End of the World
Sunday, March 30th, 2008Ushuaia. Okay, not really the end of the world, but the farthest south city in Argentina and except for this tiny little town in Chile (which Argentina tries not to acknowledge) called Puerto Williams which seems quite a pain in the butt to get to just to say, yes, you are in the farthest south city. Anyway, we get there and are totally shocked. It’s a wonderful little city that is surprisingly not too expensive considering Rio Gallegos was kind of expensive compared to it and it was not nearly as interesting. And can you say BEAUTIFUL! The plane ride going in was amazing. It reminds me a lot of Alaska (okay, I haven’t really seen too much of Alaska except for going to Jimmie and Leilani’s wedding, but it just reminds me of what it would look like). Apparently it kind of looks like Maine too, if that gives you any indication.
Anyway, we grabbed a taxi and it dropped us at this B & B a bit outside the city. Yeah, this whole B & B thing is totally a crapshoot – I guess it’s like a hotel or hostel but they encompass such a wide range. This B & B, was 4 floors – the proprieters lived in the bottom, there were 2 floors of guest rooms (4 in total) and then on the top was the kitchen or TV room which makes things kind of noisy since you can hear everything anyone says in the living area upstairs, and, well, Argentinians are not known for going to bed very early.
And this started the cold I decided to keep and I still have it (we’re currently in Iguazu which is about as far north as you can get without entering Brazil) – I’m sure it has nothing to do with going from sub-tropical climates to freezing butt-ass cold climates. Where wool and fleece are now king. And I so generously gave the cold to John and he is now totally cursing me. But really, what can you do?
Anyway, first up we found out we had to extend our original stay by a day because the buses are very limited to go to Chile – you have to go by ferry across the Strait of Magellan, go through customs and then go down to Punta Arenas. It wasn’t that big of a deal but it meant changing B&Bs.
Then we went up to see Glaciar Martial. We took a taxi up to where the tarmac ends and then you can either grab the ski-lift or walk it – so we walked it and then went on the funniest hike. I’ve never seen the widest variety of people going up this hill to – some in loafers, some in hiking boots, some in slippers – it was totally funny – young and old – John helped this 60 year old lady part-way down the hill after she freaked out and was just sitting on a rock I guess waiting for the bottom of the hill to come to her – she was okay after she got past this really steep part – anyway the Glacier wasn’t really all that but the views of the city and the channel were amazing. AMAZING!
The next day we went on a boat tour of the Beagle Channel – there are a ton of these boat tours and they’re all pretty much the same except for ours included a “trek”. Which was really a walk on the end of the tour but it was kind of cool. We went out to the lighthouse called Faro Les Eclaireurs and then to Isla de Los Lobos where a ton of sealions were hanging out – John is convinced they look like dogs – and then went and trekked on this island to see where the natives used to hang out before they were overcome by smallpox. Does that not sound familiar or what? Apparently the native people down here didn’t wear clothes – just paint – they must have had some miraculous kind of internal heating system because it was cold in the middle of summer!
The next day we went to Tierra del Fuego National Park and hiked to the lower of viewpoints entitled Cerro Guanaco – it was super windy and it was freezing and since we saw a full rainbow and such beautiful views from the lower ones we decided to forgo the higher viewpoint and went down and around the lake for a while.
Oh, also Ushuaia is one of those places where you can catch those big cruise ships to Antarctica – for a mere 5,000 USD you can add that last continent to your wish list. Maybe someday we’ll return…
JohnCin