Advertisement
Published: December 12th 2007
Edit Blog Post
The Lighthouse at the End of the World
With smelly seal colony in the foreground We caught a bus to Ushuaia on the 3rd November. It was a marathon trip, starting at 9am and arriving in Ushuaia at about 10pm. The ferry crossing to Tierra del Fuego was an event in itself - I had never seen wind like that in my life! I was seriously very worried about being blown over, and my hair resembled a scarecrow's after only a few minutes outside. As tempting as it was to take on the elements and stand outside on the ferry, I just couldn't stand the cold and had to wait inside. Pete being braver that I, stood outside the whole time... maybe because he has much less hair than me it didn't bother him as much? We had lunch in a tiny shop on the Chilean side of the border which was unexpectedly OK, although my hamburger only had cheese and meat on it, it was quite edible. This is also where I saw the can of sheeps' livers.... which made me think twice about what might have been in my hamburger.
Upon arrival in Ushuaia we were lucky to find a nice place to stay that late at night, although the price was a
Packing 'em in
This is the ferry crossing on the way to Ushuaia, the windiest place I have ever seen. little more that we wanted to pay. Once we saw the bathroom however, we were convinced, it was bigger than our room and very luxurious.. well worth the extra few dollars per night. We were actually lucky to find a decent place at all, as Ushuaia appears to be in the middle of an enormous tourism boom. Bus seats and double beds were difficult to find throughout our travels through southern patagonia.
On our first day in Ushuaia we took a boat trip around the Beagle Channel, one of the places Charles Darwin stopped at on his South American trip. We saw penguins (so cute, I could have watched them for hours!), some very smelly seals, and "The lighthouse at the end of the world", which is actually a replica of the real one. And the mountains around Ushuaia are just beautiful. Although the weather closed in on our way home that day we still enjoyed watching the sunset and colours of the clouds. Ushuaia is actually not a very windy place, and considering what we had seen on the trip down I was pleasantly surprised. I think it's protected from the weather somewhat by the surrounding mountains. I
What the?
Who eats this stuff? As seen at the border crossing on the way to Ushuaia very nearly took off my coat and walked around in my t-shirt it was that pleasant!
On our second day, after booking our bus ticket for what we thought was the next day, we decided to do some walking in the Tierra del Fuego National park. We did a nice easy walk along the shore of Lago Roca to the Chile-Argentinian border and back again. The forest is just beautiful, and the water in the lakes is almost perfect, and really clear. Pete thought it was warm enough for swimming but I disagree! It was pretty cold, I thought! We really wished we'd scheduled another day in to check out some more of the National Park, as we were so impressed. As fate would have it we would get our wish..
The next day we woke at 4.30am to catch our 5.30am bus only to discover that the nice seƱora at the travel agent had sold us a ticket for the 7th November after we specifically said we wanted one for the 6th. So we raced back to the hostel and were lucky enough to find someone leaving as we got back, otherwise we would have been locked
Pinguinos!
So cute, I could have watched these guys for hours out and roaming the streets with our bags at dawn! We let ourselves back into our room and caught up on much-needed sleep before booking the room for another night, luckily it was not already reserved. So we ended up going back to the NP for another afternoon of walking, this time around the other parts of the national park. We saw the end of the Pan-American highway which starts in Alaska, and saw plenty of introduced (pest) rabbits. It's a pity cane toads aren't that cute. Beavers are also a pest in Tierra del Fuego and apparently there is a $15 Peso bounty on them... and you only have to bring in the tail so you can still eat the rest of the animal if that's your thing!
So we woke early (again..) on the 7th and caught our bus back to Punta Arenas, this time not so surprised at the cold blasts of wind that greeted us each time we got off the bus.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0426s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb