere, we found a little hosteria where we ate local tuna burgers. The owner seemed to be an old pilot keeping the restaurant with his wife. 

Quite popular seating place was next to the gas heater cause the wind had already went deep to the bones.

There we also glued one MotoAventura sticker to the front door. 

From the border we rode to Rio Grande and before that we saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time, so now we had seen both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans.

We also noticed some oil pumps on the fields. That area in Tierra del Fuego is rich in oil.

From Rio Grande we found a nice and cousy cafe and warmed up a while there and Mikko reserved a hotel in Ushuaia.

We started the last leg towards Ushuaia, about 200km. When we left Rio Grande, we saw on the side of the road a warning sign which indicated the  risk of forest fires. So the air and land were very dry at the moment.

In the middle of the leg we stopped for refueling and then, we faced the first technical challenge with the bikes: Juhas rear absorber blew the oils out at the gas station parking lot. 

So there was only suspension but not any shock absorbing. Driving without a proper absorbtion can be dangerous cause the wheel doesnt "follow" the road surface as it should and that decreases the fraction between the tire and the ground. We called to MotoAventura about the issue. Their mechanic first told that it could be fixed if we manage to ride to Ushuaia with the bike. But shortly after that we got an email from another MotoAventura person who told us to drive the bike back to Punta Arena! That would have ment to drive about 350km of which about 150km would have been gravel road, without functioning rear absorber. Of course talented driver would not care about this so much but nevertheless that was absolutely idiotic advice from the rental company personnel in general. Naturally that would have been the cheapest solution for them but that would have ment that the driver would risk the bike and more importantly, own and maybe also some other drivers health.

We poundered the options and since we had already paid hotel room in Ushuaia and the road there would be good quality pavement, we decided to continue the drive and make further decissions there. Anyway the rental company had given us a permission to drive with the bike and Juha trusted his capability to handle the bike.

The rear of the bike was bouncing up and down quite a bit in deeper bumps but it was driveable when Juha stayed focused in the sharp corners. 

Great thing was that the rest of the trip was very good weather and beautiful scenery in the middle of high mountains and deep gorges at a beautiful sunset.

At the mountains just before Ushuaia, the tempereture decreased to six celsius which felt freezing despite that we had good gears and grip heaters. We had to drive rather slow and carefully when coming down from the mountains cause the road was quite bumpy.

But kilometer by kilometer we got closer to the goal and finally we passed the large Ushuaia signs at about 8pm (great thing in driving in these latitudes is that the day light stays till 10-11pm at this time of year). 

Ushuaia seemed to be much larger city than we predicted. We even passed a downhill skiing center before reaching the city. Ushuaia is the biggest hub for example to Antarctica and has quite a big harbour. From here its also possible to make trips to Antarctica but unfortunately our time table was not that flexible. But maybe next time..

Mikko had booked a nice three bedroom hotel room where we warmed us up a bit with some Chilean rom which we had bought from a restaurant in Puerto Natales. We also had got an address to a motorcycle repair company from MotoAventura so we decided to check that out next day. 

We took a taxi to a very nice restaurant called El Turco where we celebrated the successfull adventure. We still had two full driving days left, but since at those we had planned to ride back to Punta Arenas, our main mission felt to be accomplished.

El Turco himself. And then there is also the waiter.

Feeling good and happy with a great driving company!!!

Weather: Mostly cloudy, strong wind

Temperature: 6-16 celsius

Distance traveled: 445km

Total distance traveled: 3967

Riding day 10: Puerto Natales - Punta Arenas

10th day on the road was planned to be short and easy so we started late again. Packing and servicing the bikes took a while. We also had some confusion about the room prices in Hotel Glaciares when we were checking out. Originally when we arrived we had asked a price for four people. Instead, what we only now learned, we were given a price of a single room for two persons. So the hotel turned out to be twice as expensive than what we thought. Lost in translation some might say...

The route from Puerto Natales to Punta Arenas is just easy going paved road with little to mention about. Day turned out to be heavily windy again so the ride wasn't that nice. 

We stopped at the only little village on the way, Villa Tehuelches, and managed to buy some sandwiches from the other local kiosk and coffee from the other.

After the stop we decided to have a bit more scenic and adventorous route for a while. So we turned to gravel again and drove to the Pacific Coast through the village of Rio Verde. We saw the ferries to Isla Riesco and continued our journey while the relentles wind was beating the joy of driving out of us.

