Ushuaia

The end of the world! AKA the world's most southern city. We travelled 2 hours from Punta Arenas, then got on a barge across the Magellan Strait (involving more Uno and singing), then 8 more hours on a bus to Ushuaia. Ushuaia is another beautiful place surrounded by mountains. It is a big tourist city because it is a major port for Antarctica. It was really tempting to just hop on a boat to Antarctica (and we gave it a crack). But even with their 'last minute deals' advertised in every tour agency, it was still too expensive. We've decided to see polar bears in the Arctic one day instead :)

We had heard Ushuaia was going to be really cold, but again we were lucky with the weather. It had snowed a few days before we arrived, yet we barely even saw any wind. However the boat trip across the Beagle Channel - that was cold! We saw a sea lion colony lying on the rocks and play fighting with each other. They are huge and interesting animals. It was a nice touch to have tea, coffee, hot chocolate and biscuits served on the boat. They also play a game at the end of the boat trip; it's a lottery and if your number gets drawn, you get to take home their Argentinian flag and you have to take a photo with yourself and the flag in your home country and send it to the tour guy. An Australian guy from our tour, Indy, won and was going to take a photo at the MCG (Indy - points for mentioning your name yes?) We had a free afternoon so we went to the Museo Yamana, which provided an interesting history of the Yamana people of Tierra del Fuego. They spent all day and night in the nude (it's freezing)! To keep warm they would have fires constantly burning, even going as far as to take small fires with them when travelling by canoe. Tierra del Fuego translates to 'land of fire', named after the fires seen burning on the shores by early European explorers.

On our last day in Ushuaia we went horse riding through the forest. A first for both of us! The scenery was lovely, although Rianna spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether her horse was an idiot or just purposely going in the opposite direction to every horse in front, just to spite her. Elliott was apparently way good at it. Just like Aragon!

It was our last night with our guide, Federico. There are so many good things we can say about Fede. He was so knowledgeable, friendly, fun and at only 30 years old, a really interesting person. Ask for Federico if you ever take a tour with G Adventures to Patagonia. You won't be sorry :)

We finished the tour in Buenos Aires the following day. The mood amongst the group seemed to be lower. I think we were all tired and sad to be leaving such an amazing two weeks in beautiful places with awesome people.