As south as you can go without getting wet!

Alex: Well after 7 months on the road we have finally made it to the end of the world! We arrived in Ushuaia after a 13 hour bus journey which involved crossing into Chile, a short boat ride and a crossing back into Argentina - 4 border crossings each with one guy at the desk and 50 people on the bus - that's why it takes 13 hours!

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Ushuaia is a nice town with a really friendly feel and incredible surroundings. It is situated on the Beagle channel and has snow-capped mountains on all sides, the town itself has an almost alpine feel with corrugated iron and wood lodges! After Alsaka in the summer we were expecting much the same weather in Ushuaia, i.e. warmish but take a coat, but we were very wrong - it is really cold, especialy after 7 months of summer. It was started to get chilly in Rio Gallegos but flip flops we still not out of the question but here it is all out scarf and gloves weather - and this is mid-summer! It was even more surprising when we checked our Filofax map and according to our inaccurate measurements using our fingers as rulers it is at the latitudinal equivalent to southern Scotland (I have since double checked this and we were right). Fortunaely when we start heading north again it will start to get warmer.

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Our first excursion was to see the Martial Glacier a couple of kilometres outside town. We made the mistake of getting the chairlift up, bad move, sat outside at this temperature is just silly, it was also quite expensive and no quicker than walking and we still had an hours hike up to the actual glacier (in case you haven't got my subtle hints, if you are ever in Ushuaia, don't get the chairlift up to the glacier!) The walk up to the glacier itself was very pleasant and warmed us up quite a bit, we also got to sit and eat our sandwiches sat next to the glacier - cool! The glacier itself kind of looks more like an overgrown snow patch than an actual glacier but is still very pretty and you get great views over the Beagle channel and Ushuaia so worth the trip.

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Our second excursion was to Tierra del Fuego national park, which the guide book disparagingly says is more set up for day trippers than backpacking hikers - fine by us! We took a hike along the Beagle channel shoreline. The trail was lovely and took us through fairytale like forests, skirted mussel shell filled beaches and coves (unfortunately no sunbathing - I don't think you can get a tan through 6 layers of clothing!) and brought us face to face with a few feral horses and we also got some fantastic views. For the most of the walk it was a little cloudy but no rain and the sun even made an appearance occasionally, towards the end though freezing little droplets started to fall, fortunately we weren't too far from the only cafe in the park so we could stop off for some medicinal (and delicious) hot chocolate!

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We also had a few days just hanging around taking in the cold and that "end of the world" feeling, not to mention red wine, steak and delicious Argentinian microbrews!

The message - the end of the world isn't a bad thing :-)

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