The long way down

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The long way down is pretty apt. We needed to get down to Ushuaia, which is at the very end tip of Argentina, to catch the Antarctica cruise we’d booked. We’d read that it could be difficult to get buses down, so we gave ourselves plenty of time to make it but the journey was still pretty arduous, involving two overnight 19 hour journeys and another all day bus ride!

The first overnighter got us to a place called Puerto Madryn. This is the gateway to Patagonia and also an area where you can go whale watching. The 19 hour bus journey was surprisingly comfortable. We went something called “cama” class, which turns out to be like a business class seat on a plane, with big comfy leather seats that almost fully recline. You even get a hot meal and breakfast, plus a couple of films, conveniently in English with Spanish subtitles! Undoubtedly the highlight was playing bingo in Spanish to win a bottle of wine. No prizes for guessing we didn’t win, mainly because we struggled with a lot of the numbers and we’re sure of the rules, but with plenty more buses to go we should get better.

Puerto Madryn

Puerto Madryn reminded me a lot of Swapokmund, a place we’ve visited in Namibia. It’s next to the sea, pretty small and set out on a grid system. We got there when the sky was black and the wind was howling. It was pretty grim. The next day the sun was out and the place took on a completely different persona. The town itself doesn’t have a huge amount going for it. The main attraction is the wildlife nearby, particularly around an area called the Peninsula Valdes. Here you can take trips to go whale watching, see penguin colonies and sea lions and, if you’re extremely lucky, catch a glimpse of a killer whale.

Conscious of the “budget”, we gave the organised trips a miss and instead hired bikes to see a sea lion colony. It was billed as an easy 16km ride there, but that failed to mention it was all on gravel and uphill! The fact we stopped halfway for a picnic and half a bottle of wine on the beach might also have had something to do with the fact that we found it a little tough. We eventually got there though, pretty tired and a little sun burned. You can smell the sea lions before you see them from the viewing point. About 100 of them were basking on the beach, the occasional few gracefully swimming through the clear water to go fishing. Perhaps the best thing was a few confrontations between the big males over territory on the beach and probably women! These things were massive and very noisy, although we’ve been told that the elephant seals you can see in the Antarctic can be 6m long and weigh 3 tons!

Thankfully the bike ride back was a lot easier!

Time travel

A couple of days later we got our next bus down to a non-descript town called Rio Gallegos. It was only when waiting for the bus (and thinking it was late) that we found out that the time zone had changed when we left BA and we had been living the past 3 days an hour out! However, our record of doing the same in Namibia for 5 days still stands!

Rio Gallegos was just a stop over on our way down to Ushuaia, but we had to spend one night there. There literally is nothing really to see or do. We were also surprised at the complete lack of backpacker style accommodation seeing as most people have to come through here on their way down south. We did try to find one cheap place near the bus station (never really the best of areas), but the ‘desolate neighbourhood roamed by rabid dog’ feel eventually put us off and we jumped in a taxi to the centre of town.

After one uneventful night we got our last bus, an all day job, down to Tierra del Fuego and Ushuaia.

Tierra del Fuego & Ushuaia

God knows how they determined the border between Argentina and Chile, but if you ask me it isn’t very logical. Tierra del Fuego is the bit of land right at the bottom of South America and has a bit owned by Argentina and another bit by Chile. To get there we had to cross the border into Chile, catch a ferry across the Magellan Strait, drive for a bit and then cross the border back into Argentina. At each exit and entry point we had to get off the bus with our luggage and clear immigration - a real pain in the bum which added about 6 hours to a 6 hours driving time.

Tierra del Fuego translates to land of fire and is called this because early European sailors saw all the fires of the indigenous people on the shore. Not because it’s got loads of volcanoes as Lynne thought!

We arrived in Ushuaia at about 10.30 pm to a noticeable drop in the temperature and to a clear bright evening. As it’s so far south it doesn’t go dark here until about 11.15 pm, which is a bit weird. We got to Ushuaia a few days early but we didn’t want to miss the cruise and everyone we met told us that bus connections could be hit and miss and you could end up in a town for days waiting for a seat. We must have been lucky as we had no problems and there’s a lot to do in Ushuaia so we were happy. It has a bit of a frontier town feel. There are loads of people coming and going, most waiting for a cruise. The houses here really vary from lovely large Swiss Chalet types to ones that look more like a glorified garden shed.

We stayed at a great little place called Casa Del Alba, funnily enough owned by Alba. It was a bit of a walk from town but really homely and had quite a few interesting people in there, including an Irish bloke called David (and his wife Vanessa), who worked for Radio Bahrain. They were also going to Antarctica, but he was calling in to Bahrain every day to do a piece on travelling through South America.

