Having arrived in Ushuaia 4 hours later than the advertised time (apparently they don´t take into account the border crossing times) we got the first taxi we could find and went directly to the hostel. Fortunately, the owner´s son was there and awake as the owner had gone to bed, having completely given up on us arriving! Still, it was a lovely hostel, more a b&b really, with a very motherly landlord who was very concerned to tell us what trips we should and shouldn´t do for maximum benefit and minimum cost.

Having been caught many times before, the very first thing we did was book our bus tickets out of Ushuaia and then headed off to visit the various museums as it was raining and windy (not unusual for the world´s most southern city). Ushuaia has a few museums but perhaps the most powerful one is the old prison which tells some interesting stories about its inhabitants. I recall one about a young boy who killed a few people (mainly children) and eventually they blamed his deviant behaviour on the fact that his ears were very big and stuck out. They did operate to fix this problem but this appeared to have little effect on his overall behaviour.

Day 2 was again a bit grey, very windy and threatening rain but we bravely headed off to Cerro Martial and Glaciar Martial. We were a bit lazy really and got a taxi to the beginning of the chairlift (it was a 7km uphill walk and it was very windy!) but did manage the 15 minute walk to the beginning of the walk up to the Glaciar. The views over Ushuaia and the Beagle Channel were amazing and the walk up to the Glaciar was a bit tough - straight up a stony, slippery mountainside. Having made it to the top, sadly we weren´t that impressed by the Glaciar and as the clouds moved in and the wind picked up we set off back down the mountain. Having reached the bottom of the start of the walk, we decided to walk back into town, following a well marked, lovely, peaceful path through the forest for about two hours.

As a bit of an aside, we were both hugely impressed with this young Japanese guy who seemed to literally run up the mountain and then back down. As we were walking up we could see him in the far off distance and yet he managed to get to the top about 5 minutes after us. We both left to go down at the same time and by the time we were barely halfway down he was very nearly at the bottom!

Having had our fill of exercise for the day, we spent the rest of the afternoon taking a boat ride on the Beagle Channel, taking in some small rocky islands which are the home to seals and sea lions as well as cormorants. I know I´ve said it before but those sea lions really do smell!

Having spent so much time in Bariloche we really had to keep ourselves moving now and so spent only 2 days in Ushuaia before boarding a bus north to Puerto Natales, which is the starting point for Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. It was a bit of a shame really, we did enjoy Ushuaia and could have happily spent another couple of days there exploring the area. Still, we boarded our early morning bus to Puerto Natales feeling quite excited about seeing one of Chile´s most popular parks.

Because Torres del Paine was so amazing it deserves an entry all of its own so, bye for now.

take care

Tim and Tracey