16 Feb: Ushuaia (ARG) --> Faro del Fin du Mundo (ARG) --> Ushuaia (ARG).
Warning: We have a long one here - all for good reasons, we promise. And a pro travel tip towards the end.
We woke up to find that it had snowed on the glacier that we had hiked up yesterday. I know that most of our readers are in the Northern Hemisphere where snow is normal this time of year, but it is summer where we are. We were told that even though we are 600 short miles to Antarctica that this was abnormal.
Our schedule had us booked for a boat tour of the Beagle Channel. It was unseasonably cold and wet, plus the boat was late. Not a whole lot of reasons for optimism. About 30 minutes into the ride, the skies cleared to showcase clear blue with snowcapped Andes in the background. Score! What stunning landscape! Our guide for the boat trip spoke excellent English. I asked her where she learned the language and she said it was from watching the show "Friends". Whatever works because she was handling all sorts of questions without any problems.
We were cruising on the Beagle Channel, which splits up Chile and Argentina, while connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Ushuaia is roughly halfway in the channel. One of our stops was to "Faro del Fin du Mundo", which translates to something like "the end of the world". Along the way, we saw sea lions, cormorants and kelp geese. Fun fact about the comorants is that if the female decides that she doesn't like her male mate that she "can fire him" while the male doesn't have that same option. Interesting concept.
It remained pretty clear as we headed back to town, so we have a ton of amazing pictures from the cruise. For lunch, I had more of the centolla but with a local preparation called 'Fuegian' which had paprika and bechamel. Yum! Lots of local seafood in Ushuaia, so I am taking advantage before we head back inland. After we lunch, we met our hiking guide for the afternoon in Tierra del Fuego (TdF) National Park.
Martin, our guide, has spent a few summers in Seattle. Small world, eh? He has done plenty of local hikes, told us about how he loves Walrus & Carpenter and El Gaucho. As we start hiking, he tells us about watching the Fremont Solistice Parade. Then Martin tells us that he got out of a parking ticket that he received at REI by explaining to the City of Seattle that he is from a small village in Argentina where penguins roam the streets. Apparently it worked. Marc and I were laughing a lot at this stage. We're clearly in the world of "You Can't Make This Stuff Up".
The border between Argentina and Chile is pretty tight in this area, so while we didn't venture into Chile, we learned that one side of Cerro Condor is in Argentina and the other is in Chile. We hiked up to the end of the Pan-American Highway, which starts in Alaska and goes almost 18000 kilometers! Guess we have to go to the other end at some point. Martin explained that the area of Tierra del Fuego started out as a prison colony for Argentina, similar to Tassie in Australia. That said, they never sold prison uniforms as souvenirs in Tassie as they did here. Weird.
As Marc mentioned yesterday, we weren't expecting a challenging hike yesterday and were caught a little flat footed without our trekking poles. I have new ones for this trip but 'Frick' and 'Frack' from the Australian Walkabout are back for fun and adventure. The new trekking poles have been christened 'Lucy' and 'Ethel'. You will be seeing them a bunch over the next 10-12 days.
The southern provinces in Argentina have a complicated history due to the Islas Malvnias conflict with Great Britain and the zig-zag border with Chile. Martin explained some of it as we traversed 6+ miles of the park. Then he starts talking about how early we eat dinner in Seattle. Basically his routine was eating dinner with friends at 6:30pm and then calling Pagliacci Pizza for a delivery at 10pm since they are the only ones who deliver "that late" in Seattle.
Given Marc's history as a Gaucho from UCSB, he has been very keen to hear more authentic stories about Argentine Gauchos. He asked Martin about it, who responds with telling us about a festival that is like a "Gaucho Lollapalooza". Ha! We hadn't heard that festival name in a LONG time (yep, we're old). More laughs. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Martin as we went off to dinner but promised to keep in touch in the event he is back in Seattle. I should have added that both of us tried the local Argentine bevvie of mate (mah-tay) today. Not bad but I prefer tea and Marc will probably stick to coffee.
We grabbed dinner at a highly recommended place called Kaupe and I tried a new fish called hake served ceviche style. Very tasty. Marc had a epic dessert by his standards, which of course involved dulce de leche. I agree - it was really good and I am not a caramel fan. We tasted our 1st Syrah from Zonda Valley and we also had a dessert wine made from Malbec grapes, which makes sense since we are in Argentina.
