Another early morning, breakfast at 7:30 AM, packed and on the road. We had a 12 hour day ahead of us. We traveled through the last part of Chile through pastures, steppes, and desert. We saw countless guanaco, rheas, and lots of flamingos on the quickly drying ponds. Once in the high plateaus we traveled through sheep and cattle ranches. Around 11AM we stopped at a nice roadside cafe for a bathroon break and cup of coffee, gassed up the bus and were back on the road in a few minutes. We did however had a chance to get a few photos of some local highway patroalmen and their cruiser and also introduced a few gauchos to Kathryn...smile.
We reached the Strait of Magellan around 2PM and boarded our ferry. It was quite a ride with high winds and high waves. Once on board we left the bus and ventured up the ladders to the small lounge where we rocked and rolled. The crossing took about 40 minutes. We saw several dolphins chasing the boat. Once on the other side it was another three hours to the Chilean/Argentine border where we waited for almot 90 minutes to get our papers processed and granted passage. Over the border another two hours brought us the town or Rio Grande and the Atlantic coast. Here we stopped for more fuel and a short bathroom and coffee break. Rio Grande is a large town of aobut 100,000 people with lots of industry..
Another two hours drive through some higher ground and now a lenga/beech forest and we turned off of the highway onto a gravel road. Within minutes we were deep inside of a very heavily wooded area wtih guanco, eagles, and geese. We drove and wandered through the forest for about 30 minutes getting further and further away from the main road.
Suddenly and quite to our surprise we were at the gate to the Estancia del Hijas (ranch of the daughters). Sevearl buildings were scatted across the hillside. We stopped at the first cottage where a man was tending a fire surrounded by three sides of lamb. A lady came out to the bus and in English (with an Australian accent) welcomed us to her ranch. We were shown around the grounds and then taken to the bunkhouse where beautifully clean toliets and showers awaited us. We each had a small double bunk and sleeping bags. Not as rustic as the last several days and the hot showers were very inviting.
After a nice rest and shower we were invited to the dining hall where we found a beatuifully set table, a huge salad buffet and more BBQ'd lamb than we could all possible eat. A few bottles of wine, followed by possibly the best flan any of us had ever eaten and were we very happy "campers"
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