After about 50km on the gravel route we reached the Ruta 9 again and turned south for the remaining kilometers. Just when we started to see the Straight of Magalhaes we hit our first rain on the whole trip. Already during the day we had got a few drops on our visors but this time we had to drive about 15mins in a rain. It turned out to be a good test for the driving gear. Luckily the rain changed to sun and blue skies just when we arrived to Punta Arenas. With the help of Here-navigation we easily found our 'cabana' from the city which is probably the biggest we have seen on the trip. Punta Arenas actually has buildings with more than 3 floors. Something we haven't seen since Santiago Airport.

We will eventually end our journey with bikes here in Punta Arenas. But we still have 4 days until then. Plan is obviusly to go to Tierra del Fuego and now it is only a ferry ride away. But as we have already seen the weather conditions are difficult to predict and we wouldn't want to drive hundreds of kilometres in a pouring rain. We have multiple options what to do and where to go. Stay tuned for more adventures!

Distance: 261km

Total distance: 3518km

Weather: 13-15 degrees Celcius, sunny with occasional clouds and rains

Filming the experience

A short film from the trip:

https://vimeo.com/153161486

And how to shoot it...

We have 3 gopros with us. Part of every day is planning where and how and using which mounts to get the best footage. We have a bunch of different mounts with us that we have tried around the bikes and the riders. Mika and Mikko already have some experience of different camera views from their previous mc-trips. Trying to get good video can sometimes be a little stressful and cause a lot of breaks to mount, dismount, turn off and on the camera. But the joy of watching at a good clip at dinner after the ride for the day pays for it. After we're done with the trip we're going to have somewhere around 170 gigabytes of gopro video. Editing this to an interesting video will be going to take days and days of work. We have actually thought of using a professional video editor to go through the material. Anyway. The end result is going to be mind-blowing, we can say that already. The scenery here in Patagonia is just so amazing and huge and versatile.

I have about 2-3 years old gopro hero 3 silver and Mika has the same in black edition. Then we also have Mikas friends' hero 3+ black edition. Although my camera is old, both still-photo and video quality are amazing. We have mostly been using the sceleton backdoors with the cameras so that the camera mic would pick up surrounding sound. On very dusty roads and of course shooting in the water we used the waterproof backdoor. The Only complaint from us for the hero 3 model is the feel of function buttons. On a moving motorcycle you can't really see or hear if the camera is on or off and the feel of the buttons is unreliable. Although you press the buttons with full force, you still can't rely on that the camera just turned on or off. If you're riding low speed, you might hear the camera beep but that also depends on the surface you're riding on and the wind speed and the radiotraffic on that spesific moment in your headsets. Using the camera buttons with your other hand disables that hand from controlling the motorcycle and can be a risk factor. Also checking if the camera is recording by looking at it's blinking light on the move is a risk factor. We thing that a wireless remote would be safest and that actually exists. But since it's a wifi remote it would run down the battery very fast.

We have 5 batteries with us for the 3 cameras and about 1,5 to 2 batteries are used daily by Mikko and 1 by Mika. So the batteries are not that long lasting and therefore it's good that we have extra. We can see the videos taken on our phones using the gopro app on our phones. The camera connects to phones by wifi but it runs down the camera battery very fast. Attached are pictures of gopro camera parts, mounts and accessories we use.

Few words about electronics and communication on the road

Nowadays the equipment list is full of electronics. And also very important stuff. 

We want to communicate with each other and the outside world and also to search information from the web so we need cell phones and/or pads. 

We want to record the moments for the future and for our close ones si we need cameras. 

We want to navigate easier way than only with traditional paper map so we need some kind of navigator. 

And we also want to communicate with each others while we are riding. That doesn't only enhance the quality of the trip and make things easier but is also a safety factor. 

Of course these are not necessary cause the bike runs with fuel, but these gadgets make things easier, faster, more fun and more safe. So we might find ourselves in a situation where we see lot of electronic equipment in our packing list and we need a plan how to charge them. Or we dont't even know what we need.

Here's our thinking:

We all had our cell phones for personal communication and photoing plus two iPads. Pad is easier for using internet, for example when booking hotels or planning the routes with online/offline maps. We found very useful to download the whole maps to the phones and pads so that its easy and fast to get the city names, routes, hotels, gas stations etc. also when you are in the middle of the desert without any 2G or 3G coverage at all, not to mention wifi networks. We used Nokia Here for this and it worked very well.

