Ushuaia

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Ushuaia

We left Punta Arenas by bus on the 20th of January. Part of the journey took us over the Strait of Magellan where we saw many beautiful Commerson's Dolphins playing in the water and swimming along the ferry. See the video posted for the dolphins swimming along the ferry.

Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world (haven´t we heard that before?). Puerto Williams, in Chile, is farther south. Puerto Williams, however, is a rural town of some 2000 residents, mostly temporary military personnel and is not considered a "City" by Chilean authorities.

Ushuaia is located on a triangular shaped island in and area called Tierra del Fuego, or, Land of the Fire, as Magellan baptised it. Many theories exist about why Magellan named it so, including that the natives where burning many fires at the time of Magellan´s passing through the Strait, others about the everlasting sunsets it the summer, etc. Obviously none can be validated at this time, as Magellan is no longer around. Tierra del Fuego has been inhabited for at least the last 10,000 years, initially by the Yaghan people. Since the Spanish arrived and settled, though, they and all other original inhabitants have been destroyed. Lovely, really, all these wonderful stories of people wiping out entire tribes and civilisations.

We found Ushuaia to be really expensive. We don´t want to harp on about expense on each blog entry, but Ushuaia definitely takes the trophy in terms of most expensive place to date. Many European and American travellers come to Ushuaia as a starting point for their Antarctic cruises. It´s a popular ski resort in the winter period.

It´s also very scenic and, surprisingly, quite mild in terms of temperature. Something to do with being surrounded by ocean, apparently.

Most of the organised activities in Ushuaia were above our budget range, but we headed off to the Tierra del Fuego National Park. The park has dramatic scenery, with waterfalls, forests, mountains, peat bogs and glaciers. We did a day hike along the beagle channel, in a beautiful magellanic forest. This was the first time both of us had ever experienced any kind of cold-climate forest.

It felt like being transported into a Grimm brothers´ world of fairies, goblins and magic. There is just something magical about the forest where we hiked for the day. We really took our time, stopping at many spots to take in the views and the trees. We saw many birds, most notably two falcons; one perched in a tree close to where we were walking, the other being chased away by seagulls protecting their nests. The trees, however, stole the show. They are amazing. The forest floor is covered in moss, wild strawberries and Calafate, a type of wild berry that is a local speciality used in jams and ice-creams.

We splurged one evening and went to a traditional Patagonian Parilla (grill), that had an eat-as-much-as-you-can offer. We ate huge portions of succulent lamb, by far the best lamb we have ever eaten. Huge portions of Chorizo and sirloin stake was also sampled. This was to be the start of a bit of a lamb-craze period for Bernhard.

We only stayed for three days in total, then left for El Calafate.

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