The end of the world

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We left El Calafate in the dead of the night - 3:00am to be exact! After napping in the dodgy looking bus terminal along with our fellow travellers (many of whom looked a little dodgy themselves), we boarded for the 4 hour journey to Rio Gallegos where we would disembark long enough to scoff down a few more medialunas before jumping back on a bus for the next leg to Ushuaia. Twelve hours and six passport stamps later, we arrived at our destination and made our way to the Freestyle Hostel.

We had booked only one night at Freestyle as it was to be one of our first dorm-room experiences. However, we were pleasantly surprised with the facilities and general vibe of the hostel so we asked that they squeeze us in for an additional 3 nights! For some reason we then had to change rooms each morning which was fun, but on the bright side this meant we experienced many different rooms and met lots of people. Jens and Dana, from Germany and just starting out on their South America odyssey, were great examples of this and we had some fun times and many beers with the wonderful Berliners.

It´s possible we failed to truly appreciate all that Ushuaia had to offer as we skipped the anticipated boat cruise to the nearby penguin and sea lion colonies. However, we did go on a lovely walk to the local glacier (nothing compared to Perito Moreno!) which included a chairlift ride and spectacular views of the town of Ushuaia and surrounding mountains.

Ushuaia is the launching place for thousands of people departing for voyages to Antarctica meaning that the town is extremely touristy with associated tourist prices. Despite this, the town had a great buzz from all the excited people waiting to board the cruise of a lifetime. It was great to hear their stories and once or twice we felt a pang of disappointment at our decision to take the Antarctic cruise off our "things to do" list in favour of the Galapagos Islands tour. Happily, however, we discovered that a last-minute deal to Antartica was at least US$4,500 and as such was greatly out of our reach. So, in hindsight our decision to see the Galapogas Islands was a good one.

After four days cruising around Ushuaia we headed to the airport (yep, you heard it right - no long bus ride this time!) to fly to Buenos Aires to connect with our bus into Brasil.

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Photos

Sunset over Ushuaia
Possibly the best sunset we have ever seen!

View from Freestyle Hostel
Cruise ships destined for Antartica

Picnicing in Ushuaia...
with Jens and Dana from Germany

Jules and Jens taking the easy way down the mountain
Boys will be boys

Jules skiing down the hill (without skis)
Ushuaia in the background