Officially the furthest south inhabited city in the world, Ushuaia nestles on the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego overlooking the Beagle Channel. We arrived after a strenuous 11 hour day bus that crossed from Argentina into Chile, took a ferry across to Tierra del Fuego and then another border crossing from the Chilean side back o the Argentinian side! We arrived in the dark and rain and the temprature was even lower still and it didn't take long before we sacked the idea of the tent and took the first cheap price hostel that was touted to us. It turned out to be a stroke of luck as to was kept nice and toasty with blazing heaters in each room and the bunks were one of the comfiest beds we have had so far. On the downside Katie's sore throat that she had now developed into a full blown cold.

As Katie's cold developed into the un-controllable snots we decided that wandering around the most southern city in the world whilst it was raining and windy would probably not be a good idea so we went to the Tierra del Fuego museum which was housed in the old prison in Ushuaia. The prison used to be home to the worst of the convicts who were sent to this remote place as their punishment. The museum contained details of Ushuia's past, a display of the prison showing the different cells and punishment regimes and also models of the Antarctic explorers' boats with details about their missions. This was all housed in the refurbished semi heated part of the prison. The other wing was left as it used to be and had to be the coldest place on earth! This must have been punishment enough for the crimes of the former inmates.

Upon awaking the next day it was like the seasons had changed. We were greeted with beautiful blue skies and a crisp feel to the air so we decided to take a trip to the Ushuaia national park. The park is a good minibus ride away to our annoyance and with the entrance fee to the park it made for a quite expensive trip but well worth it for the scenery. The park is home to many beaver colonies and this being the first time that we have seen their damns in the wild we were amazed to find remnants of their logging strewn along the sides of the paths. The creatures fell enormous trees and 75% of the time don't seem to actually use them for their homes so all around the colonies the land lies strewn with dead wood with sharp pointy ends. After another packed lunch of fine cheese and tomato on crackers we spent the rest of our time in the park walking around looking at the amazing colours as the trees changed with their autumn foliage. Whilst coming out of one of the forested areas into a clearing we spotted an amazing eagle just sitting on the ground in front of us and with stealth we managed to get quite a decent photo. We left the park at the end of the day happy that we had seen one of the most awesome unspoilt and beautiful national parks that South America has to offer.

The next day did not disappoint with the weather either as it was a repeat prescription from the previous day. This time we walked up the glacier. We arrived at the bottom to find that the start of the walk is actually up one of the winter pistes. There is snow on these ski runs most of the year but its thin covering this time of the year has a tendency to melt during the day and freeze at night so it made for a slippery trudge up to the glacier. This we commented on was an absolute breeze in comparison to our climbing in Bolivia and we duly pressed on. We went past the sign requesting that if you are to walk on the glacier you should not do so unless you have a guide and continued until I sank up to my family jewels in the snow over a fast flowing river below. It was at this point that we decided the sign was probably there for a reason and we turned back!

All in all Ushuaia is a great placed to visit and doing it during the turn of autumn meant that we didn't have the crowds of fat Americans to contend with. One thing to note if anyone is thinking of going is organise your transport out of there in advance as we ended up having to stay extra time and boarding a bus that left at 3am!