Ushuaia

Day 48 – 12 Hours in the Airport

Our flight got into Rio Gallegos at just before 3am.  The security guard at the airport said that it stayed open 24 hours, so that saved us a cab ride into town and having to pay for a bed we’d only use for a few hours.  Besides, Rio Gallegos is primarily an oil industry and coal shipping town, so tourist opportunities are few.  So we settled down in one corner of the airport to try and get some sleep.  Erin opted for a rather uncomfortable bench that wasn’ t long enough or wide enough and when the airport emptied out, I got cheeky and rolled out my sleeping mat.  We managed to sleep / doze well into the morning when the airport started filling up just before midday.

After an overpriced and oversalted lunch at the airport cafeteria we checked in for our final hop to Ushuaia.  People we’d spoken to had been dubious that the flight we booked even existed, but sure enough the LADE plane touched down to pick us up right on time.  LADE stands for Lineas Argentinas de Estada (Argentinean State Airlines) and is run by the military.  You can’t book through travel agents and their website is next to useless, but they are dirt cheap (comparable with the bus on some routes).  The flight was on a 30 seater twin propeller plane and seemed just like a normal passenger flight except the captains were in military uniform.  Through the flight we got glimpses out the window of the Andes broken by fjords well below.

Erin boarding in Rio Gallegos

The funky airport in Ushuaia

Ushuaia is tucked very picturesquely between the Beagle Channel and the soaring peaks of the far Southern Andes.  Situated on the island of Tierra del Fuego it claims to be the southernmost city in the world (though it fails on a couple of fronts, Puerto Williams on Isla Navarino about 100km away is further south, and it’s not really a city with of population of only 50,000, if you call a city anything over a million people then Melbourne is actually the world’s southernmost city).  It is nonetheless far enough south to be very cold even in January, plus enjoy/endure about 19 hours of daylight a day.

Quite tired from what seemed like an exceptionally long day we checked into Antarctica Hostel, made ourselves some dinner and had a relatively early night.  Around 1am we discovered we’d once again managed to pick a place adjacent to a night club, or in this case a ‘Nigth Club’!

The ‘Nigth Club’ across the road.

Day  49 – Hitting the skifields

Eager to practice our trekking in preparation for bigger things to come we decided to hike out of town to Glaciar Martial.  Situated above the city our guidebook observed that the views back down into town were in fact more impressive than the glacier itself.  This proved to be true, but it got the blood flowing all the same.  About two-thirds of the way up the hill we had the option of getting on a chairlift or walking up the ski run (a wide patch of gravel at this time of year though it felt cold enough for snow after the warmth of Buenos Aires).  The tightarse in us got the best of us and we walked.

The start of the hike up the hill.

  
Looking back toward Ushuaia, the Beagle Channel and adjacent Isla Navarino.

Pausing for a rest near the top.

Looking up toward Glaciar Martial.

We spent the rest of the day looking for some warmer clothes in preparation for more remote excursions and food shopping for our trip to Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego.  When we got back to the hostel the woman on the desk spotted a bottle of port in out shopping bag and chased us upstairs to remind us we couldn’t bring alcohol into the hostel.  We explained what it was for and she insisted we lock it away in the room.  Her eyesight was impressive, but their aggressive protection of their own bar is quite at odds with the backpacker culture (hardly any backpackers even have this rule let alone rigorously enforce it).

Day 50 – So ‘tuburo’ means peat bog, I wonder why I didn’t learn that at Spanish School?

The shuttle bus picked us up in the morning to take us to Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, where we planned to camp for a couple of days.  Tierra del Fuego means ‘Land of Fire’ and it got this name from the first explorers who passed by and saw many fires on the hillsides.  These fires belonged to the native people, who despite the year-round icy temperatures went around nearly naked, hence the need for many fires!

We went for the luxury option on day one of our southern camping itinerary and stayed at a place with a few facilities, Camping Lago Roca.  Once we’d set up camp at in a nice sheltered spot up the hill we went to walk the trails at the western end of the park.  The park is largely closed to the public, resulting in a very limited selection of trails.  Highlights from day one of walking included Laguna Negra, which is a peat bog in formation, the end of Argentina’s Route 3 (which eventually stretches to Alaska if you ignore the Darien Gap) and a beaver dam.  Beavers were introduced in an attempt to establish a fur industry.  Fur went out of fashion just as the beavers arrived so they were left to their own devices, which turned out to be causing general environmental havoc.

