Argentina

March 22, 2013 Lisa Comments 0 Comment

Ushuaia

“Fin del Mundo” or the End of the World, Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world. Most Antarctica cruises begin at their ship terminal. We arrived late on Friday, February 22, a couple days before the start of our cruise so we could see a bit of this charming town.

I had booked a full day tour of Tierra del Fuego National Parque for Saturday. We had a 3rd passenger, Caterina, a nice lady from Italy, joining us for the day. We had an absolutely perfect day, clear and sunny. We were picked up at 0900 and were driven to the park starting at Lake Roca, a lake that spans Chile and Argentina. We spent about 3 hours rafting and ended up at Lapataia Bay. We were served a lunch of pasta and wine in the park before starting our hike along the Coastal Path. We spent another 3 hours hiking through this beautiful country, up and down hills, along lakes and bays. We saw a red fox who stopped on the path in front of us, checking us out before slowly moving on. We saw the end of the PanAmerican Highway which starts 17,818 miles away in Alaska. Besides Lapataia Bay we saw Ensenada Bay, Ovando River, Lapataia River, Redonda Island on Beagle Canal, and Green Lagoon during our visit. Our guide let us try berries and a strange fruit while hiking; the native Yahgan and Ona tribes used to eat this just to feel full despite it having no nutritional value.

Later Saturday evening, after returning to town, we visited the old jail and maritime museum. I was interested to learn the town was a penal colony. On Sunday, we didn’t have to be at the ship until 1600 so we spent the morning visiting the Martial Glacier. We took a taxi to the funicular then took the funicular to the base of the glacier. We walked the rest of the way up. We had amazing views of the city from here. We had packed a lunch along with several bottles of beer and let the beer cool in some snow while we ate.

Ushuaia is a small city and it was easy to walk around the two main roads through town. We did lots of shopping, but no buying as everything is very expensive. We visited the Fin del Mundo Museum where we got our “End of the World” passport stamps and saw the Malvinas/Falkland Islands War Memorial.

Buenos Aires

On our way home after our Antarctic cruise, all flights stopped in Buenos Aires. Our original flight was supposed to be at 1100 from Ushuaia but was changed by the airline to 0900 the day we disembarked. We were told we would not meet that so decided to spend one night in Buenos Aires and not worry about missing the connecting flight home. Instead, we spent most of the day in Ushuaia, leaving around 1800 and arriving in Buenos Aires at 2200 and went straight to a hotel for the evening.

Since we had such a short time, I had booked a city tour leaving at 0900. We were taken all over the city and briefly saw some of the highlights, making a few stops. We saw their soccer stadium and ended up at a pedestrian street. Alex found an ice cream shop and had a huge dulce de leche and we did a little window shopping. We had asked our guide for a recommendation for lunch and he told us to try Estancia (Ranch) where we had their meat sampler. Ridiculously huge, we left more than half but a great meal. We spent the rest of the afternoon just walking through the downtown area before heading to the airport.

We didn’t have a lot of time here and the city certainly deserves many days to explore. I hope I have the opportunity to return some day.