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Published: February 11th 2011
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Colonia
One of the many very pretty cobbled streets of the main square. As good as Buenos Aires was we thought we shouldn't be so close to Uruguay without paying a visit. Our choice of ferry to Colonia, Uruguay was either at 8:45 a.m. or at 12 noon - luckily for us the 8:45 was full so we had to have a bit of a lie in. We were obviously gutted!
We arrived in Colonia at 1:30 and headed to the old town, around the coastline to the south; as you go more inland and north you hit the new town. The difference between to the two is strikingly obvious. We spent most of our day walking around the old town, following a map we had picked up at the port. It had 16 points of interest so we made sure we did them all, though it's such a small town it took us only a few hours! The highlights were the lighthouse, from which we could see Buenos Aires, and the main square with it's cobbled streets and restaurants around it.
As the sun was beginning to set we headed for a restaurant on the seafront. The view looking west out to sea was stunning as the sun went down...we seemed
to forget that we are supposed to be hardcore travelling as it just felt like we were on holiday! We even treated ourselves to a piece of chocolate cake that we would both SWIM back to Colonia for!
The next day was our last in BA so we went and did a few things we had planned on doing earlier in the week but not had a chance to. We went to the Cathedral on the Plaza de Mayo and then headed up to the MALBA museum, which was good despite some of the artistic significance going over our heads.
We then stopped in at the Japanese Gardens (?!) in Palermo before heading back to our hostel. We had a flight booked to Ushuaia booked for 5:15 a.m the next day so we did the sensible thing - we didn't book a room and instead stayed up all night watching movies until we had to leave for the airport. Unfortunately our tiredness led to us leaving our food and cutlery in the fridge...let that be a lesson! Still, we had our passports and we were off to our next destination!
Ushuaia's boast is that it is the
most southern city anywhere on earth. We landed in Ushuaia at 9:15 a.m. wearing shorts and flip-flops, having just flown from sunny BA...and it was 8 degrees! 8 DEGREES! We won't expect much sympathy from people back home, but we don't care - it was FREEZING!
For our first night we had treated ourselves to a nice hotel, so we headed there. We were a bit early but they gave us a free breakfast and let us check in early! As we were so tired from not really having any sleep we spent the day just wandering around Ushuaia, visiting a couple of museums on the history of the city and getting 'end of the world stamps' in our passports. Carina was very excited about this!
Seeing as Ushuaia is the nearest gateway to Antarctica (it's only 1000km away) we thought we would see how much it would be to go there - about £3000 for a ten day cruise was the answer. We'll have to...er...come back later in life! We stopped off and had some amazing hot chocolates and pancakes (chocolate is renowned for being excellent in Ushuaia so it had to be done!) before heading back
Lighthouse in Colonia
We walked to the top and got great views. to the hotel for an early night.
The next day turned in to the most exhausting of the trip so far. We decided to walk to the Martial Glacier, 7km out of town...all uphill - and that was only to the information centre! It was then another kilometre of silly steep climbing to the bottom of the glacier. Ridiculous heat in BA two days earlier and here we were at the bottom of the glacier! It was definitely worth the climb, an incredible sight. The journey down was far more agreeable as we took the more sensible option and shared a taxi back to town with some entertainers from a cruise ship that had docked earlier - they even took pity on us poor travellers and paid for it!
I thought we were going to go home and have some dinner but nooooooooooo! As it was a clear evening we went and did a 4 hour cruise in the Beagle Channel. We travelled a 50km circuit, seeing the lighthouse, an island full of rowdy sealions and going for a brief walk on Bridges Island (yep, even MORE walking!). On the way back to shore they served us drinks
Sunset in Colonia
Our view as we had dinner. (not sure what it was, it tasted like Tia Maria, but I thought sailors only drank rum!) and did a raffle for the Argentinian flag flying on the front of the boat...and I won! Hurrah! The boat trip was a perfect end to a great (but knackering!) day.
The next day we took a bus to the Tierra del Fuego National Park so we could take the end of the world train and do another hike. The train was okay - very touristy and quite expensive. Not only that, when we got to the end of the line we were stranded for 45 minutes waiting for a bus to take us to the start of the hike! The hike itself was fantastic though; we walked 4km around the side of Lake Roca to the geographical border of Chile. Once we were there we were so tired from the previous few days we fell asleep in the sun for an hour. The sound of lapping water is very relaxing!
We returned to our hostel and cooked a huge dinner of ravioli, hot hogs and vegtables...ready for a 5 a.m. bus to El Calafate the next day...Why?!!??!! WHY SO EARLY??!!?!?!
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jennifer
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jennifer@wrapson.com
This is just not what I expected. Shame on me I know,but I thought it would be much much smaller and not so clean and not so, well, ordinary - like an English seaside town!!!!!! I am amazed. It looks lovely.