Ushuaia "The end of the World"?
Trip Start
Apr 01, 2008
1
5
Trip End
Sep 01, 2008
Ushuaia,
Patagonia,
Argentina
Saturday, May 10, 2008
I managed to understand about half of what the taxi driver was talking about which I was pretty happy with and when I got into the hostel the first people I saw were a group of Irish girls. It´s very typical these days. Come to the end of the world and the first people you meet are Irish, we´re everywhere!
The next morning I got up early and got chatting to a French guy Pierre who was staying in the same dorm and tagged along with him for a trip on boat out into the channel to see some sea lions, fur seals and lots of bird life. The most impressive part of the tour was the views from the bay, with several glaciers in the mountains close to the city. I met a couple of very sound Argentinian guys on the boat, Andrés and Juan, who were working for the Tierra del Fuego tourism office and were down from Buenos Aires for a week, all expenses paid, to check out different trips and places around the area so that they´d have a better idea of what to recommend to tourists etc. When I got back to the hostel I bumped into David Burke, from Kells, who I´d met before through my friend from home Dave Coen... small small world.
Went for a trek with the Argentinan guys in the afternoon up to a valley with a glacier and an amazing lake called Laguna Esmerelda which was a really cobalt blue colour. The trees had various autumnal shades between yellow and red which looked really impressive, and has been similar in other places in Patagonia since. Just past the lake was an area where beavers had dammed up the stream creating big pools of blue water where the trees were all dying and falling over. Really spooky looking. Tried to practice some Spanish with the guys but their english was perfect and my spanish horrible so that didnt last long. Mainly laughed at random stuff the guys got up to - real jokers.
There was loads to see around Ushuaia and I spent a good bit of time trekking up to one of the glaciers and also along the lakes in the national park. Lots of great scenery and plenty of wildlife. Saw the biggest fox ever, lots of rabbits (which is maybe why the fox was so big) and an eagle chasing some hawks.
Had a couple of great nights out in Ushuaia too. Went to an "Irish" bar with Dave one of the nights and bumped into a Spanish guy looking to share a cabin on a cruise around Cape Horn to Punta Arenas in Chile. I had looked into doing this months before but opted out because it would have been too pricey to get a cabin on my own. At first thought I reckoned it was a bit expensive (had no longer budgeted for it) and told him Id talk to him next day when soberish. Continued on to a locals bar where we watched a technically great band, which almost bored me to tears, but at least we got talking to some fun locals. One guy called Willie was telling us that he likes the boys so we taught him the phrase "Willie likes the Willy". He was well pleased with his new chat up line, really nice guy. His friend was amazing singer, she could sing anything but mainly serenaded us with blues and jazz numbers. Ended up dancing and prancing around a nightclub til five in the morning before retiring to a pretty serious hangover.
Spent most of the next day hanging out with Juan and Andres and trying to get in touch with the Spanish guy Lluis but we kept missing each others´ mails and missed the opportunity to book the cruise. It was only then that I realised how much I really wanted to go on it. We decided to go down early on Sunday and try our luck even though we were told the reservations had closed. We were really lucky and managed to book a cabin about 4 hours before departure. After running around like a blue arsed fly trying to get everything organised we met up and headed down there.
