Ushuaia

Tierra del Fuego indeed

View of the harbour in Ushuaia

Ushuaia sits at the southernmost tip of the Americas, less than 1000km from Antarctica. The average temperature here in the warmest month of the year is 10.4°C and the lowest temperature ever recorded in summer was -6°C. So at least you know what to expect when you visit the southernmost city on the world.


We came here from El Calafate which is also in Argentina. The problem is that from El Calafate to Ushuaia, the bus needs to go through Chile and cross the Strait of Magellan which makes this (short) 550km trip endless.







An hour or so after leaving El Calafate you get to the Chilean border and everyone gets off the bus to be stamped out of Argentina and into Chile. Then there are the fearsome Chilean fruits and fresh products checks. Chile is a huge producer of fruits (grapes for wine, apples, pears, etc.) and they are absolutely paranoid about letting any plague into their country.

One of the most dangerous straits in the world

If you are caught with any fruits, cheese or raw meat (such as ham) you might be fined up to US$10,000 and go to prison. Their SAG squads from the Ministry of Agriculture with their x-ray scanners and their trained dogs don’t let anything pass. Well at least not at the border posts. I don’t see how a country that shares over 6000 km of border with Peru, Bolivia and Argentina can ensure nothing gets in but oh well.

The ferry actually beaches itself

Anyway that usually takes an hour. Then we drive off until we reach the Strait of Magellan. This is where Fernando (Ferdinand) de Magallanes, convinced there would be a way to circumnavigate the world, found his first passage around the southern tip of South America and the Cape Horn. We get off the bus again as it boards the ferry that brings us across. It’s only a 20 minutes ride during which small black and white dolphins (no they were not orcas) accompany the ferry.

Then we drive a little bit more and we have to exit Chile to re-enter Argentina. That’s when things yet again get complicated for me. As a general rule whenever we’re approaching a border I run to the front to be the first one out of the bus and in the queue. This time was no different. And as usual the Argentine border police had a really hard time figuring out what to do with me.

They never know which country I’m from and their system does not seem to help them much either. This time they proposed to “assign” me to Africa only to find out that their system does not cater for continents. Then they propose to put me down as Great Britain since we were once a British colony. At that point we do exchange some pleasantries about football and the Hand of God and all.

After a gruelling hour I’m the last person from our bus who has not been through. The bus driver is looking nervously at me thinking he’s got a schedule to keep. I finally manage to get the holy grail (a stamp into Argentina) for the last time. As from now, we stay in “The Land of Silver” until we cross into Brazil in January 2012.

Yep we're in the end of the world

We arrived to Ushuaia at around 9pm and took a taxi to our hostel (La Posta – free usage of washing machine, two big kitchens, Real Madrid vs Barcelona on their huge flat screen,  really nice). We checked our email to find out that Archanna and William who we met in Cusco were in town. We decided we’d go to the Tierra del Fuego National Park together the next day.

We're far far away from the rest of the world here

Lake view in the park

Sure enough the following day we met in the park to start our trek. It’s a beautiful park but after Torres del Paine everything seems a bit bland. We nevertheless walk 16km this day and decide we should not part company so early.

We get back into town and go buy stuff from the supermarket to cook dinner together. Archanna wanted to cook a fish pie but unfortunately fish was scarce, so we got chicken instead. We also chose two nice bottles of Argentinian red wine and headed back home. That evening we had a great time in great company and Archanna and Will left just after 11pm.

Oh the Argentines have a sense of humour alright

Will, Archanna and Roxana marvelling at the view

Entering the Beagle Canal

The following day we lazed around the hostel after having a hearty breakfast (thanks to Italian and French influence, croissants in Argentina are just as good as back home). Then we went into town to book ourselves a boat tour of the bay. We go into the famous Beagle canal to the “H” Island. It’s beautiful and we get to see a colony of sea lions up close. We also get extremely close to the nests of Cormorants. Their chicks just only hatched but they get to adult size after only three weeks.

We also saw some ancient settlements of the Yamana people who first settled in these regions around 7,000 B.C. They were essentially hunter gatherers. They lived naked and evolved a unique particularity: their body temperature was a constant 38°C to fend off the cold.

Flores de Fuego with nectar dripping

Anonymous - Looking away into the sea

Wild berries

An alpha-male and his harem of sea lions

Our boat "Tres Marias" on "H-island"

When they first saw huge European ships coming their way they raised the alarm by lighting fires and using smoke signals. The Europeans standing on the decks of their vessels saw hundreds and hundreds of fires and smoke columns rising everywhere and called this place “Tierra del Fuego”  (“Land of Fire” or “Terre de Feu”).

We got back this evening after the 4 hour tour and met up with Archanna and Will. We went to the southernmost Irish pub in the world (The Dublin) and used the vouchers for free beers that we got on the tour.  We stayed there and had another drink and some really good chips before parting company. We’ll see each other again in BA.

That's the plane

As for us we flew out of Ushuaia using LADE, a commercial company of the Argentinian Air Force. It's only a 30 seater and we already hear rumours of ash clouds around Puerto Madryn ... let's see.  

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