Where do I start!!! Ushaia is the last city at the end of the world, 600 miles or so from Antarctica, it is both beautiful, tranquil, cold and slightly dull in winter when everywhere is closed/or getting refurbished, but we managed to entertain ourselves for 3 days.
Day 1 - Finally arrived in Ushaia at around 10:00 PM after a slightly shorter than usual 12 hour bus ride, which involved leaving Argentina (passport stamp 1) then entering Chile (passport stamp 2) then leaving Chile (passport stamp 3) and finally re-entering Argentina (passport stamp 4), I know think we are experts on the Argentine/Chile border crossings. Anyway getting to the hostel at 10:00PM kinda of killed our first night so we just ate then slept.
Day 2 - Took a walk to a lookout post in the middle of the bay and we got some awesome views of the town on the surrounding Andes (see Mikes masterful camera work) then we headed for the Museum which used to be the former prison and most of the town grew around this. We walked in and a rather smiley girl deprived us of 35 pesos for the pleasure of walking around an old prison she also went on to assume that we were Australian, being rather close to the Falkland Islands and not wanting to end up in the really cold Atlantic wearing nothing but a smile we thought it wise to play along so I pulled out my didgeridoo and Mike threw another shrimp on the Barbey (not meaning to stereotypicalise in anyway) so with the receptionist happy that we were 100% Ausi we proceed around the museum. It had some rather interesting exhibits the best being the stories of the former inmates and the untouched part of the old prison which was freezing and very spooky so after trying to scare Mike by hiding behind a door (to no avail may I add) we left and heading for a wild night in Ushuaia.
Day 3 - Following a crazy night of King Crab and one beer (as the 3 pubs in the town were closed for refurbishment) we headed for the glacier which is nestled in the mountains, we caught a cab up the mountain as it was a fair uphill hike and I was feeling really lazy, full of anticipation and fear after the slip sliding ride up the side of the mountain we reached the entrance to the glacier, Pesos in hand we walked around and around the small cabin/ticket booth looking for someone to sell us tickets, after Mike´s comical fall on the ice (sorry no pics, but it was awesome) we reached the conclusion that the glacier as with everything else in Ushaia was closed for some sort of refurbishment (who knows why a glacier needs refurbishing). So not to be beaten we decided to have a little go of snowboarding on the only small nursery slope open. I think you can guess what happened after that............comical disaster, we had jeans on, no gloves and with no instruction we manged to spend more time on the floor entertaining many locals who were watching from the warmth of there cars. We eventually scummed to the cold and headed for some food and something to warm my ass!!!
We left Ushuaia at 5:00AM for El Calafate, there we shall pick up the adventure.
Till then.
Andy and Mike