Argentina (VII.) - The end of the world

And so we left Puerto Natales and set off towards "the end of the world".

Crossing the Strait of Magellan, at the end of the South American mainland...

... we entered Tierra del Fuego, and continued towards its capital, Ushuaia - supposedly the most southern city in the world (though of course they compete for the title with a much smaller but even more southern Chilean town).

Inevitably, with a description like "the end of the world", the expectations of Ushuaia are high. And equally inevitably, it turns out to be a disappointment. Ushuaia is (again) not a very pretty town - its main merit is basically its famous location, which is what clearly attract everyone (and in particular crowds of loud dark-clad motorcycle riders).

Moreover, seeing high mountains soaring right in front of you on the Chilean side across the Beagle Channel, where NO WORLD IS SUPPOSED TO BE ANY MORE comes a bit as an anticlimax.

What I did find interesting is the whole Islas Malvinas/Falkland islands thing. The islands have been under the British rule since 1830s, but Argentina still claims the islands are theirs, and Ushuaia is their capital. Even after a while in the area you sort of get the message.

What we came for of course was the hiking. As we arrived in Ushuaia, we gave another try to the local Club Andino, hoping for some advice on the options. Which we needn't have bothered, because, as they told us straight away, they don't give any hiking or mountain information. At all. They only sell package tours. Right.

The main catch though is the public transport. Or the absence of it. How the locals get around is a mystery to me, if they don't have a car. We haven't really found any local public transport at all to move around the area (if you don't count the "minibuses", which are essentially big scheduled expensive taxis).

Eventually we managed to sort it all out, and on the first day we made a small trip towards the Laguna Esmeralda, through some quite pretty landscape.

Probably to compensate for our good luck in Torres del Paine, we got cold and cloudy weather this time, with intermittent (even colder) rain throughout most of the morning. 

Laguna Esmeralda

 After reaching Esmeralda we continued up...

... roughly towards the Ojo Albino glacier. We didn't quite hit the trail there, and together with the rain and cold we eventually turned back...

... to the lagoon - and to the beaver dams. Thanks to the Argentinean government, which in 1940s imported 50 beavers from Canada to Tierra del Fuego, with the idea of starting beaver fur trade. That didn't quite work out: instead of fur trade they prompted an ecological disaster, as the beavers multiplied (to over 100,000 apparently!) and caused massive damage to the indigenous forest. There were a few beaver dams above Laguna Esmeralda, and for sure the animals must have been impressively busy to do all that.

Indecisive beaver... where should I cut it best?

In the afternoon it fortunately stopped raining...

... and made it much prettier and pleasanter.

We sat and relaxed in the sun for quite a while on the way back - close to another set of beaver dams of course.

The next day we took advantage of what what supposed to be our last good weather day in Patagonia and headed towards the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, the most southern national park. Only a small part of it is accessible to public for some reason, and from the accessible options we chose the hike up on the Cerro Guanaco.

All the locals we spoke to impressed on us how essentially important it is to go there early in the morning, because the hike is very long and strenuous, requiring 4 hours to go up and 4 hours down. Ehm. It's not like I'm particularly fast (not with my short legs, for sure). But even so, we were back down in 5 hours, with a leisurely biscuits-and-tea stop on the top of the Cerro.

The hike was one of the prettiest ones of the trip.

One of the things that amazed me most in Tierra del Fuego was the act of walking: in many places, the ground was just incredibly soft, and beautifully coloured. Apparently, that's because you walk on dead but not rotten plants. Unpleasant as that sounds, it's mainly accumulated moss and grasses which, because of the low temperature and slow-moving acidic waters didn't decompose, and formed an amazing soft carpet (peat bog doesn't sound anywhere as romantic), something common in Tierra del Fuego. 

The upper part of the hike was, of course, rocks and stones. And some pretty spectacular views.



On the top of Cerro Guanaco

From the top you can see the rest of the Tierra del Fuego national park and the Chilean side...

... as well as on the Beagle Channel and some of the islands south of it.

Clearly, the local fauna learnt that hungry hikers restock their energies on the top and sometimes there are leftovers.

It was good that we had an early start, because as the day progressed the clouds were getting thicker, and without the sun it wasn't exactly warm... time to go down.

It was a worthy closure of our Patagonian trekking.

We stayed around in Ushuaia for another day, and then finished the Patagonian leg of our trip, taking a plane from the local airport called - how else - Malvinas Argentinas (ironically, managed by a company called London Supply). Miky and Vale flew back to Italy, and we continued direction Salta and Iguazú.

The last-minute postcards

More on Argentina (and Chile) here and here.