Crónicas Patagónicas Ushuaia

The rest of my patagonic trip was much more relaxed compared to the messy but remarkable experience in Chile. I guess it will be more boring to read too. I didnt freeze, I ate well and slept comfortable. The two days in Ushuaia plus the one day trip to get there were a pretty nice end of my holidays. I didnt really see anything spectacular nor I did much. Ushuaia is a great place to do exactly what I did: spend a couple of quiet days of relaxed excursions and food festivals.

I said it took me a day to get there, the connection from Puerto Natales was not exactly fast, probably because of the low season. My only option was a 13 hours trip changing bus two times, one in the middle of the highway and another one in a place called Rio Grande. I heard in high season there migh be other bus / ferry options faster and/or more interesting. Furthermore, the Patagonia region is a sort of mess. After decades of disputes between Chile and Argentina, the result was a map in which the most austral part of Argentina is not communicated by land with the rest of the country. You need to cross a bit of Chile at some point.

Besides, there is no way of going there only by road. The Magallanes strait is on the way so there is a moment they have to load the bus in a ferry to cross it. In such a long trip that is actually appreciated because you break the mononoty of hours and hours stuck in the bus. In the ferry you can walk around in the deck and feel the very strong wind which makes you feel again this “end-of-the-world” thing I already mentioned. I have pictures of this thanks to the camera of an israeli couple who were travelling with me in the same bus. I got along very well with them and we spent most of the time in Ushuaia together.

We arrived to our destination very late so we couldnt see much that night. The sightseen had to wait for the next morning and the conclussion was that the place is interesting, not because of the city itself but due to the location. Ushuaia is stuck in between the Marcial mountains which could be considered the end of the Andes and the Beagle channel which communicates the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The picture was nice with all those hills covered in snow. There was a ski facility up there, apparently the place is ideal for winter sports such as snowboarding.

I am not really into the winter sports thing so I spent my time doing other stuff. Appart from snow related activities, there are three things you can do in Ushuaia: Beagle channel navigation, dog sleeding tours and trekking in the Tierra del Fuego national park. I had enough of trekking for a while so I focused on the other two. Easy and relaxed half day guided tours.

The Beagle channel

The Beagle channel is a 240 km long current that separates Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego (the main portion of land after the Magallanes Strait) from the most southern islands of the continent. By the way, these islands belong to Chile so the channel is still another border between these two countries. And, if you look at the map of one of these islands, you will see a city there: Port Williams. So, is it Ushuaia the most austral town in the world or not? It is not the most intelligent thing to put this in doubt to the locals but, according to them, Port Williams does not count cause it is not a proper city but an army settlement in which only a few families live. Wikipedia, on the other hand, says there are 2000 people living there and the place was given urban consideration by the National Statisctis departament of Chile.

Anyway, the navigation thing consist on going around the channel in a boat. You have them in all sorts and sizes and, again due to the low season, there willl be plenty of guys bumping into you with offers as soon as you reach the dock. We had been recommended an agency called Tres Marinas so we went straight there. It happened to be the most crappy looking and small boat there but, in fact, I fancied that. It seemed a bit more authentic to do the navigation in that shitty fisherman boat than using those huge cruisers full of gringos. There was just a few of us in there: two dutch girls, a vasque couple, two italians, the israelies and myself, cramped in that mini-boat.

The guide explained us the way we would folllow using a navigation map. Apparently we had been very lucky with the weather because the previous day had been too windy. Well, finally some luck with this… So, after a short while, we reached the first place to visit in our journey and the one I liked the most. The reunion with some old friends of mine that I met in Puerto Madryn …the sea lions! There they were, lying on the rocks, screaming to each other, scratching, rubbing and doing all sorts of cetacean stuff like that. They are a bunch of fatsos, big bodies and rolls of fat under the neck. I just love them…

The boat pilot was really professional and managed to get the boat very close to the rocks, we could almost touch the sea lions. That was aswesome, the other time I didnt see them so close (out of the water I mean). The colony was formed by a bunch of female sea lions, a few screaming babies and the dominant male, with a sort of King Lion mane. Apparently the guy is feeded by the females and spends his time resting most of the time, appart from when he is having sex or taking a bath. And the guide told us such baths were not long or another younger male might show up and get the females. Of course, argentinian sea lions…

The H island was the next stop after my cetacean friends. According to the guide, they were the only tour authorized to walk there. I am sure there was another tour which was the only one authorized to walk in the Y islands, another one for the Z islad and so on.. Anyway, the island is called H because of its shape. It consists on two pieces of land connected in the middle by a very narrow land portion which dissapears when the tide goes out. The H island is in the middle of the Beagle channel, the Beagle channel connects the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. Therefore, been a bit creative, we could say that, when the tide makes this land connection dissapear, it is actually joining the two oceans. When we were there, that was not the case and we could still walk in the land connection so, been very creative again, we could say that, in the pictures below, the israelies and I have the Pacific on the left and the Atlantic on the right.

There was a few animals in that island as well, but none of them as spectacular as my lovely sea lions. There was a colony of a species which is a sort of bird-penguin, called cormoranes rockeros, a few ducks more or less beautiful and seagulls all over. Nothing spectacular but, anyway, it was cool to add that National Geographic touch to the trip. In Torres del Paine, appart from the american and the french, I didnt have the chance of seen any animal.

It was also interesting to hear the stories the guide was telling us about the first inhabitants who lived in the area. Apparently they hanged around naked in spite of the very low temperatures. The bastards got the around 10000 calories per day they needed to keep their bodys warm out of eating my dear sea lions. This wasnt the only way they had to fight the cold. We could see most of the island ground was covered in ashes product of the fires these guys would carry there already lighted in their canoes all the way from the mainland. They went to the islands for hunting sea lions and, if the weather turned bad, they used the rocks of the H islands as a shelter, moving its fires there. It is amazing that so many years after that you can still find signs of their presence there. An interesting fellows actually, they were called yagahns and its memory is still alive in all the souveniers shops and even in the decoraction of Ushuaia buses

Tags: Patagonia, Ushuaia, Wildlife