Imagine speeding along a lonely desert highway at over 100 kmh but with the added distraction of timing how long you can keep your eyes closed for. Well, that was one of the many games we played to pass on the boredom of driving countless 12 hour days through the long empty roads of Argentina.


After our last adventure in Torres Del Paine we decided to head even further South to visit some very distant places. Places that sounded like they were taken straight from a Tolkein novel. We were heading to the most Southern island in the world that you can drive too - Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire) and on this distant land we would reach our final destination - Ushuaia which is aptly nicknamed Fin del Mundo or in English, the End of the World...


But before we got there we had to make one or two quick stops. The first, was a quick stop in the town of Punta Arenas for no other reason than getting some fuel, supplies and having a quick drink with some friends that we met on the 'W'. We could have caught a ferry from here to Tierra del Fuego but there is a cheaper crossing at Punta Delgada which was only a 400km detour, and these days 400km is like nipping to the spar for a pint of milk. It was also nice because as we crossed the small channel dolphins swam beside the ferry jumping in and out of the waves.


If you ever played Sonic the Hedgehog on the mega drive you might remember that one of the levels was in a land that was full of lava and fire. Smoking hot pools of flames that had to be avoided in order to reach the end. That was pretty much how we envisioned the Land of Fire to be. It wasn't. In fact, the whole name 'Land of Fire' is stupid. We didn't see one fire! Not one! It was cold and wet, the opposite of fire! We are planning on writing to the Pagagonian tourist board to petition for a name change. We propose Tierra del Húmedo, Land of Damp.


Still, we aren't really complaining because if it was the land of actual fire then we probably wouldnt have got to see the colony of King Penguins that live in one of the island's bays. Everybody knows penguins hate fire (PENGUIN FACT #1). The bay is on the West coast near a village (actually just one house) called Onasin. The colony is protected by the Argentinian version of the RSPCA which means the whole colony is gated and visiting is only allowed during specific times. It also means that Argentina get to charge you a substantial amount of pesos for the privelidge. So we plonked our little van outside the gates in the evening so that we would be able to get up early and beat anybody else in the morning. The plan worked a treat and we got the whole colony to ourselves for at least an hour.


King penguins are the second largest penguin in the world, with only the Antarctican Emperor penguins being just a couple of inches taller (PENGUIN FACT #2). Most of the colony were on the other side of the river to us simply standing around in a group looking over at the strange humans with binocculars and cameras. We had to be as quiet as possible whilst watching as penguins don't like shouting (PENGUIN FACT #3). Every ten minutes or so one or two of them would waddle to or return from their fishing trips to the sea. It was fun to watch and worth the trip, especially for the first hour when we had the place to ourselves. Because it wasn't long until a bus load of Argentinian tourists arrived and completely ignored all the signs and warnings from the staff about being quiet. They proceeded to wander around and shout at the penguins like they were at a Boca Juniors football match. It's a shame there was no pits of boiling lava on this land as we would have gladly pushed them into one.


Now, our next stop was the actual the end of the world, we made it all the way through another pointless border crossing into Argentina and then to the South coast of the island to Ushuaia.
We had made it! Unless one day we are to set sail on a boat to Antartica (which we did consider briefly), we will never in our lives be as far South as this! And wow, what a place!


Do you want to know what's there? Do you want to know what was at the end of our 6000km drive South? Do you want to know what is at the end of the world???


Not much really.


Other than having it's very obvious claim to fame Ushuaia isn't much different to every other coastal town in Patagonia. There's a few nice coffee shops, expensive tourist shops and the layout of the town doesnt really follow the usual grid system of the others. It's on a hillside so it looks kind of pretty but to be honest when we drove to the end of the bloody world we expected something a little better. We don't know what exactly, maybe a magical elf that grants 3 wishes to all those that dare travel this far. Instead the main 'thing' is a sign. A sign teling you that you have reached the end of the world. Wow!


So we spent a couple of days relaxing in the town. At one point we came very close to booking onto an Antartica cruise, mainly so that we could go 'beyond the sign' but the cheapest cruises cost around 8000 dollars and we dont have 8000 dollars to spare.


We also spent a couple of nights in the Tierra del Húmedo National Park. The park was nice but not amazing. There are several little trails dotted about the park that we walked but none of them were stunning - perhaps we were spoilt with the scenery in Chile over the last few weeks. We mainly wanted to go to see the beavers. Some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to introduce American beavers years ago and since then they have done a pretty good job of destroying acres and acres of woodland area to build all their dams. Although the park is apparently abundant with them we only saw the damage they'd done and didnt get to actually see a beaver which is sad because David used to be a beaver and his mum was even a Beaver leader, Red Beaver if memory serves him well.


