Arrival Ushuaia 30th Oct:
We landed in Ushuaia airport after being thrown around a little in the smallish plane in what felt like some quite interesting weather, quite relieved to be on terra ferma again after quite a firm touchdown!
We headed into town to locate our hostel 'Los Comorones', dropped our bags and headed out for an explore of this quite small town at the end of the world! As we made our way down to the harbor front it started snowing and it was pretty cold and windy. Perhaps not surprising with Antarctica a mere 1000 Km away!
I was loving the desolate, cold, snowy feel to the place, it's what I expected of this Southern outpost. However I was getting the impression from Ana that she wasn't really feeling as enthusiastic as me as we had decided to spend a week here and it was looking a bit bleak!
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| Ana at the end of the world! For a week?!? |
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| A well timed snow flurry - Antarctica is just over my shoulder a mere 1000Km away. Chilly! |
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| Why? Because it's there... |
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| Some of these ships are heading to Antarctica but not with us on them, not this time anyway ;) |
After a quick stroll and a small shop at a pretty basic local supermarket, we headed back to the hostel and installed ourselves for the evening in the Kitchen and cooked a warming quick pasta concoction.
In the kitchen over dinner, we met Met Owen and Ollie, they were drivers for 'Dragonman' tours. Essentially they drove a converted Mercedes truck, adapted for the tough terrain in South America and fitted out with seats and tables for their long distance tours through Chile and Argentina. They were both very personable and we had a good old chat as the evening drew in, talking about tea (Ollies passion) Whisky (Owens passion) and anything else that came up.
It was great to catch up with some native English speakers and socialise a bit - we headed off to bed not at all envying the task ahead of Ollie and Owen as co-ordinators of a large party for a several month long tour!
The next day, we headed out to see one of the sights of Ushuaia, like many of the more remote places we have visited halfway around the world, Ushuaia started out as a penal colony and has an old prison, now refurbished as a museum to all things prison, Antarctica or exploring related. Some fascinating exhibits and a pretty large and well maintained structure, in particular considering the size of the town it's in!
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| After 11 months with me, Ana will talk to anyone or anything else.... |
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| One of the 5 wings of the prison has been conserved as it was. It is freezing in here and not somewhere you'd want to end up. |
After the prison and the other 4 wings interesting exhibits and history of exploration in this region, we hit the main street in town for an explore and a hot chocolate.
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| I blame the cold... |
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| Ana realising how far away from our next stop we are. |
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| Apparently, a classic local photo opportunity. |
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| The inland view from town |
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| The flags of Argentina and Tierra del Fuego. Note the split on the TdF flag - that's the divide between Chile and Argentina. |
Another visit to the supermarket to stock up on supplies (including a flask to revive ourselves with some hot tea whilst out and about) and back to the hostel. That afternoon we sorted our activity for the next day, a day long cruise along the beagle channel with a visit to the Harberton ranch (more on that later) The lady who owns the hostel was great, brill advice and really friendly.
That evening we headed out to eat a local specialty (or at least I did). The local King crab is huge and very tasty. Slightly less intimidating when a chef has prepared it in a dish full of creamy goodness too!
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| Before: Pretty intimidating looking meal... |
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| After: Sorry Mr crab but you were incredibly tasty |
Up early the following morning and we headed out to to the harbour to meet our boat, as we pulled out it was beautiful blazing sunshine and it took about 30 minutes out on the windy Beagle to realise that the sun was doing very little to warm us up. Absolutely frozen we headed indoors to shelter as the boat whisked to a group of islands respectively populated by cormorants, seals and penguins, the boat took us further out and along to the island with the iconic lighthouse at the end of the world. It turns out (after we had taken a billion photos) that this is actually not the same famous lighthouse as this no longer exists but it looks pretty similar and the pics are cool so it'll do for me!