The restaurant summoned us a taxi and the lesson to be learned here is that when you are traveling in a region where you do not speak the local language, you should learn how locals pronounce the name of the hotel you are staying at. We went back and forth with our very nice taxi driver because we misplaced the stationery that had the hotel's name and address. Finally I pointed up the hill in the direction of the hotel and said the name again along with "ascenscio". Maybe that was a Harry Potter magic command? Who knows, but it worked. [Late update: it was - oops.] We were back at the hotel in under 10 minutes.
What a fun day all around.
We woke up to find that it had snowed on the glacier that we had hiked up yesterday. I know that most of our readers are in the Northern Hemisphere where snow is normal this time of year, but it is summer where we are. We were told that even though we are 600 short miles to Antarctica that this was abnormal.
Our schedule had us booked for a boat tour of the Beagle Channel. It was unseasonably cold and wet, plus the boat was late. Not a whole lot of reasons for optimism. About 30 minutes into the ride, the skies cleared to showcase clear blue with snowcapped Andes in the background. Score! What stunning landscape! Our guide for the boat trip spoke excellent English. I asked her where she learned the language and she said it was from watching the show "Friends". Whatever works because she was handling all sorts of questions without any problems.
We were cruising on the Beagle Channel, which splits up Chile and Argentina, while connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Ushuaia is roughly halfway in the channel. One of our stops was to "Faro del Fin du Mundo", which translates to something like "the end of the world". Along the way, we saw sea lions, cormorants and kelp geese. Fun fact about the comorants is that if the female decides that she doesn't like her male mate that she "can fire him" while the male doesn't have that same option. Interesting concept.
It remained pretty clear as we headed back to town, so we have a ton of amazing pictures from the cruise. For lunch, I had more of the centolla but with a local preparation called 'Fuegian' which had paprika and bechamel. Yum! Lots of local seafood in Ushuaia, so I am taking advantage before we head back inland. After we lunch, we met our hiking guide for the afternoon in Tierra del Fuego (TdF) National Park.
Martin, our guide, has spent a few summers in Seattle. Small world, eh? He has done plenty of local hikes, told us about how he loves Walrus & Carpenter and El Gaucho. As we start hiking, he tells us about watching the Fremont Solistice Parade. Then Martin tells us that he got out of a parking ticket that he received at REI by explaining to the City of Seattle that he is from a small village in Argentina where penguins roam the streets. Apparently it worked. Marc and I were laughing a lot at this stage. We're clearly in the world of "You Can't Make This Stuff Up".
The border between Argentina and Chile is pretty tight in this area, so while we didn't venture into Chile, we learned that one side of Cerro Condor is in Argentina and the other is in Chile. We hiked up to the end of the Pan-American Highway, which starts in Alaska and goes almost 18000 kilometers! Guess we have to go to the other end at some point. Martin explained that the area of Tierra del Fuego started out as a prison colony for Argentina, similar to Tassie in Australia. That said, they never sold prison uniforms as souvenirs in Tassie as they did here. Weird.
As Marc mentioned yesterday, we weren't expecting a challenging hike yesterday and were caught a little flat footed without our trekking poles. I have new ones for this trip but 'Frick' and 'Frack' from the Australian Walkabout are back for fun and adventure. The new trekking poles have been christened 'Lucy' and 'Ethel'. You will be seeing them a bunch over the next 10-12 days.
Given Marc's history as a Gaucho from UCSB, he has been very keen to hear more authentic stories about Argentine Gauchos. He asked Martin about it, who responds with telling us about a festival that is like a "Gaucho Lollapalooza". Ha! We hadn't heard that festival name in a LONG time (yep, we're old). More laughs. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Martin as we went off to dinner but promised to keep in touch in the event he is back in Seattle. I should have added that both of us tried the local Argentine bevvie of mate (mah-tay) today. Not bad but I prefer tea and Marc will probably stick to coffee.
We grabbed dinner at a highly recommended place called Kaupe and I tried a new fish called hake served ceviche style. Very tasty. Marc had a epic dessert by his standards, which of course involved dulce de leche. I agree - it was really good and I am not a caramel fan. We tasted our 1st Syrah from Zonda Valley and we also had a dessert wine made from Malbec grapes, which makes sense since we are in Argentina.
The restaurant summoned us a taxi and the lesson to be learned here is that when you are traveling in a region where you do not speak the local language, you should learn how locals pronounce the name of the hotel you are staying at. We went back and forth with our very nice taxi driver because we misplaced the stationery that had the hotel's name and address. Finally I pointed up the hill in the direction of the hotel and said the name again along with "ascenscio". Maybe that was a Harry Potter magic command? Who knows, but it worked. [Late update: it was - oops.] We were back at the hotel in under 10 minutes.
What a fun day all around.