As ever, we got our bearings on day 1 there. Again Ushuaia is set out in a grid pattern, with one main street with all the shops and restaurants, so we got to know this street very well! However, it has a stunning setting. It’s known as The End of World. To the south is the Beagle Channel and beyond that a small Chilean island called Isla Navarino. After that you get the Southern Ocean and finally Antarctica. To the north, the town is hemmed against the coast by a string of mountains. The next day we headed up to Glacier Martial, which is a small hanging glacier on the mountains directly behind Ushuaia. In winter it’s also a ski field, so we take a cable car half way up and then hike a steep slope to the start of the start of the glacier. The view is spectacular and even though the glacier isn’t much to behold, just being out in the very fresh air taking in the view is enjoyable. We even unfurl the sign we’ve made for Lynne’s Nan to wish her Happy Birthday and take a photo of us which is now our Christmas pic for everyone.

On another day, we spend the day in the Tierra del Fuego national park, a short minibus ride to the west of Ushuaia. Again, the scenery is spectacular. We do a coastal walk which winds its way between the shore and beech forest, with snow sprinkled mountains as the backdrop. The walk isn’t really that difficult and there aren’t many other people, so the solitude is great and we decide to carry on to another walk to see if we can spot any beavers. We end up seeing the dams, which are surprisingly big, but no beavers (although we think that we should notice them as they must be the size of bears to build such a big dam)!

Celeb spotting

As you might have guessed, Ushuaia isn’t the biggest of towns and the people that end up here tend to have a special interest. It was a little surprising then when we were eating in one of the many bbq restaurants, that Lynne gets all excited proclaiming that the really famous war correspondent from the BBC has just walked in the door.

After trying unsuccessfully for at least 15 minutes to guess the name of the man …. “Jeremy Bowen?” … “No” … “Rageh Omar” …. “No! He’s older and has white hair” … I eventually agree to turn around and take a look. He does indeed look very, very like the famous BBC war correspondent whose name I can’t remember either but he’s sitting next Sir Ranulph Fiennes! We assume that it definitely is Sir Ranulph as he has the missing frost-bitten fingers - far too extreme a measure for any look a like to take! We finally figure out the other bloke is John Simpson.

So, two celeb spots in one restaurant in a random town at the end of the world!! Lynne does some research on the internet and John Simpson and Sir Ranulph are friends and are filming a series for the BBC, along with Sir Robin Knox-Johnston (a famous sailor). The idea is that they each teach the other two their skills. They are in Ushuaia to sail around Cape Horn. It’s called Three Dogs and will be on in March so someone will have to tape it for us.

Lynne’s birthday!

Lynne is another year older (although of course she doesn’t look it)! It probably turns out to be one of the more random birthdays she will have. First up, Alba has baked Lynne a massive birthday cake, which she slices up for all the guests for breakfast. It was so kind of her and must have taken ages to make. As the days go by, we like Alba more and more. She can’t do enough for us and keeps saying “all of my guests are like my children”.

Lynne then gets interviewed by David, live from the kitchen table, for Radio Bahrain. She’s on the radio for about 10 minutes, with David asking questions about taking the year off work, our travels so far and her initial impressions of South America. David proclaims Lynne to be a natural! Lynne is not so sure!

We’ve then arranged to go horse riding in the national park. This turns out to be one of the best horse trekking I’ve done (out of a total of 3). We start off trekking through steep muddy slopes in a forest and at the top are rewarded with a vista over Ushuaia and out to sea. We then trek down to the beach before heading back. It really is scenic and the horses are fairly easy to control. We do quite a bit of trotting, which I’ve never really done before and which is extremely uncomfortable. I can’t seem to find a rhythm, which Lynne assures me is easy to do. Lynne even does some cantering, as her horse always wants to be at the front! It was definitely worth doing and hopefully helped make the day special.

The afternoon is spent drinking some Argentine sparkly wine and opening all the cards and presents that everyone was so kind to send us off with. Lynne sends a huge thank you for those and for the messages that she got. To round things off, we go to a speciality lamb restaurant we’ve had our eye on for the past few days. In lots of restaurants in Ushuaia they roast whole lambs on open fires in the restaurant windows and the other local specialities are king crab and trout. The food is fantastic and the atmosphere busy and buzzy.

All in all it has been a memorable day, and with the Antarctic cruise starting tomorrow, there are many more memorable days to come!

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Photos

The view over Ushuaia
The End of the World!

Dead wood
There is lots of waterlogged ground in Tierra del Fuego creating these dead forests

Lynne and Alba
With the fantastic cake Alba baked for Lynne

Birthday Lynne
As they say in the Holcroft house