:Daily Reports
Last Daily Report May 22, 2006
We reached our goal. We won. Everything’s well. We are all more than happy. Final Report for May 20, 2006 When we were 300 km from our final destination, a strange calm seemed to suddenly settle on our team. Maybe it was because of the snow that had started to fall and that transformed Tierra del Fuego into a winter wonderland which in itself seemed so peaceful; but maybe it was also the feeling that after all the problems we had endured so far, nothing could go wrong now. Maybe we started to realize that something extraordinary that none of us had ever experienced was coming to a successful conclusion. A group of people spread out over Europe and along 25,000 km in America, and distributed among 3 vehicles have worked together for an unbelievable finish. It started snowing heavily in the morning and by now there were over 40 cm (over a foot) of fresh snow on the ground; the snow made driving more difficult but at the same time it made the last kilometers very beautiful. The convoy slowed down, going 40 kmh; time flew by but we were sure we would make it. The entire trip, the pressure and stress changed and seemed to collapse onto itself. We let the adventures of the last 15 days pass in front of our eyes and recounted the trip’s ups and downs. As if planned, the lower end of the earth would welcome us the same way the upper end had sent us off, and the falling snow reached blizzard strength. We only had a few kilometers to go and all was well. We got to Ushuaia, turned directly towards the end of the Ruta 3 and crawled at 20-30 kmh towards the absolute end „the southern tip of the National Route No.3 at Lapataia Bay“. When we arrived and got out of our cars we were unable to tell the tears from the melting snowflakes on our faces. Our joy was immense and the relief took a huge weight off our shoulders. We had not had any accidents, nobody had been hurt, no argument had split our team. We arrived in Ushuaia on May 20, 2006 at 3:25 pm local time and broke several world records. Our total trip time, including the Panama-Columbia air lift, was 15 days, 11 hours and 25 minutes, with 1,200 extra kilometers through Columbia. We won everything that there is to win on this route and proved the capability and potential of different biofuels. We used, among other fuels, vegetable oil, soy biodiesel, walnut biodiesel and palm biodiesel. We might have reported only fragments of our journey; maybe I left out situations which would have been important to others, or maybe I described things that others regarded as irrelevant. If this is the case, I apologize. At any rate, each situation is etched into our memory, every encounter with a person was a gift and we are looking forward to tell all about it in our upcoming book „Panamericana2006 – An unusual trip from the beginning to the end of the world“. With sincere thanks for all of your help, Matthias Jeschke. 
 
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