Ushuaia

Quite a lot has happened since we took the plane to Ushuaia four days ago.

My foot was pretty sore from whatever insect or arachnid that decided ravage me. It is now finally healing.

my ankle (taken for dramatic effect)

The flight to Ushuaia ends with a breathtaking view of the city, the surroundings and the Beagle Channel. When we landed here at 20h00 we stepped out into the icy cold of the Antarctic wind and rain. This was going to be cold...

We took the taxi to our hostel, Torre al Sur, which is very nice, homey and cheap. Our room faced the mountains and we got a breathtaking view!

A few interesting things about Ushuaia; it is the southernmost city in the world, it is 1100km from and the launching pad to Antartica, the sun rises at 4h30 and sets at about 22h30. And it is not that cold! The average summer temperature is 9 degrees, and except for the first night it is actually nice and warm (sort of). It apparently snowed quite a lot in the days just before we arrived and the mountains were covered in snow. In the next few days a lot of this melted...

The first night we looked for a restaurant and got ourselves a nice juicy steak and our first wine since we left South Africa. Most of the wine in Argentina comes from Mendoza (which we will fully explore and experience in a week or two) and their principal grape is Malbec. It was actually very nice... We went back to the hostel to get some rest.

The next morning we met up with Kristin, a German traveller and as she planned the same trips and routes as us, we quickly made friends. She is sharing a room with me and Lloyd. We spent the day trekking up one of the mountains to go see the Martíal Glacier. This was an incredible experience even though we did not really see the glacier as it was covered in the newly fallen snow. The trek wasn´t too hard, it took about three hours and gave us spectacular vistas of the city and the mountains. When we got down we were really tired, but not too tired to open another bottle of Argentinean wine to go with our fine supper of beef, chicken and potato salad! After that it was straight to bed.

Me, Lloyd and Kristin sitting in a tree

the trek up the mountain

who´s afraid of snow?

The next morning we explored the Tierra del Fuego National Park. This is a vast park of forests, bogs, mountains and crystal clear lakes. The lakes are many different colours, some are bright blue, others green and still others black. We saw quite a lot of wildlife, but most of all we saw rabbits (thousands)! The Europian rabbit was, for some reason, introduced, along with beavers, and they accordingly wreaked havoc on the environment.

We started our trek at Fin del Mundo, the end of the world. We walked about 6 hours in total exploring the area and ended our trip on the shores of Lago Roca, a beautiful lake nestled in between the mountains. Because the sun was nice and warm and I decided to take a dip in the icy waters! Very refreshing! Back at the hostel Kristin made us a very tasty vegetable soup mixed with noodles. And then we drank some more wine...

Lago Roca

Today is a rest day. We will spend it at the hostel and walking around town a bit. Tomorrow we have to get up early (5h) to catch the bus to El Calafate (16h journey).

Cheers,

Neil