We spent a few a days in Ushuaia, the most southern city of the world and the southern most point of our trip here in South America.  We did nice hikes from the town and in Tierra del Fuego National Park, visited some interesting museums, and saw lots of wildlife. In short there was plenty to do!

In Tierra del Fuego NP we saw a massive Fuegan red fox.  We’ve seen Patagonian grey foxes many times already but the red fox is much bigger and less afraid  of people.

Fuegan red fox

Beautiful mountains in Tierra del Fuego NP

While in the park we did some small walks to look at a beaver colony and lodge.  The beaver colony looked like it had been abandoned for a long time, but it was impressive to see the damage these animals can do.  Lots of tree stumps everywhere.  While our walk to see the beaver lodge was really interesting just to see the size of the dams the beavers build.  Very industrious!  On the walk back I spotted out of the corner of my eye some movement in the stream below us.  We quickly ducked down and sat on the edge of the trail to quietly see what was in the water – a couple of small beavers! But that was not all.  Richard spotted a massive bird, which stood very still with one eye watching us closely.

Beaver dam

Beautiful bird watching in Tierra del Fuego NP. Had one eye on us all the time!

Aside from the hikes we also visited a couple of museums, the most interesting being the Museo Yamana, a small museum about the Yahgan people, the indigenous population of Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn.  They lived in extremely hostile environmental conditions.  Because they wore no clothes they kept warm by crouching and huddling around fires when they could.  They even had fires while on the water in their canoes.  To keep warm they covered themselves in animal grease which also acted as a barrier from the rain.  They were nomadic and used canoes to hunt for their food.  Catching food was a joint effort between the ‘husband’ and the ‘wife’, with the men spearing sea lions and the women swimming to fetch them.  Only women knew how to swim. They were completely wiped out when European missionaries started to settle the area and forced them to wear clothes which spread diseases.

Ushuaia was a nice break for us after having a couple of hard driving weeks.  We stayed in a cosy wood cabin with a gas fire in the living space and a gas heater in the bedroom. Being really useless at booking things we lucked out with the cabin and Richard even negotiated a decent discount for us, a bonus!  So far we’ve found Argentina to be really expensive, more so than Chile which we already thought was quite expensive (prices at a similar level to New Zealand).  The only break we’ve had in Argentina is that fuel is obscenely cheap which is great because we’ve been eating a lot of kilometres!  At last count we were up to just over 6500km!

We had a foggy walk up to see the Glaciar which we couldn’t see anyway because of the fog. Still a good hike though!

Nice hat and nice views!

After Ushuaia we headed back to Punta Arenas to see a bit more of what we think is the prettiest city in Chile.  Another long day in the car, collecting more stamps at the border crossings and another ferry ride (we’re up to six stamps for Chile and five for Argentina and more still coming)! At the border crossing we met a couple of tourists who had just seen King Penguins on the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego. It was only a little detour on a different gravel road from the one we first drove to get to Ushuaia so we were up for it.  This is the only place on the South American continent that you can see King Penguins, and although the girls told us that it’s the only place aside from Antarctica that you can see King Penguins I’m a bit sceptical after looking it up online and reading that there are a few other locations that you can see them. To see the King Penguins we paid some money to a nice lady and her daughter who own an estancia up the road also in the middle of nowhere and spend their days guarding the entrance to the paddock where the penguins live.  They’ve been there for a few years and are there all year around.  We observed about 65 King Penguins just hanging out in the paddock by the water.  What a lovely sight to see! We loved it.  They are the second largest penguins in the penguin family and have very colourful yellow markings around their necks.

King Penguins in Tierra del Fuego

In Punta Arenas we took the car back to the mechanics who replaced the water pump the week before.  We were impressed with the job they did and felt like we could trust them and wanted to get a few other things checked out before heading north up the Ruta 40 in Argentina. Really nice guys, and it was really funny how everybody came out, standing in a line around the counter, listening in as Richard explained what he wanted checked out.  We picked the car up the next morning, and they’d put in new brake pads, replaced the air filter, diagnosed the play on the steering that we feel every now and then when we go over gravel roads (not a problem), and even cleaned the car.  We’d forgotten how shiny and pretty it is because it’s been covered under a thick layer of dirt and dust since we left Santiago!

Pretty Punta Arenas, favourite city in Chile

While in Punta Arenas we visited Fort Bulnes and Port Hunger, an easy daytrip from Punta Arenas.  Fort Bulnes was settled after the ship the Ancud from Chiloe arrived in 1843.  We’d seen the ship at the Ancud Museum on Chiloe Island so it was a nice circle of history to then see the settlement that came about as a result of the ship’s voyage.  The restored wooden fort has a fence of stakes surrounding various buildings, a church, school and barracks.  While we were there we met a friendly Chilean family.  They invited us to come back to their cabin which was just down the road from the Fort for some food and drink after visiting the fort.  It was a nice experience, sitting and chatting in a mixture of Spanish and English with them.

Fort Bulnes

Good times with Felipo and his family!

Last Thursday we hit the road again, this time for Puerto Natales, the gateway to Torres del Paine National Park.  However we only passed through for one night on the way to El Calafate, Argentina where we have been for the last few days before going to Torres del Paine National Park in Chile for our hiking.  In Puerto Natales we stayed in a nice hostel and met a Kiwi and German couple, Murray and Nina, who had just returned from a cruise in Antarctica which sounded amazing.  They mentioned that they’d met a couple who are friends of ours from Wellington, Llew and Sarah.  What a small world! Llew and Sarah left Wellington to go travelling at the end of 2011 and the last that we’d heard was they were travelling in the ‘-stan countries’ (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan etc), so it was surprising to hear that they were in the area.  We sent them a quick email and then went out for drinks with Murray and Nina and another couple who had also been on the cruise. It was a night spent trading stories and sharing experiences.  Then while walking back to our respective hostels Murray spotted Llew and Sarah in the window of another hostel.  It was both strange and really fun to catch up with them.  We don’t know if our paths will cross again while on this trip, but it was a fantastic coincidence and shows just how small the world really is.