For navigation we used paper map and cell phones navigation programs (we didnt have separate GPS gadgets). We also didn't have the navigation voice instructions directed to our helmet speakers, which would of course have been the best way cause then you could keep your eyes on the road and not constantly remove your sight from the road to the phone in the tank bag. But we managed with this way very well.

We didn't bring SLR cameras with us. Instead we had three GoPro's with different mounts, in adition to our phone cameras (still we wished many times that we would have brought a good SLR camera also cause many situations would have deserved a better camera than iPhone or Samsung cameras).

For internal communication between four bikes we decided to use PMR Phones due their long distance functionality. We looked at all the modern intercom and bike-to-bike systems but most of them 

- were designed only for driver-passenger conversation, or

- were designed to be used between 2-3 bikes, or

- had too short operating distance (many Bluetooth and radio freaquency phones have maximum distance of 300-400 meters and we found many times that PMR's even 3km distance functionality was very usefull for us), or

- were too expensive considering our budget (we didn't want to invest much cause only one of us had a bike at the time so those gadgets wouldn't have much usage after the trip).

Naturally it would have been great to get also music and GPS voice directed to helmet speakers but that would have required fansier and more expensive systems. Our main priority was to have well functioning bike-to-bike-communication built with low budget.

We already had Midland PMR phones so we only had to buy the microphone-speakers-tangent-system for Midland which cost about 30€ each in Finland so our communication system cost totally 120€ for four drivers. Good quality PMR phones cost generally about 50-100€/$. 

The speakers and mic were very easy to amount to four different brand helmets. Everyone of us did this by themselves, including the heart surgeon and the economic. Some electricians tape is good for to secure that the wireing stays on the helmet for weeks, also in windy situations. Our system worked perfectly for the whole trip.

Helmet set cable glued to helmet with alot of electricians tape to prevent the wind pulling out the wires.

The speakers amounted inside the helmet. Almost all modern helmets are designed so that you can mount the speakers to a good spot near your ears. They are usually fixed with velcro stickers.

The microphone attached inside the helmet, just in front of the mouth. The closer the microphone is to the lips, the better is the voice quality and the less there is distracting noice.

Also the tangents were easy to amount to the mirror holder. Depending on the bikes grip you could also mount the tanget there but we found out that in BMW, the thumb would be in weird position and so, harder to use. The more easy and natural the tangent is to use, the better cause it is used hundreds of times a day and some times you have to press it suddenly  when for example to warn about something. Thats why this is an important issue. 

Regarding the communication system, we want to emphasize that you can find a lot of great communication and intercom systems on the market but as mentioned, we didn't want to invest alot and we prioritised the bike-to-bike feature the highest. The best brands for communication at the moment we found out to be ScalaRider or AutoCom. ScalaRider was the most used by the fellow riders on the trip, especially un intercoms. Generally it seems that trend goes towards wireless systems, like ScalaRider.

Anyway, our cheap system worked perfectly for the whole trip. The first rider can warn about other vehicles on the road, lamas, sheeps, cows, horses, dogs or emus blocking the way, you can inform to others about something interesting you see, you can give and discuss the route and navigation or you can just chat with each others. So we think that this kind of system is priceless and takes the quality of riding in a group to another level.

About charging:

We bought an international adapter which works all over the globe. To that we mounted extension cord with multiple sockets. We needed many sockets cause charging four PMR phones took four sockets alone. We also bought a good quality USB charger which had eight amperes output power and five ports so we could charge the pads, phones and GoPro batteries simultaniously.

We also had couple external USB batteries to be used to charge USB devices while riding, if needed. 

BMW (and modern bikes generally) have a 12 volt output so that with suitable adapter you can charge all USB devices while riding. This is very important especially for the navigator so that you have GPS every time you need it. 

Of course its easy to take 12 volts straight from the battery but more and more new bikes nowadays have it already as factory assembled. 

If you need to charge small 110/230 volt gadgets, you may be able to use a little inverter which transforms 12 volt direct current (DC) into 110/230 volt alternative current (AC). But here you have to check how much load you can add after the 12 volt output or if you take it straight from a battery, check what is the max outout power of the bikes charger.

If you are not a self made home electrician, we suggest to ask from a skillful pro and if you are renting your bike, you can ask the renter cause they know the specific bike well.