We finally made it to “the end of the world” or “fin del mundo” as it is known in Spanish it is 9:00 pm and the sun is still up in the sky! It is summer solstice for Ushuaia so the days are long and the sun sets around 10:30 pm... but the temperatures are still in the 40s and 50s so it is no beach weather down here !!! We did not come here to get a tan but rather to say hello to the penguins and visit the southern most city on the earth.. the flight from El Calafate to Ushuaia was short and smooth. We crossed the Magellanic Strait north of Ushuaia... The Magellanic Strait separates mainland South America to the north from Tierra Del Fuego to the south, it is also a short cut between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans! To me Magellan means a lot.. the name reminds of my geography classes I took as a kid and I always wanted to be like Magellan: an explorer! Though there is nothing to explore anymore, almost, I consider myself an explorer of my dreams! As a kid I imagined all these exhaustic places on the map, now that I have the means and health, I am actually traveling to them!!! I dreamed of way too many places so I may never get to see all of them but I will try... Lots of people use “bucket list” to invoke places they want to see, I prefer using my “dream list”! Everest was at the top of my list as a kid, but I settled for “Everest Base Camp” instead for obvious reasons! I stayed out of the Amazon jungle twice, even though it is number two on my “dream list”.. First time was in Peru and the second time was in Brazil, both times for fear of getting sick! My doctor recommended against it.. I settled for Machu Picchu and Iguazu Falls instead, not too bad I would say!!! Patagonia has also been added thanks to the Magellanic Strait and Tierra Del Fuego ...
Upon arriving in Ushuaia we proceeded to our hotel to get a room which we did... after a brief rest we left the hotel to explore our new home for two days... First we realized the place was colder and wetter than El Calafate so we had to bundle up really well to stay warm. We also quickly found out that the weather is impredicle so we needed our ponchos just in case... walking on the Main Street of Ushuaia is like walking on any tourist town Main Street: full of restaurants and souvenir stores! Today being Christmas Eve we needed to make sure we ate as most restaurants will close early so we found a grill place and sat down for a late lunch followed by an afternoon espresso and sweet.. then we went for a long walk during which it hailed, rained and the sunny .. typical Ushuaia weather!
Here are some pictures from today... tomorrow visit to the penguin island ....
Upon arriving in Ushuaia we proceeded to our hotel to get a room which we did... after a brief rest we left the hotel to explore our new home for two days... First we realized the place was colder and wetter than El Calafate so we had to bundle up really well to stay warm. We also quickly found out that the weather is impredicle so we needed our ponchos just in case... walking on the Main Street of Ushuaia is like walking on any tourist town Main Street: full of restaurants and souvenir stores! Today being Christmas Eve we needed to make sure we ate as most restaurants will close early so we found a grill place and sat down for a late lunch followed by an afternoon espresso and sweet.. then we went for a long walk during which it hailed, rained and the sunny .. typical Ushuaia weather!
Here are some pictures from today... tomorrow visit to the penguin island ....
