Ahnen Ushuaia

We woke up to another changeable day of overcast weather in BA all packed and ready for our flight to Ushuaia, which is in Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of Argentina, the closest city to the Antarctic (check the map)! The flight was mid-morning and took 4 hours, meaning we arrived in Ushuaia mid afternoon. The last 30 mins or so of the flight was pretty spectacular, as we flew in over the what is the southern end of the Andes mountain range and saw ...

... soup. Delicious. And cheap as per usual.<br><br>Tomorrow we may go on a cruise around the bay. Not quite sure yet. We should be able to update a couple times from here since our B&amp;B host has 2 computers for his guests. Oh, there are two dogs here so Amy is loving it of course. OK, this has been quite long enough, time to quit for the night. Take care.<br><br>Random story of the day. Not really a story, More of an observation. Has anyone heard of mate? There should be an accent on the e ...

... the Patagonian landscape as we probably only would have experienced the nice tourist towns and national parks otherwise. Patagonia is a wonderful place - perhaps even my favourite so far - but in places it is incredibly bleak and desolate and I think that in this otherwise fairly prosperous country, some people really do live a very difficult and challenging lifestyle. Thats South America for you though - incredibly challenging at times but equally rewarding.

... Yamau. Fascinating as we got to understand how the Estancia was set-up and attracted Yamau in need of new technologies to produce food, as their seal supplies ran scarce. Popping into some museums about the island and a historic museum showing the origins of the Yamau (and other settlers) as far back as when the continents were joined were the other highlights; before we made our way back up north towards El Calafate - an attempt to beat the ...

23rd March 2009 - Glaciare Martial, Ushuaia<br><br>We thought it was about time we did some exercise - the mountains of steak and long bus trips are catching up with us!<br><br><br><br>Just 7km out of Ushuaia, is the Martial Glacier which promises<br>great views of Ushuaia Bay and the Beagle Channel if you climb up to it<br>- so with hot chocolate in our thermos flasks (thanks pops!) off we<br>went. <br>First we got wet, we dried off, got blown about and finally it<br>snowed. Every ...

... seals: many were lying around disguised as rocks, but our arrival provoked several of these aggressive teenagers, whom we saw lifting their heads, barking and baring their teeth, and in some instances 'running' to confront us. We had been warned that they will attack and not only does their bite hurt, but they transmit particularly unpleasant bacteria, incompatible with humans... hmmm, best ...

... 23/22E seemed to speak neither and must have felt awful being a ping-pong between the other two. The purser, bless her, solved the problem by returned 23E to his original seat, then moving someone else into 22E, so each had a companion. Seemed a very Solomon-like solution to me. <br><br>The flight to IAD was very bumpy - but I did manage to get some sleep, interrupted periodically when 22C and 23C engaged in seatback-and-knee wars ... but, other than that, a perfectly reasonable flight.

... deck whilst sailing through the Beagle Channel Did I mention the food? Ushuaia like every other port stop was a rush job and the embarking time didn´t really give us much time at all....however we still managed to make it to the end of the most southern road in the world and take the obligatory photo.... [Mer: We went on a hike to Tierra del Fuego... THAT was lovely with some really nice scenery.]

... to be elsewhere. But it was great fun, no funny walks after wards, and the asador was incredible. We left El Calafate, and the great staff at the America del sur Hostel (surely the biggest bunch of loonies we have ever met, but great fun, and made the stay in the hostel so brilliant), and took a short plane trip to El Fin de Mundo (End of the World), Ushuaia. It is the southernmost city in the world, and the next stop after here is Antartica. And to be honest it ...

... Athens - Rome, all ok. In Rome we were informed at the boarding gate that our flight Rome - Buenos Aires of 22:00 was cancelled and we would fly the next day at 10:00am. At least the delay was not that big to miss the Buenos Aires - Ushuaia flight the day after. The very informative Alitalia personnel told us to just go outside and take the bus to hotel "Aeroporto". - Is this the name of the hotel? "Aeroporto ...