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Published: April 28th 2006
Lighthouse
Smallest lighthouse ever!Ushuaia - the offical end of the world...
The most southernly town in the world (if you don´t count Puerto Williams which is seems the Chileans don´t even care about so can´t be worthwhile).
Arrived during a small blizzard so felt like Christmas, it was great! Antarctica hostel is fantastic, freezing outside and all dorms are outside the main building in chalet type layouts but all have under floor heating and are cooooozy! After my 5 hour delay and illness I got to the hostel and went straight to the coziest bed ever!
I arrived in Ushuaia just in time as most things usually close at the end of March, but for once the Argentinians had thought of making money so kept things running until easter.
Awoke early the next day to a great breakie and a wander around town. Booked a boat trip to Penguinera and the bloke threw in a free map souvenir, ticket to the aquarium and a hot chocolate. Redeemed my hot chocolate immediately as freezing in the heavy snow. Felt like I was in a cheesy American film. Snow falling, small backward town and gorgeous hot chocolate. The boat ride nearly didn´t start due to
bad weather, all of a sudden we couldn´t even see the surrounding mountains. Luckily it cleared slightly and we were on our way. Happened to be sat next to Suzie from my hostel! First stopped at the Sea Lion rock, hundreds of them laying about. Then the cormorant rock, no-one can explain why they all stick to these rocks only... Then onto the infamous lighthouse... smallest lighthouse I have ever seen! They make it look so impressive on the postcards! 2 hours later we get to Penguin Island, in the summer there are 6000, today there are 18. Oh well, we still got to see both species and a baby. The ride back had no scenery so they played charlie chaplin and phil collins videos to keep us amused. Then we got a certificate stamped!! Somehow (I blame the stomach virus) that tired me out and I was in bed by 10... Crazy!
Up at 9 and saw Suzie pottering about so we decided to go up to see the glacier. A 15 min taxi ride up the windy hill takes you to the chair lift station. We get on the most precarious of chair lifts for our 15
min ride up the mountain. It´s blowing a gale and snowing on and off, so a very cold ride. We immediately stop at the shack at the top of the mountain for a hot chocolate and a defrosting session. The signs to the glacier are very few so we start walking up a random path in the trees in about a foot of snow, I am sure some health and safety issues need to be addressed there. No signs, very close to cliffs at some points, generally a bit scary... At the top the views of the town are amazing but no luck with the glacier as it´s covered in snow, boo! After about an hour in the freezing gale and snow we decide to get the chair lift back down in search of an open fire. No luck, the man we asked thought we wanted any fire not a bar with a fire to sit around like I asked for! (Many Argentinians refuse to hear spanish from foreigners so guess what you want even though you say it correctly, at first he wanted to get us a bus, nothing to do with a bar and fire! So eventually with
The top
There´s a glacier here somewhere... his directions we ended up at a parilla, the places where they cook whole animals over huge fires! We did not want to sit around dead animals so found another cafe for sandwiches and wine. Met Sinead and Karen back at the hostel from my room so spent the evening playing celebrity trivial pursuit, drinking wine and then onto the Dublin bar. Each round of drinks meant another bowl of popcorn, we ate tons! Also Karen was telling us about a bloke she met in Bs As and was pining for, but they had forgotten to exchange emails. We agreed to look out for him on our way back up the country as it is a small travelling world, when suddenly the travelling world shrunk even more, he was stood outside the bar!!! What a shock! Him and Karen chatted the rest of the night until we were kicked out of the bar at 4am! Just like in a film, ahhh!
Woken up at midday by Suzie as I had forgotten we had agreed to go see the huskies. We got a taxi for about 40mins out of town through some amazing scenery. The husky plave had over 100
racing huskies, we got to meet the nice ones, the serious ones don´t like people. Luckily they were each tied to their kennels as I hate all dogs, although I did hold the puppy! So many have the crazy blue eyes and lots have freaky eyes of different colours. Some wierd thing when bredding huskies, they got just get the dominant eye colour gene they just get one of each colour! There wasn´t enough snow as it is Autumn in Ushuaia so they had a specially built cart. We were given plastic coats which seemed odd until 5 seconds into the ride, mud splattering everywhere! 12 dogs pulled us around the paddock. The man on the back shouts commands to the front dog only, he is the clever dog so he makes the others do what the man tells him to. There are commands of left, right, stop and go. Excellent ride, want to go back when it´s snowing now! Spent the whole afternoon trying to find a travel agent that could sell bus tickets, I am not a fan of the afternoon siesta! The one travel agent we needed did not open until 5pm! Who wants to go back
to work at 5pm?? The only problem with Ushuaia is getting out of the town, all routes get booked. I managed to get a weds bus to Punto Arenas and also booked a tour of the national park. That evening we went to Volver restaurant for some amazing seafood, we were banging at the door to get in as we couldn´t wait. I had the bigest, most succulent piece of salmon ever! Forgot about my small stomach though so could barely move all evening.