The boat continued on and we nipped in and out of the cabin to keep defrosting. after a great view travelling between Argentinian and Chilean islands we landed at the Harberton ranch. The home of Thomas Bridges a British missionary worker. We explored the ranch and buildings, which have been well conserved and had a great tour round the grounds followed by a visit to the marine museum. The Harbourton ranch is the lifetime home of world renowned Marine Biologist Dr Prosser, so the museum is a great visit.
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| A nice sunny morning, i've even taken my coat off. |
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| Errr..is that why this seemed like a really good deal? I think i'll pay the extra... |
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| Coats back on - this is freezing! |
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| Little Cormorant colony |
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| A chilly selfie |
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| I guess with this much blubber you can just hang around on the rocks all day. |
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| More lounging around |
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| Picturesque lighthouse, apparently not the famous one, but who'd know? |
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| Now its properly cold! |
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| Colds not a problem for these guys...off for a dip |
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| This ones trying to take off! |
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| And this ones coming to usher us away, "Nothing to see here" |
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| Harberton ranch, location of a British mission who made first contact with the indigenous Yamana people |
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| Touring the old workshops and shearing sheds |
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| Visiting the onsite marine museum. I think this was a bowhead whale. Note its head was precisely 1 Andy long. |
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| Beautiful scenery |
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| And an attempt an an arty shot over a mussel bed |
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| Fun day but shattered now. Time for the return bus journey. |
We had dinner in the cafe and hopped on a bus back to Ushuaia, pretty shattered when we arrived back so headed to out to grab some steak at a local Parrilla (grill house) for an all you can eat blow out accompanied by some vino and then crashed for the evening.
Next day we walked out of town, up the foot hills to the taller snowy peaks of the mountains behind Ushuaia and hiked up a snowy trail towards the martial glacier. The trail got pretty narrow and after a while we found we had strayed onto a really narrow path cutting across a very steep (disused) ski run. Feeling a little exposed, we turned back and had lunch on a patch of exposed grass in the amazing surroundings and ahead a quick chat with a local who encouraged me to stop using my Spanish as he spoke much better English! An amazing hike with brilliant views of the town and the glacier peeking down from the top of the mountain range. We headed back down.
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| A snowy hike up to see the martial glacier |
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| Leaving the town well behind |
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| We're heading up there. There's a glacier up there somewhere... |
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| Quick pause for a breather |
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| Enjoying the view |
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| View back to the Beagle channel |
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| Some of this route was quite steep and tricky. Some nice people had set up ropes to help us out! |
The next day we got together with a group up from the Dragonman tour who had arrived a day early and hired a car to head to Tierra del Fuego national park. Sabrina (a fluent spanish speaker despite being a native French speaker from the island of Reunion) arranged the car hire and Ana, Linda, Franzi and I all piled in with her and headed of on a day long adventure to the park exploring some great trails, coastline, forest walks and enduring blazing sun and hideous rainstorms. We even saw some woodland flooded by a beaver's dam and the little guy (or gal) put in an appearance to say hello too!
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| Just as we arrived, the heavens opened but everyone still looks pretty happy! |
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| This little lake has been created by a beaver's dam. We did get a brief visit but he was a little shy of the cameras... |
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| This is me hanging on to the end of the world! |
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| Looking a lot brighter now :) |
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| I think that island in the background belongs to Chile. Bizarre borders in this region! |
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| Cool fungus - if you like that sort of thing. I think this is 'Darwin's fungus |
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| Left to right: Me, Ana, Linda, Sabrina and Franzi. Or Andy's angels as I like to call them (when they can't hear me) |
It was an amazing day with a great group of people (and as a side note to those who know me, Linda was the lady who linked me with the Natural history museum where I ended up getting me a job back home!) A brilliant day to finish up our time in Ushuaia and a great bunch of guys. We left them to head off on their long tour with Ollie and Owen and were dropped of at the airport early the next morning for our early flight on to the cosmopolitan capital Buenos Aires.
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| BA, here we come, 40 hours by coach or a couple by plane. Tough choice! |
Next stop BA home of the Tango and Salsa. Not sure my British hips will cope!
