Hostel Patagonia Pais Ushuaia

From Puerta Natales I head slightly south to Punta Arenas, the most southerly Chilean city, and you can tell by the weather - I was greeted by hail sleet and snow on my first day. This city has few things to do: the most southerly commercial brewery in the world (which was closed for tours), a penguin colony at Seno Otway (which is out of season), one of Chile´s biggest red-light districts (which is impossible to avoid, but fortunately the ´nightclubs´ are more discrete than in Santiago or Bu...

Monday 29th Oct We had decided to split from El Calafate and head to El Chaltén 5 hours up the road for a bit more physical torture to get the body some way fit, in between the numerous steaks and cheap plonk, before heading to Peru. Got up to the town about lunchtime. It was only founded in 1985 purely as hikers ville haven for the surrounding park and to prevent Chile from getting any ideas of grabbing a bit more glacial mountain area in the region. The whole place has that very feeling of ...

Day 4 - Up at 4:45 again. This was out last chance to see Fitzy at sunrise. It was partly cloudy but we got up for what was a strenuous 1 hour climb up to Laguna De Los Tres in the dark. It was cloudy by the time we reached the mirador, but we did get about 2 minutes of fantastic lighting. The loud Israelis were up at the viewpoint so we made sure we walked as far as we could away from them. It was a lethargic walk down to camp for our breakfast. After food we broke camp and started the trek...

Ushuaia is considered the end of the world. The first day was relative warm sunny, not a common occurence from what I understand. I took the Tres Maria sail boat tour through the beagle channel. We were able to get up close to sea lion, penguin and several bird colonies. They also have exclusive access to H Island, which is a natural preserve with several remains from the yamanas (indigenous people wiped out the europeans). I found it interesting that the region is called Tierra del Fuego, la...

10/10/2008 (FRI) The bus ride was terrible. It was a regular bus, and we had to stop for four times to get our passports stamped (once to exit Argentina, once to enter Chile, and again to exit Chile, and again to enter Argentina), not to mention the short ferry ride in between. On arrival in Ushuaia, it was already 9pm and I only had one jamon y queso sandwich (ham and cheese) the whole day! I was approached a representative from Patagonia Pais hostel, which cost AR$35 per night, so I went fo...

Welp, Mike and I spent the morning wandering around town to go in search of a laundromat and check things out. I went for a jog later on along the waterfront, where i saw numerous memorials to the fallen soldiers in the Falkland Islands war back in ´82, and a tribute to the people of Ushuaia who aided in the conflict. Standing in such a place allows it to hit a bit closer to home, more than reading it in a book on some other continent. Left my camera home for this one, unfortunately. The next...