Thursday, January 9, 2014

Bottom of the World

Two flights later and we are in Ushuaia, known as 'The Bottom of the World’! Flights were good this time although there was one point, as we came close to Ushuaia, and looked out of the window it looked as if the wing would touch the mountain - yes there was an intake of breath!

It’s a strange place but quite beautiful in it’s own way. There are snow covered peaks and the bay. There are a few ships here and this is often the starting point for Antartica which is 1000km away - almost the same as going from Sydney to Melbourne!

Although cold the days are long. We were out walking around the town when Valda said, “ We won’t have dinner for a couple of hours!” My reply was, “I think we might eat now as it is 8:45!” She was shocked as it did feel  so much earlier in the day. It didn’t start to get dark until around 11pm and when we woke at 6:30am it was light! When we did go to dinner we had the most amazing casserole of crab and prawns. King crab is the go here and boy are they huge!


Our morning was taken up with a visit to the National Park and included a trip on a steam train. The views were stunning and there were lots of horses grazing in the areas we passed. One thing I found very noticeable was how much Mistletoe there was on the trees. A lazy lunch and lazy afternoon was the order for the rest of the day. Saw a very interesting poster, well for the Poms anyway.


When you cast aside the tacky souvenir shops the area is quite beautiful. the view across the bay and the snow covered Andes are (sorry) beautiful!

A morning spent walking around and visiting a couple of museums led us to a boat trip. We boarded a catamaran and headed out to the Beagle Channel but when it started to rain it didn’t stop us, we were out onto the deck taking photos. Our trip went for three hours and we saw colonies(?) of Cormorants and sea lions. It was so exciting to see the wildlife there in front of us instead of on TV or pictures. The whole area is very picturesque.



Today we caught a taxi up to the chair lift to go to the glacier but once again the heavens opened and it wasn’t the right thing to do so instead we sat in a lovely ‘tea room’, overlooking small waterfalls and forest, drinking alcohol laced hot chocolate - I could have stayed all day!

Our return to ‘Down Town’ ended at the Maritime museum and jail. We spent a couple of hours here as the history was fascinating.

Tomorrow back to Buenos Aires and onto Bariloche with too much time spent at airports and probably more excess baggage payments!!

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