Ushuaia and the Beagle Channel

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The city of Ushuaia now has 55-60,000 residents, depending on your source. It is growing very quickly and you can see the typical boom-town hodgepodge of new construction and older run-down houses and buildings still being used.

Since Ushuaia is the jumping off place for Antartic cruises as well as boat trips in the Beagle Channel and is a backpacker/ trekker/ outdoors recreation destination, the stores and restaurants are oriented to a tourist customer. Prices for souvenirs are fairly expensive. Restaurants are good, but are expensive compared with the rest of Argentina. There are lots of opportunities for hikes, glacier treks, boat tours of the Beagle Channel and so forth.

This is also a great place to catch a bargain on unfilled Antaractic cruises. The price seems to be from $1300 US up, and looks like a great bargain compared with the $5000 or more charged when booking from the US. Of course, you have to take whatever boat is available, and probably don't get all the comforts available to a full paying customer

I took the 6 hour boat trip in the Beagle Channel; trying (as I rode in this comfortable boat, snacking on a ham and cheese sandwich) to imagine the experience of Robert Fitz Roy, captain of the HMS Beagle, as he and his famous passenger Charles Darwin, navigated and first charted this passage bypassing the trip around Cape Horn.

There isnt really much more to say about Ushuaia. It is very scenic, cloudy, rainy. Not really cold, but not warm either. A fitting place for the last cit

Unrelated to Ushuaia, but maybe interesting to you armchair travelers is that everywhere are the containers being used to hold “mate”, a kind of herb drink. Mate drink cups seem to be either a small natural gourd container, or a wooden cup wrapped with metal, leather, or just painted or stained. Many are for sale which have been adorned with silver in ornate holders. Chopped mate leaf is put into the container, then filled with boiling water. A metal straw with a strainer is inserted into the mix, and it is drunk like tea. Markets and stores carry a variet;y of mate brands, and the chopped leaf costs from about 75 cents to $3.00 for a pound. Lots of people can be seen carrying around their insulated water bottles and their mate container, ready to brew up a cup.

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Photos

Scenery in Tierra del Fuego
Very pretty; often cloudy and hard to photograph

City sign at Ushusia
Most of the group assembled for the picture

City of Ushusia
50-60,000 and growing