Babs’ travels -The Peking to Paris Rally and other driving adventures.

Ushuaia. The southernmost city in the world and the end of our rally. The southern part of Tierra del Fuego was a revelation after the desolation of the north. It became quite beautiful with petrified forest, azure lakes and rivers with a backdrop of snow capped mountains. The rally grouped together in the muddy forecourt of a filling station at the entrance to the town as the final destination was reached. It was deemed far too insensitive to make a fuss in the city centre as it will be the 30th anniversary of the Falklands war in a couple of days time. Ushuaia is called the capital of 'the Capital of The Malvinas' down here! Its been a long, tiring, scenically stupendous rally with some very tricky stages and all the crews in the old cars should be feeling very, very proud of their fantastic achievement. The rally family is breaking up and disappearing to homes all over the world, always a rather sad moment. Very close bonds are formed on a long endurance rally su...

What a place to conjure with: The Land of Fire! First, a surprise, fab sighting of some very close flamingoes as we left benighted Rio Gallegos. A bonus. Bleak. Desolate. Actually, make that bleak and desolate times 10, or even 20. It is impossible to convey just how grim and empty today's 300 kms to Rio Grande have been. And the wind, the howling, knock you down freezing cold wind that blows across this desolate place and is a constant presence, apparently. It may have only been 300 kms or so but we went through two border crossings and took a ferry across the Magellan Straits, so quite a lot happened. A little bit of Chile sticks into Argentina and has the only road into Tierra Del Fuego so there was lots of passport stamping at the efficient immigration posts. We also had to leave the last incarnation of car #7 in Chile as we could not get permission to take it on to Ushuaia, in Argentina. We had arranged for it to be collected at the Chilean border post before we...

Flat. Think of the flattest place you know, the Fens, for instance and then image it even flatter and with fewer features. God must have been wielding a flat iron when he made the 400kms section of Patagonia that we went through today. Not a tree exists, and if it did it would probably be horizontal from the wind. A few sheep, fewer Rheas and a handful of guanacos and that was about it. Strangely thrilling though. Mainly because we practically went the whole width of the continent today - it's so skinny at this point. We are in a an Atlantic port town called Rio Gallegos, pop 98,000. The charming GM of our central hotel told us that the town was a complete dump but wealthy because it was an oil town and full of well paid workers who all fly home to somewhere other for the weekend. It is covered in graffiti, really almost every wall has something spray painted on it. It's not even clever graffiti, just a mess. However, a few gems were waiting for the casual visitor....

A 5.30 start today to leave plenty of time to visit one of the highlights of our trip. As first light dawned a flame red sky enveloped us as we sped on the 400 kms on mainly gravel roads to our destination. Our first view of the jagged peaks of Mount Fitz Roy (one of the worlds most difficult mountains to climb) and the other Andean mountains that form the ice field left us speechless. What can I say about the glacier? Even the photos will not do it justice. It's 19 miles long and, at the terminus, where we were, it is 3 miles wide and 250 feet above the water. It is one of only a very few glaciers still growing. We went out on a boat to get up close and personal whilst listening to it creaking and groaning. Then, an almighty noise arose and chunks, which must have weighed several tonnes broke off and crashed into the milky waters of Lago Argentino, creating a mini tsunami. It was all too, too thrilling. A wonder of the world that left us all breathless and awestruck. ...