Had to get up early to start the national park tour, they had only managed to get me a spanish tour (after calling 10 places for me!!!) but I understood most of it. First we got to the little train station and took the train to the end of the world... This train runs on the original route built by the convicts from the Ushuaia penitentiary. There were a couple of stops on the train ride to see a few views, very icy so nearly fell a few times. Then back on the bus through the park. We stopped many times to see the lakes and could see Chile all around. While at a cafe,
What a mess
Me, Karen, Sinead, Suzie - all covered in mud! the guide asked if I had any clue what she was saying, I told her sort of so she made me sit in her seat. After annoucing on the microphone to the group seh would then tell me the same in English, very nice woman! The park does not have much soil and is maily rock so the Lenga trees that grow everywhere fall down often as they don´t have much soil in which to root, they are also being attacked by fungus. We saw loads of rabbits and condors, the rabbits were introduced from Spain to be bred for food and fur to sell in Europe. Unfortunately they all disappeared into the woods and were totally unprofitable. Now there are too many! Then they introduced beavers from Canada for their fur, another cock up as the beavers evolved to the warmer climate and grew short coarse fur! Doh! They are also destroying the park by building dams which disrupt the route of the river, flooding the banks and killing the trees. We stopped to see the biggest dam in the park, no beaver sightings though as they only come out at night. We followed ruta 3 to the end,
End of the world
How far to London!! the official end of the world as you cannot travel any further south without a boat. Here the lands is lumpy where the Yamanas used to live (before being wiped out by Spanish invaders and their diseases). They would hunt sea lions for food and would do so naked! They found wet clothes were colder than hunting naked covered in sea lion fat... When sea lions could not be found they would eat mussels, throwing the empty shells out of their hut windows. This made huge mounds around the huts which have now grown over and with the huts no longer around it looks like big holes have been dug everywhere. From here we made our way back to Ushuaia.
Sinead and Karen had done nothing all day so started on beer and somehow Sinead got absolutely wasted. She was jibbering nonsense for hours and boring 2 Aussies that had joined us. Sinead went missing about 11 and we assumed she was phoning her boyfriend. Turned out she had been sick in a carrier bag and then passed out in her bed! ha ha!
The next day after a lay in I inquired about horse riding. The extremely helpful
Volver
Too much food... receptionist made a few phone calls and booked me in for pick up i 30mins! Quick scramble to get dressed and I was on my way. I was driven down the coast to meet the horses and then we rode for 3 hours. We rode along the coast for a while and I was petrified, even my horse was scared. At times we were walking over slate rocks and the horse was slipping all over the place! We saw some great birds on the trip, the bright red headed woodpecker and it´s wife (not woody but almost). Then we stopped at a clearing for a snack. We continued on up the side of Mount Susanna and back to the owners lodge. A great ride even if I was scared the whole time... Went to the prison museum in the afternoon and learnt that the Carlos Gardel who is famed in Bs As for his great singing, was rumoured to have been an inmate in the Ushuaia prison... Shocking! Sinead and Karen had done nothing again! They didn´t resort to the beer this time though. We ended up playing Uno all evening which was bizarre, I felt like that group of
kids who had a lunchtime tournament every day in the RAC canteen.
The next day almost everyone was set to leave to Calafate. So I decided to use my free ticket to the aquarium. A great trip, tiny place but all creatures were from the Beagle Channel. The king crab was humungous and I watched a crazy octopus for ages. Also learnt that starfish are carnivores!! That evening was on a mission to try the lamb as it is renowned in this area. It was fantastic! Ended up doing the tenedor libre option so ate nearly quarter of a lamb, it was left on the fire with only 3 legs... Obviously that meant I was in agony all evening so in bed early to catch my 5am bus out...
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