The other main draw of the park is the fascinating seabirds that can be spotted from the beaches. For us though, unless the seabird is a penguin we simply aren't interested. Lots were interested though, the beaches were full of wooly hat wearing tweeters with their huge camera lenses and flasks of tea!

Coming back north


After the National Park and Ushuaia we set off again driving along another one of the famously long highways of Argentina (Ruta 3 for road geeks). This highway stretches all the way from Tierra del Húmudo to Buenos Airies traversing the East Coast which is apparently famous for having more sealife than all of Blackpool Sealife centre. The plan was to see some of this wildlife before crossing back over to the East and Chile to visit some of the areas we missed on our way down.


Depressingly, we realised as we set off North that we were now technically heading nearer to England and thus we were now starting our journey home. Well, we had 6 months to do it though so not all bad.


The next several days seemed to take ages. We were just driving and driving and driving. Sometimes we stopped overnight at the side of a busy road and sometimes we were perched on lonely clifftops looking out at the ocean watching dolphins swim past as we ate our breakfast.
Speaking of food, you would be amazed at some of the great meals we have become masters of on this roadtrip, usually with just one very small stove. Many have been repeated several times some of our favourites though have been (in no particular order):

Pasta with tomato sauce with chopped up sandwich ham

Pasta with cold tuna and onions

Steak with avocado and tomato

Pitta bread with bananas, dolce de leche and crumbled biscuits

Packet risotto with added real chicken

And by far our favourite-

Smash potato mixed with chorizo, onion and tomato.


Our first stop of real interest on the East coast was the brilliant Monte Leon National Park. This park is quite unknown and was only a last minute decision for us when we noticed we were passing it in our newly aquired (stolen from hostel) 2007 Argentina Lonely Planet. It tends to be unknown because it can only be reached by car and all of the wildlife found here can also be found in greater abundance at other places that are easier to reach. But this made it all the better for us. Plus, it was free! Something in Argentina that was genuinely, no catches, 100% free.


Off the main highway, we followed a tiny gravel road for 20 kms to a perfect campsite set on top of some cliffs overlooking a rocky beach. Toilets and facilities all included for free! In the afternoon we walked an hour to reach a local penguin colony. A colony of over 20000 pairs of penguins. These weren't the large King Penguins but the little adorable Magnellic penguins. The path took us straight to the middle of the colony and we were the only people there. It was penguin heaven. Magnellic penguins breed with the same partner for life (PENGUIN FACT #4). When attracting a female the male trys to lure her into his little house by performing a little penguin dance in the doorway (PENGUIN FACT #5). There is also a distinct fog horn like call that the penguins make to help guide their partners back to their homes after a day out at sea fishing, which you can imagine is quite difficult if there's literally thousands of other near identical penguins waddling around (PENGUIN FACT #6). Though they mostly eat krill, cuttlefish and squid, occasionally penguins have been known to treat themselves to a nice juicy iceberger**(PENGUIN FACT #7)! Because they spend all day in the sea and all day eating fish, penguins stink (PENGUIN FACT #8).


After the penguins we saw some of the other sealife in the park, namely the sealions drying out on the rocks. We met another campervan whilst at the park who also agreed it was one of the nicest spots in Argentina and who also shared our love of red wine.


Further up the coast we visited another much more famous Magnellic Penguin colony - Punta Tumbo, which is the world's largest, having over 500000 pairs (PENGUIN FACT#9) This place, being more well known, was obviously not free. We again managed to arrive early though and wandered around on our own for a little bit before the masses arrived. If you imagine the Monte Leon colony being a bit like a penguin Burnley, this place was like a penguin Delhi. Every direction that we looked there were hundreds and hundreds of little black and white penguins waddling, calling, dancing and swimming about. The place didnt have the charm or surrounding beauty of Monte Leon but it certainly had more penguins. One other distinct advantage of the Tumbo colony was that you could get really close to the beach where the penguins enter and exit the sea. Nothing is funnier than watching a penguin walking out of the sea only to get constantly toppled over by the huge waves. Nothing (PENGUIN FACT #10).


Our last stop on our wildlife spotting East coast adventure was the amazing Peninsular Valdes. Peninsular valdes sticks out of the East side of Argentina at about the half way point between Buenos Aires and the South coast. It is largely uninhabited with just one small village catering to tourists and a couple of locals. It's famous for penguins (again), sealions, seals, dolphins, the rare Southern Right Whales and even orcas feed here.


