Ushuaia, the bottom of the world.

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We orginally planned to leave El Calafate the day after visiting the Glacier, take a day bus east to Rio Gallegos (atlantic coast..ish) and then a nightbus for the 12hour trip south to Ushuaia. However, as is always the case, the best laid plans don´t work out. There was no nightbus.

The alternative was to take a bus to Rio Gallegos as originally planned and then jump on a plane from there to Ushuaia, arriving in a mere 40minutes instead of 12 hours. This in itself was appealing enough, but we settled on it once we cut out the ´middle men´(2 guys smoking and drinking maté in a bus station office) and headed for the Aerolineas Argentinas office ourselves, finding the price difference between flying and bus to be a matter of 10 dollars. Sold.

Following a very brief flight, we arrived at the ´city´of Ushuaia, "the end of the world." What can we say? Ushuaia was as one might imagine the southernmost city on the planet to be; cold, bleak and grey... as one might not imagine, it was also very pricey!

Arriving at 9pm we jumped in a taxi to a cabaña and settled down with some beers and of course some beef / lamb (not sure which), this time in the form of a takeaway ´stew´which was surprisingly satisfying.

The next day, after a massive lie-in due to the fact that the sun doesn´t rise until after 9 (even then it seems to make a half-cocked job of it!) we went exploring. Unfortunately, due to the season (getting into the depths of winter but not quite there yet...) a lot of the activities - hikes, glaciers etc were not possible, thus our days were spent getting up late, eating ´tostados´ (toasties), internetting and going to the occasional museum. We were glad of a warm cabaña and some cable T.V!

Wierdly, we bumped into a couple of travellers we met on the Uyuni Salar tour, way back in Bolivia and enjoyed an ´all you can eat´ buffet and several drinks. (They cook whole lambs on a wood fire and just hack bits off for you... ´great ´says chris!)

After 3 days, we had to move on (gladly packing our bags) to make our connection from Rio Grande to Buenos Aires, there being no flights available from Ushuaia (fully booked). So, today we left Ushuaia at 0500 and travelled the 150km north to Rio Grande. Currently sat in our hotel (again... overpriced but at least its clean and nice!) killing time before we fly to Buenos tomorrow morning. We cannot wait! The guidebook describes Rio Grande´s highlight as a "sheep shearing festival"... unfortunately we have missed it.....

That´s all folks!

Chris and Rach xxx

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Photos

Map
A little adjustment... straight lines and flights are now RED! Hopefully it´s a bit clearer. (we were bored...!)

Rio Gallegos
Tourists arrive, then leave. We had a grand total of 2 hours. Very scenic.

Ushuaia
Apparently it´s nice in the summer...

Sign
Look familiar? 35 days after we crossed the border at La Quiaca we arrive at Ushuaia. Roll on Buenos Aires!

Beagle Channel
Looking south across the Beagle Channel (named after Darwin´s boat). Frio! Ushuaia was full of Russian sailors from these boats.

Prison
A penal colony was started here... I think Australia would be preferable, having said that, the cells were better than some of the Bolivian hostels we saw ;)

Scraping the barrel
As you can see, the town wasnt full of photo opportunities... or people, or sun, but it was good to say we´ve been to the ´end of the world´. These penguins worried us slightly...do they normally have breasts?

Comments

[sara]

Keep them coming,great to follow your trip.Having a send off for Rich tomorrow and alittle practise for a night out on your return!!!Sxx

[mom]

Looks as though you are getting short of news hope you have a better time in Buenos Aires. See you in a week about this time I would say. Looking forward to it. Lots of luv mom xxx