Down, Down, Down, to the Burning Land of Fire.
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2008
1
44
122
Trip End
Jan 01, 2009
Ushuaia,
Patagonia,
Argentina
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Ushuaia's claim to fame is being the Southern Most city in the world; a mere 1000km from Antarctica, the city calls itself the Fin Del Mundo (End of the World). The landscape is similar to Alaska in the summer with snow capped peaks and lush green valleys, but the history is not. A former native settlement, major shipping port, penal colony, and sheep farming centre, in chronological order, today Ushuaia is mainly a tourist magnet.
View from the Plane
Visitors to the city are here for the trekking, skiing, and Antarctic cruising. Personally, we would love to visit the dirty dirty south (Antarctica), but with last minute discounts sitting around $4000 per person for 9 days we decided to travel in Asia for 7 months instead... Our hostel is very nice with a ski lodge feeling, heated floors, and a really cool social space. Arik especially likes the hostel because some of the young staff said he spoke Spanish very well. "Ohh...*blush*....geez.... gracias!" was his response.
Most restaurants in town feature a classic Argentinean grill where whole lambs are spit roasted over wood fires for all you can eat menus...we couldn't resist. With unique herbs and grasses found in Patagonia for the sheep to eat many people say the taste is unique to the area, to us it was simply delicious! Our dinner actually didn't start until 11:30pm, partly because we are pretending to be real Argentinians but also because the sun doesn't set until 10:45pm at this latitude (if we were in Canada the sun would be setting around 4:30pm this time of year, what we are getting Canada is not...).
After a rainy first day in town, the next morning was beautiful. Our first and only important task for the day was to book a tour to visit the local penguins. We opted for a walking tour where we could meet these funny little things face to face - exciting! First stop of the tour was to see the famous Flag Tree that has been bent by the wind to resemble a flag flapping in the wind. After the tree we visited one of the thousands of beaver dams in the area. In the1950s some entrepreneurs introduced 25 Canadian beavers to a local farm in an attempt to develop a local fur industry. The mild temperature resulted in poor fur quality so they released the beavers into the wild
The town
. News flash - Patagonia has no bears and beavers like to do it, so from those first 25 horny Canadians the population of beavers is now upwards of 150,000! This made being a Canadian in Ushuaia an awkward situation as everyone wanted us to take some of these pesky beavers back to the Great White North.Then after a short Zodiak trip to an Island in the Beagle Straight we landed right in the middle of thousands of cute little penguins. The process for viewing them up close was to stay low and slowly edge closer. Eventually we were within 1-2 feet from the pack before we went to peak inside a few of their nests. Here we are at the End of the World, 13,000km from home, lying on a beach with thousands of penguins. Wow! (see pictures).
Ushuaia is a very cool place and one day, perhaps during ski season, we would love to return. The lamb, the mountains, the sea, and of course the thousands of penguins made this a very unique place to visit.
Now that we've made it to the bottom of this amazing continent we feel a sense of accomplishment. We've seen so many places, met so many people, and had so many amazing adventures. Taking a short glimpse at the little blog map that snakes its way down the entirety of South America makes us smile ear to ear. We thank God every day for this amazing opportunity and can't wait to see what he has in store for us next!
Comments
Muy bueno
Me alegro que tu puedes hablar en espanol Arik...
Looks cool guys