We spent a few nights in the the very basic yet quite expensive campsite in the tiny town of Puerto Pyramides. Our days were spent driving the around on the dusty roads to all the various lookouts. We were on an orca hunt. Orcas have been seen here feeding on seals and have even been filmed performing their evil 'beaching' tactic to catch ther prey. Well, we drove miles and miles in all directions, we waited at lookouts for hours and hours and David even tried attempting to 'call' the orcas using his vast array of near perfect animal calling skills but it was hopeless. We didnt see one orca. We did manage to see lots of other animals - seals, elephant seals, birds, dolphins and of course, more penguins who were soon becoming as common as pigeons.


So our self tour of the peninsular was a little unsuccessful, it was time to invest in the professionals and spend some money! We paid to go on a whale spotting trip. This wasn't for the tiny miserable stupid orcas, this was for the much rarer, much larger and much friendlier Southern Right Whales.


It is estimated that there used to be about 100000 of these whales across the world, but thanks to all those whale burgers in Japan these days there are only 12000. Adults grow up to 18 metres in length and weigh up to 80 tonnes! They are recognisable from their rough patches of skin (calosities) on their head. And the reason they are called 'right' whales is because during the whaling years they were simply known as the 'right' whale to catch - due to swimming slow, floating when dead and providing lots of whale oil for all sorts of uses. They are famously one of the best whales to 'spot' due their friendly curiosity and crowd attracting antics such as headstands and breaching.


And so for our whale spotting trip, we joined about 10 other people on a relatively small boat and set off to sea. We had travelled just 200 metres from the shore when the magic began! The boats engines had to be switched off as soon as the guide saw signs of the whale which came as a jet of water sprayed up in the air just in front of us. We floated in silence for a minute or two when we all noticed a humongous dark shadow in the water getting closer and closer. Our first friendly whale. The shadow got nearer and nearer the boat before the giant head of a full grown male poked out just a few feet from the side to say 'hello' (Or 'Hola' or even 'G'day'. As these whales migrate throughout the year scientists are still unsure on the official language the whales have adopted. For the purposes of this blog, all whale translations will be in English. We understand that this may not be entirely correct but we asume that most readers of this blog can at least read English to a basic level). Following his polite introduction he proceeded to splash about and show off for a good 5 minutes before getting bored and swimming under the boat, which was when we realised how easy it would be for him to topple over the boat should he want to. Not that he would, that would be such an orca thing to do.


After our encounter with the massive male we moved a little further away and saw our next visitors. This time it was a mother and a little (well, 6 metres) calf coming over to say 'hello' (see previous note above). Again, lots of splashing about, heads poking through the surface and swimming under and around the boat, it was fantastic, they were having a whale of a time!**

**All attempts at humour in this blog are usually heavily scrutinised by both authors before being published. This particularly obvious and terrible pun and the earlier iceberger joke that have featured in this sealife featured entry somehow managed to slip through the 'net'. Sorry, it appears Trevor's humour is hereditary **


We were in awe at how close we were to such amazing animals and after 15 minutes of entertainment the mother gave us one final trick. In between our boat and the distant horizon of the sea she dove down and lifted her tail in the air giving us the famous sight of the huge tail contrasting against the blue sky in the distance.


Simply amazing! A fantastic finale to our East Coast Sea Life Adventre!


We took so many amazing photos and videos, we couldnt wait to have a look at them properly. Unfortunatley we never got to see any of them. Because everything was about to go really ****...




Things we have learned.

1 - Australians have heard of Burnley (but only the ones that follow football).

2 - Penguins like the taste of Claire's flip flops.

3 - A submarino is a drink in coffee shops in Argentina where you simply get hot milk and a bar of chocolate to melt inside it. Claire enjoys these a lot.

Transport Stats
Planes used - 11
Buses/coaches used - 82
Trains used - 25
Metros/subways used - 41
Cars used - 11
Minivans - 10
Russian Campervans used -1
Horses used - 1
Camels used - 1
Taxis used - 20
Cable cars used - 1
Bicycles used- 3
Tuk tuks/autorickshaw used - 31
Scooters used - 6
Elephants used - 0
Ferrys used - 5
CycleRickshaw - 1
Bamboo HouseBoat - 1
Tour Boat - 2 (+1)
Combi Van - 2
Huge 4x4 Truck Thingys- 2
Catamarans - 1
Kms travelled in campervan - 8942