View from the campground with some geese and goslings wandering around in the foreground.

 
Bahia Lapataia from Mirador Lapataia

End of the road- Alaska here we come, see you in June! Only 17,848km to go!

 
Naughty (but impressive) beavers…

 
With criterion hey? Sure, can do.

 
A couple of big birds after our dinner.

 
Our spot at Camping Lago Roca. 

Day 51 – Venturing into Chile

That morning we walked along the shore of Lago Roca to Hito XXIV, the Chilean Border.  The path wound through big boulders strewn amongst the temperate rainforest, it was quite pretty.  It would have been nice to keep going at the border onto Estancia Yendegaia where apparently the ferry Transboradora Austral Broom will make a stop on its way to Punta Arenas, but it’s illegal to cross the border here, so we would have been turned around about 20km in.

Lago Roca.

 
A group of kids insisted we take their photo, we passed them a couple of hours later most of the way up the lake, an impressive walk on little legs.

If you say so.

It’s the border marker of course.

That afternoon we broke camp and embarked on our first bit of pack carrying, a short walk around the bay to a free campsite a bit closer to Ushuaia. 

Walking along the beach on Bahia Lapataia.

Day 52 – There’s no leaving that easily

It was raining in the morning and we a had a slow start before trudging up the hill to wait for the bus.  Back in Ushuaia we tried to book a bus ticket to Punta Arenas for the next day, but were told all the buses were full, thankfully another agency found us seats on a bus the day after so we weren’t delayed too much.  We had thought of going across the Beagle Channel from Ushuaia to Puerto Williams to try and get the ferry Transboradora Austral Broom to Punta Arenas (38 hours, but much more scenic) , but the fare for the 1 hour ride across the channel was USD130, a complete rip off.  As it turned out the ferry was booked out anyway, so told us the guy from Ascot Vale who was working in the travel agent!

The rest of the day was spent getting washing done, looking for that elusive book, buying more warm clothes and trying to get the tent dry.

Day 53 – The extra day, what luck

With an unplanned day up our sleeve we opted to do another day walk.  I misinterpreted Erin when she told me which walk she wanted to do, but it worked out OK in the end.  We got a taxi up the hill to where one of the roads ends at a peat farm.  We arranged for the taxi to come back for us in six hours time and set off in search of the path.

A little way along the peat farm track was a cryptic sign listing our destination and the work ‘puente’ (bridge).  We couldn’t quite work out what it meant so we headed down past the farmhouse and along the river in search of the bridge.  The farm dog came out to join us for a stroll and stayed with us for about 45 minutes until we finally came to the bridge, I guess he sees his role as guiding misplaced foreigners!

The peat farm with the mountains disappearing in the background.

The ‘bridge’.

Erin picking her way through the mud.

Across the bridge the track quickly got muddy and steep, but after an hour or two we reached destination number one Laguna Encantada.

A bit more beaver destruction.

 

To get to destination number two, Laguna de los Tempanos, we had the option of going halfway back down the steep muddy track or going over the top of the ridge.  The ridge option probably included just as much ascent and decent but without the mud, and the weather was still clear so we went for that option.

Coming down of the ridge with Rio de Leche (Milk River) below.

Once we rejoined the main path it was a steep climb up snow and glacial moraine to get to Laguna de los Tempanos, nestled high up the valley.  As we got there the weather was coming in giving the place quite an eerie feeling.  We didn’t stick around too long because it was getting cold and we had to make it back to meet our cab.

The path toward Laguna de los Tempanos.

And again.

Composite shot of the iced over Laguna (with tiny Erin on the right).

Dodgy self portrait. 

We hurried back down the hill to meet the cab.  At one point we lost the trail but managed to find it again by skirting around on the same contour until we hit the ridge it was on.  We’d long since given up on avoiding the mud so when we got back to the river we waded in to wash off for the taxi.  It proved to be a waste of time already as we were muddy again by the time we got to the end of the road, only 5 minutes late of our meeting time.  We were surprised the cab driver, with his white leather seats, even let us in given the state we were in!