21 to 31 January 2016
Ushuaia, fin del mundo, end of the world, the most southern city in the world. I have finally reached the bottom of the Americas, after I started in Alaska almost 7 months ago. But it is hopefully not the end of my trip. After a further financial rescue package was agreed upon, my plan is to make my way back up again through Chile and Bolivia to Peru.
But I am getting too far ahead. Mum and I had left Puerto Madryn on a Thursday afternoon to take a bus to Trelew to catch our overnight bus to El Calafate, 1350km away. Turns out Trelew is the real end of the world, it is utterly grim and desolate. I have to admit I didn’t see much or stay long, but the little I experienced was enough. It looked poor taken care off, rubbish everywhere and weird people hanging around at the bus terminal (OK, bus terminals worldwide usually attract weird people). So I wanted to get out ASAP. But the overnight bus from Via Tac was waiting for another delayed bus, so that we stayed in excess of two hours. Plus it meant we missed our connection in another town that night, loosing our expensive bus fare and faced the prospect of a night in a potentially equally grim bus station. In the end, we could stay in our Via Tac bus, which was extraordinarily comfortable, and hopped onto the missed bus in the morning in Rio Gallegos.
We reached El Chalten in the evening. It also felt like the end of the world, lying at the foot of Mount Fitz Roy, a three hour bus ride from El Calafate. A cold wind blew through the town which consists of a few streets lined with hostels, mountaineering shops, tourist agencies and restaurants. We thought there were no taxis when we arrived and dragged our luggage to the other end of town to the hostel Alma de Patagonia. After this we truly deserved the local draft beer and a good trout dish. El Chalten very much reminds me of a ski resort in the Alps with apres ski happy hours after a long day in the mountain facing the cold and the wind.
We were lucky the next two days though when we had generally good weather for our two hikes. I am very proud of my mum who with her 65 years of age walked the 20km round trip to the Laguna del Torre on day one and 19km the next day to the foot of Fitz Roy at a good pace without many breaks and complaining #mumstillgotit. There was a bad weather spell at the Laguna though, which nearly blew us away. You may get a sense when you look at our pictures from there!
Fitz Roy was in clouds most times until the very end when we were already on our way to El Calafate. The bus journey was spectacular, as we saw one of the most incredible sunsets ever illuminating the Glacier mountain range.
Our activities in El Calafate encompassed visiting the Laguna Nimes, a birdwatch reservoir, and a tour to the Glacier Perito Moreno.
- Laguna
We didn’t have high expectations regarding the Laguna and were delighted to find a wonderfully relaxing nature reserve. We spent three hours there watching the birds, spotting flamingos, discovering the local flora in particular the Calafate (= barberry), and getting sunburned. I have to admit I am tempted to sign up to a bird watching course when back in England.
- Perito Moreno
The next day, we went with a small group to the glacier Perito Moreno. Apparently, it is one of the few glaciers that is still growing or at least remaining stable. It’s dimension is impressive and the colours are beautiful especially as seen from the boat that comes close up. I think I took about 80 pictures of it, which in the end all look quite similar. The Chinese tourists though must have taken at least a 1000! Very active indeed. There was no calfing to see from the boat. Later on, when back on land, we had just walked away from a viewpoint, when we heard a big roar of ice crushing into the sea. Unfortunately, our view was blocked by trees. Unlucky!
We attracted more bad luck upon us when I fed the street dogs with some of my pizza remains that evening. I don’t think you are supposed to do that, right? Feed wild animals? Or do they not count as wild animals? Anyway, mum got food poisoning the next day, when she ate another slice of the pizza (I was fine, but maybe my stomach is well trained after all the travelling). We had arrived in Ushuaia by then and unfortunately it meant that she missed a boat tour in the Beagle channel.
The boat tour took four hours. I saw cormorants, more sea lions, an island advertised as bird island with no birds and the remains of a German shipwreck. It had run on ground in the beginning of the 20th century because of an error of the nautical pilot. All 1300 passengers and crew were rescued, only the captain went down with the ship as he insisted to stay on it till the end. I wanted to make a comment comparing it to the Italian captain of the Costa Concordia, but held back when I remembered the Italian guy in our group. Anyway, I had the feeling the German captain died unnecessarily and could have left without loosing his honour after everyone else had long deserted the ship.
I woke up the following morning and thought it would be a real shame if mum came all the way to the end of the world without seeing the Tierra del Fuego Nationalpark. I had told her that it was called fireland because of the red earth I could see from the airplane. Mum duly believed me (which is only right since she tells me mares about flora, fauna and history all the time). Turns out though that James Cook called it so because of all the fires he saw from his ship burning onshore when he sailed across the Magellan straight. I learned in the very interesting Yamana museum in Ushuaia that the Yamana nomadic tribe didn’t wear clothes and relied a lot on fire to keep them warm and dry them from the frequent rain. They lived in the area undisturbed and unchanged for about 7000 years until the Europeans came and pretty much extinguished them with their diseases and superior arms. Their social organisation was based on a family unit each with their own canoe, their most important possession. The men sat in front of the canoe and rowed, the children were in the middle attending the fire and the woman were at the back stirring und diving into the water to search for crabs, mussels, sea urchins, etc.
Mum did come with me to the national park and we saw some of Yamana remains: hills made of food residue overgrown with grass. I had though that fireland would be a barren land, but instead it is a lovely landscape with dry forest, pretty bays and crystalclear water.
The rest of our time in Ushuaia we spent in our lovely AirBnB apartment. It was right at the waterfront with a large window front from which we saw all the movement in the harbour and people taking strolls at the promenade. There was a large cargo ship unloading and loading the entire time we were there and numerous cruise ships every day on their way to Antarctica. I would have loved to do an Antarctica trip from Ushuaia, but it was definitely overbudget this time. Plus I didn’t want to leave mum alone on her way back to Buenos Aires for two days before flying home.
Mimi, so schön, dass du mich für ganze drei Wochen besuchen gekommen bist! Wir haben so viel erlebt und so viel gelacht. Unvergessliche Wochen. Ich freue mich auf all die weiteren Reisen, die wir zusammen machen werden.
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