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¿donde los pingüinos?

Friday, June 1st, 2007



Ushuaia, Beagle channel (54)

Originally uploaded by kathsmee.

By far the best, and the coldest, thing we did in Ushuaia though was a sailing trip down the Beagle Channel. When we arrived we were given information on everything we could do by the exceptionally friendly owner of Casa de Alba hostel, except on her list the penguin tours were crossed out which led to the obvious question – ¿a donde los pingüinos? Apparently, and this is great, it is too cold for penguins in Ushuaia this time of year and they are all in Brazil! Or at least this is the tale told to Gringos, and true to her word there were no penguins.

But sensible penguins I say, it was absolutely freezing as we sailed down the Beagle Channel but we consoled ourselves with the amazing (and yet again rather smelly) sight of a few hundred seals and a whole load of other birds! Seals are wicked though and quickly became Tucky´s new favorite animal (at least for the moment) and it was amazing to see them up close in the wild, swimming around the boat and showing off jumping out of the water for us, it was like being in Animal Planet.

Posted in Argentina, Travel, Ushuaia | No Comments »

El fin del Mundo

Friday, June 1st, 2007



Ushuaia

Originally uploaded by kathsmee.

From Buenos Aires we took a three hour flight, sat next to the toilets – delightful, down to Ushuaia. The flight in was beautiful over the mountains and into the town, and it was only after we were safely on the ground that I was told it is one of the most dangerous landings in the world. Unless you miss it in any of their promotional literature, Ushuaia is the southern most city in the world (although technically there is a smaller town in Chile which is a little bit lower – but I’m sure you’ll all agree with Ushuaia that that doesn’t really count!) Ushuaia therefore has…. the southernmost train, the
southernmost golf course, the southernmost pool hall and pretty much the southern most everything else. In all fairness this doesn’t need to be its only marketing gimmick because it is a beautiful place. I got off the plane and I couldn’t stop smiling, the views everywhere are spectacular, like being in the pages of a guidebook, only better.

We spent five days in Ushuaia in total, we went for a husky sled ride (hugely overpriced and to be honest a bit smelly), to the Fin del Mundo steam train, Tucky played a lot in the snow and generally had a lovely time being cold for a change. And oh boy was it cold, we needed everything we bought in BA, then all of our clothes on top of that, and them to buy some more. There was also an interesting art expo going on in the city at the time we were there which involved some strange installations around the city like a brightly colored clothes line on the horizon (as pictured) and a fluffy pink bus stop! You can also imagine the extent to which the Malvinas propaganda was in place down there, you can’t move for signs declaring their Argentine status, it really is fascinating, particularly when you consider how little the average British person cares, at least in my opinion – must do more research on this.

Posted in Argentina, Travel, Ushuaia | 1 Comment »