Activity Summary
Monday 25th December - Day 447
Xmas day!
Travel to Ushuaia
Tuesday 26th December - Day 448
Travel to Ushuaia
Lunch at Ramos Generales El Almacén
Ushuaia explore
Fin del Mundo
Wednesday 27th December - Day 449
Tierra del Fuego National park
Coastal walk
Bahia Lapataia
Coffee and empanada at Alakush visitor centre
Lago Acigami
Thursday 28th December - Day 450
Nothing day
Ushuaia museum
Friday 29th December - Day 451
Fly to Buenos Aires
Summary
Ushuaia
Fin del Mundo / the end of the world.
The most southerly city on the continent and a popular place to depart to Antarctica. Way out of our price range and after this trip, there is no way Nicola would sign up for 7+ days on the Southern Ocean. Overhearing some people at the airport check in desk, it wasn’t a comfortable ride the last few days.
Ushuaia is a nice place and the TDF National park is pretty accessible.
Tierra del Fuego National Park
Another expensive National Park at £11 each. The coastal walk was nice and easy plus there are various other similar walks in the NP. Sadly the wind, cloud and rain ended any ambition to do Cerro Guanaco.
Entry to the NP was expensive (£15 return) and the service was an absolute shambles. There was no organisation from these guys heading out and returning was even worse.
It made us have no desire to return to the NP.
Transport
Ushuaia
Walk to Bus Sur terminal
Bus to Delgada ferry crossing
Wait for 12 hours for the 100km winds to die down
Ferry across to Tierra del Fuego
Bus to Ushuaia
Accommodation
Ushuaia - Airbnb, Gdor. Ernesto Manuel Campos 36
Number of nights - 4
Price per night per person - £21
Positives:
Comfortable room
TV + Netflix
Great breakfast
Negatives:
Small bed
Recommend?
Yes
Diary
Monday 25th December - Day 447
Xmas day! And it was the worst one for either of us to date.
Our bus was at 9.30am so we were able to make use of the hostel breakfast before walking to the Bus Sur terminal.
Once on the bus we would end up spending near enough the next 24 hours on it. Setting off from Punta Arenas was chill, plenty of space to spread out but this changed once the bus liaised with one that had travelled down from Puerto Natales. From this point it was full to the brim and the 20 strong G Adventures tour group had brought plenty of loud and unabated coughing with them. Holiday makers have been seriously unpleasant for us lately.
At the Delgada crossing we got well and truly stuck. The weather had clearly been alright in the morning but by the time we had arrived the wind had picked up so much that the navy closed the Magellan Strait crossing. The wind was savage and apparently got up to 100kmh at one point.
We had a good 12 hours of killing time on the bus and sometimes wandering outside to stretch our legs / use the bog. As it was Xmas day the sole cafe was closed all day which was an absolute bummer.
At sometime past 11pm the coach managed to make the journey across the strait, too much wooping because we fully expected to miss the midnight cut off and then have to wait until at least 6am.
Tuesday 26th December - Day 448
The border crossings were both a surprise to be open in the middle of the night and also weren’t so bad. Chile simply allowed the bus driver to take our passports and PDI on our behalf and Argentina was a simple scan and accommodation confirmation jobby.
Sleeping was hella uncomfortable. The buses are small and lack the minimal leg support offered by most of our previous night buses.
In Ushuaia at 6am we walked to our Airbnb apartment, thankfully having a key drop box giving us round the clock access so we’re free to enter without stress. Massive benefit.
Nap time until 11am was glorious.
Feeling a bit more alive now, we were able to walk into town, sort bus tickets to TDF national park for tomorrow, get a magnet and have lunch at Ramos Generales El Almacén. Food was expensive and not stellar and believing this would be the case for the whole of Ushuaia we shunned eating out the rest of our time here.
Insert tourists at the Fin Del Mundo sign.
Also the Ushuaia one. Just to prove we were actually here of course.
We would spend most of our time in Ushuaia in the Airbnb apartment, watching films and resting. Made a nice change from hitting it hard across Patagonia.
Wednesday 27th December - Day 449
The good weather day had passed us by the day before sadly. The next few days were windy, cold and had the threat of rain. With that in mind, Luke had decided not to do the Cerro Guanaco hike as the views wouldn’t be worth it.
Instead we would do some of the easy walks around the Tierra del Fuego National park.
We arrived at the Ushuaia bus terminal for the 10am bus to TDF. It was chaos, no one seemingly taking charge and we just stood around until someone eventually said National park. Wholly unclear as there are a ton of minibuses boarding people without much clarity of direction.
The National park office was on the way to TDF where everyone got out and paid the £11pp entry fee. A bit steep.
There are a number of bus stops to choose from and as we were doing the ‘coastal’ walk we got off at Muelle / Ensenada and then began our walk.
It had the strangest location for a post office.
The cold abrasive weather had let up quite considerably and we even had spots of sunshine for the first couple of kilometres.
The occasional opening out over the Bahia Lapataia was pretty nice. The green slate rock was particularly interesting.
It wasn’t a blow your socks off exciting walk but the gentle terrain and saunter through woods and with bay views is the sort of hiking Nicola enjoys.
Once the 8km was done we had a coffee and empanada at the Alakush visitor centre. The empanada went down a treat.
We didn’t have much desire to stay late in the NP so had a slow walk over to Lago Acigami and back.
The very full river was very nice.
Plus the geese here were mighty vibrant.
The on-site museum is pretty small but it was interesting to walk around for 15 minutes before seeing a branded minibus arrive that we were aiming for. We would then queue for 40 minutes in the rain to get into a bus after the allocated 3pm leave time. This whole experience was infuriating, the driver giving us absolutely no information whatsoever, deciding to stroll around smoking and let everyone question wtf was going on. Only when another bus arrived and shouted Ushuaia did we move into it and then watch the shit show organisational ability of the drivers trying to get everyone in a vehicle. Absolute shambles and it put to bed any aspirations of returning to the NP the next day if we had to deal with these clowns again.
Back at the Airbnb we chilled the evening away.
Thursday 28th December - Day 450
We had an absolute nothing day in Ushuaia. All the boat tours had been cancelled for the last few days so any aspirations of going to see Magdalena penguins wouldn’t have materialised anyway, so we simply relaxed and had a big outing to the tiny Ushuaia museum for £3 each.
Big day but we weren’t complaining.
Friday 29th December - Day 451
Our flight was a little after 9am and since we like being at an airport 3 hours before we were up and out of the Airbnb by 6am. We had a plan to walk to designated cab spots in town as a last resort but thankfully Uber worked perfectly fine because it was bloody cold and we weren’t sure how populous the cab numbers would be so early.
The only challenge we had really for this flight was trying to cut Luke’s big bag weight down to below 15kg, which usually stood around the 20kg mark as a result of substantial communal toiletry and food provision storage. By whittling these down to basically nothing, wearing things like hiking boots and Nicola taking some odds and sods from his bag we were both at the 14.5kg mark. He’s never had it so easy.
The views from the airport over Ushuaia were cracking. One last goodbye to the Patagonian mountains.
We killed some time in a cafe in the airport lobby before going through security (there is nothing here but seats really) before jumping on our Aerolineas Argentina flight to Buenos Aires. Got the benefit of another upgrade to the emergency exit seats with extended leg room availability. Such a nice change from coaching it…
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