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To the ends of the earth. Well, nearly...
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A hideously early start to make it to the airport for our 6am flight to Ushuaia, but obviously others were more dedicated as we had nearly the worst seats at the back right next to the engines, rather defeating the point of even asking us if we wanted window or aisle seats. Just managed a glimpse of the runway as we came in though, hanging on to a peninsula with a mountainous backdrop. A little disconcerting to clearly be able to see the beginning and end of it as we came in i.e. the Beagle Channel.
One in Ushuaia though, as the A Team would say, "I love it when a plan comes together". By lunchtime we'd found our accommodation, booked a boat trip for the afternoon, booked flight tickets to get to El Calafate, as well as accommodation and a trip to the Perito Moreno glacier once there.
Our boat trip took us out into the Beagle Channel to H Island, where we took a walk and saw rock cormorants and other flora and fauna. Either Simon's and my hearing are going or some wag had been having fun with our guide, who told us quite seriously that some clumps of moss like stuff were called bollocks. At another island we saw king and imperial cormorants and round the other side sea lions, which remain great animals to watch despite near over exposure in the Galapagos Islands. There are loads of signs in Ushuaia advertising the end-of-the-earth this, that or the other, utterly ignoring that Chile is clearly visible due south across the Beagle Channel. We'd planned to go to the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego on Wednesday. The drizzle wasn't a good start to the day, but we decided that it wasn't worth putting things off for the weather in this part of the world or possibly we'd never leave our hostel. By the time we got to the park the rain had become persistent, so out came the waterproof trousers: I knew it had been worth carrying them around for the last 3 months in the bottom of my rucksack. We got the bus down to the end of RN3 since I get some sort of pleasure from visiting such places. We walked back from there until just two or so hours later we reached a cafe where we had our sandwiches and purchased possibly the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted, and then decided that we had really punished ourselves enough and got the bus back to Ushuaia. This allowed us to enjoy the splendid afternoon sunshine from a horizontal perspective as we napped back at the hostel.
The next day : bright sunshine, hurrah. As it turned out, a walk that benefitted more from good weather too as we went up to the Martial glacier and had great views over all of Ushuaia and some Chilean mountain ranges. Transport confusion as our bus driver had told us to phone him when we wanted to return but after trying 3 places we discovered there was no public phone. A waiter very kindly let us use his mobile, but neither of the numbers on our ticket were in use. Finally, we went down to the waiting bus from another company to be let on straight away with our tickets as it was apparently the same company, just with a different name. Whatever.
I resisted the urge to nap away the remainder of the afternoon again and went to the prison museum instead, arriving just in time for an excellent guided tour. The Argentinians had learnt their lesson from the Bolivians (who lost their entire pacific coast to Chile), so when it was decided that Ushuaia was theirs they knew they would have to populate it to guard their claim. To start with they set up a penal colony, but there being absolutely no way of earning a living in the area all of the prisoners returned to whence they came once they had served their sentences. Continuing on a theme the government decided to set up a prison there, with the novel twist that the prisoners would actually have to build the prison in which they would be jailed. They then went on to build all sorts of other infrastructure to attract other Argentinians to live in the area. There was further massive expansion of the population more recently, in the 70s I think, when Ushuaia was declared a tax free zone. The prison was known for its harsh conditions and was closed down during Peron's presidency. For a time before it closed political prisoners were sent there too. Given the choice between going into exile abroad or going to Ushuaia many chose to stay in Argentina out of principle. However, many of them were housed with local families for their terms rather than having to stay in the prison.
For our last day we went out to the Harberton Ranch, over from there to see a penguin colony (cute!!) and then round a small natural history museum. It was really interesting, with the bones of all sorts of marine life featured and a guide to explain it all to us. Amongst the useless facts I picked up, the theory that sea lions evolved on land and then went back to the sea, as they have fingerlike bones which are of no use to them at all now. Male sperm whales are sometimes found in the area, since when they get old they leave their groups and go south to die alone. Their enormous enormous enormous bodies are often scarred from fights with giant squid!!! Now that would be something to see. I was concerned for a while as there was a section about ears that explained that they were internal but only loosely attached to the skulls so often they fell off on beaches and were lost. Fortunately this turned out to be only AFTER the animal had died.
Taking off form Ushuaia the plane banks sharply almost as soon as it has lifted off, to avoid both the end of the Andes and Chilean airspace. Coming into land at El Calafate was a surprise as we'd been expecting loads of mountains but actually got miles and miles of flat barren looking land with roads stretching off into the distance in straight lines. This turns out to be what much of Patagonia looks like, with the national parks where I was about to spend the next week or so containing all of the mountains, lakes and glaciers. More thumbnails ...
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