Ushuaia to Buenos Aires

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January 5, 2008

I spent a few days relaxing in Buenos Aires after my Aconcagua trip. It was then time to catch a plane down to Ushuaia on Jan 5th. The plane took off from Jorges Newberry on time and we flew over endless patchwork fields, stopping briefly at the Welsh settlement at Trelew, before heading on to a cloudy and gloomy looking Ushuaia.

After a tedious wait for my luggage I was on my way to the Antarctic Hostel in temperatures that seemed a good 15 degrees colder than Buenos Aires. After dumping my stuff I went out along the main street to try and find the Exodus group I'd be travelling with by truck back up to BA. Ushuaia is a little like an upmarket frontier town designed to cater for American tourists with fat wallets on their way to Antarctica. The main street is full of expensive parillas (steak houses) and hiking shops. It is an amazing setting though, surrounded by sea and snow capped mountains.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the Exodus Group, but did see a note in their Hotel saying that we would be leaving at lunchtime the next day. Bearing in mind the fact that we were meant to have at least a day and a half in Ushuaia this didn’t sound like too good a start! The next morning I went down to the Quayside and managed to catch our group leader Andy, a rather tall chap sporting a Mohican. After a brief chat I jumped on a boat trip out into the Beagle Channel with a load of Spanish people- at least I would make the most of my half day if that was all I was going to get in Ushuaia. The Channel was like a millpond and we raced along to the thoughtfully named Birds Island where there were thousands of King and Imperial Comorants nesting. It was then on to the even more appropriately named Sea Lions Island where, bizarrely enough, there was indeed a colony of Sea Lions to be found…. It was fantastic to see them so close up though. Finally, we visited Bridges Island and had a look at an archaeological site left by the Yamanas, aborigines who lived there until some horribly nice Europeans arrived and killed them off with Chicken Pox and various other diseases.

The truck was waiting for me when I got off the boat and we sped North to the Magellan Straits where we joined a ferry for a brief crossing, managing to see black and white dolphins (Commersans) coursing through the water. Stunning, but my camera wasn’t fast enough to capture them. We then had the joy of travelling through two sets of Chilean and Argentinian borders - they have been disputing them for years and don’t seem quite able to resolve the issues. We eventually set up camp in the middle of nowhere and after a very swift dinner it was off to bed for 1.30 am.

The next day, (apart from having repairs done to the truck at Rio Gallagos) was spent travelling north through a vast and featureless Patagonian landscape. It seemed utterly endless with only the odd farmstead breaking the scenery.

On January 8th we continued the short distance to the Monumento Bosques Petrificados (petrified forest). It is a surreal landscape with ‘petrified’ trees strewn across the ground. Apparently, during the Jurassic period, almost 150 million years ago, the forest was buried in ash in a period of intense volcanic activity. A long chemical process then took place effectively turning the trees into stone.

I have to say though, the petrified wasn’t quite as exciting as our next stop which was the Coastal Reserve of Cabo Dos Bahais, home to 55,000 penguins of the Magellanic variety. They were stretched out across the beaches and there was penguin poo everywhere. Indeed, some of the penguins seemed determined to wallow and smother themselves in their own poo. Still, a fantastic experience watching thousands of the little buggers cooing over each other. We could also see sea lions chasing the penguins in the water and they would zoom into land at high speed to avoid being consumed as snack food…..

After a brief stop at a supposedly Welsh town called Gaiman (which as far as I could tell had nothing Welsh about it whatsoever..) we trundled on northwards to Puerto Madryn where I found myself on cooking duty with three others from the group. Unfortunately, none of us could actually cook, which was obviously going to be a little bit of a drawback… I dealt with situation in the most effective way I knew how.. by drinking large quantities of beer. Luckily we were just cooking steak and roast veggies so it was never going to turn out too badly.

The next day we drove out to the Peninsula Valdes in search of Orcas and other sea life. Unfortunately, the Orcas proved to be somewhat elusive, but we did see large colonies of Elephant Seals and Sea Lions. The Elephant Seals in particular were a testy bunch letting out primeval grunts and groans whenever a male strayed into someone elses territory. As an extra treat we spotted an armadillo on the way out. It scurried around the car park like a tightly wound toy, narrowly missing becoming a pancake under the wheels of a car.

Another 1000kms north and we were in Buenos Aires on January 12th. Time for some more steak and vino tinto….and another hangover

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