Having wrapped up four great days in Buenos Aires, soaking up as much sun and warmth as possible, Jeff and I boarded an Aerolineas Argentinas flight on Monday bound for Ushuaia, a city in Patagonia that touts itself as the southernmost city in the world. Weather reports aren’t pretty with the sun and mid-80s of Buenos Aires being replaced by forecasts for rain with temps only reaching the mid-40s. Sure enough, as our plane made its descent through thick cloud cover into the Ushuaia airport, we landed in the midst of a cold drizzle. Having arrived fairly late in the evening, we made time for a great dinner by the water at a restaurant called El Volver (salmon instead of red meat for me for a change) followed by some drinks at an actual bar called Dublin before calling it a night.
We were picked up the next morning at a little after 8am by our tour guide, Frasco. Frasco spoke great English, did his best to make the group of about 13 feel welcome by remembering everyone’s names, and had a surprising ability to name the NBA team of all of the American tourists’ home towns. He correctly identified the Wizards for Jeff and I as well as the Bulls for a family from Chicago.
After a 90 minute bus ride to the Harberton Estancia, we stopped near a stream and began our day’s adventure by boarding inflatable rafts for a paddling tour of Beagle Channel. Being paired with an Austrian couple with little canoeing experience and Jeff who was somewhat limited by his camera, captain duties on the boat fell to me. This really meant nothing more than I got to steer.
Following the paddling, a motorboat took us to Hammer Island where we were able to observe both Magellanic and Gentoo penguins. This was really the only part of the trip where I recall being cold. The rain had held off so far but with thick cloud cover overhead, a pretty vicious wind, and little protection on the island from the wind, I was happy to move on after only about 20 minutes or so.
From there, it was another brief motorboat ride to Gable Island where we stopped at a cabin for a family-style lunch of sandwiches, potato chips, olives, cheese and red wine. Following the lunch stop, we made our way back outside for a three hour hike across the island through pastures and woods where we were treated to amazing views of the beautiful Patagonian landscape.
After returning to the hotel to rest and clean up a bit, we made our way back downtown for dinner and a return to our red meat ways. Once again finding a lively, tourist hangout proved to be challenging. Ushuaia actually seems to have several bars offering the potential for social activity but most are either sparsely populated or have closed leading Jeff and I to wonder if it’s time to lobby TripAdvisor to add a “nightlife” section to their website. We decided to call it a night relatively early by Argentine standards and rolled home a little after midnight.
We lucked out during the day with the weather with rain only hitting us while we were indoors and a few hints of sun throughout the day. Despite being so far south and so close to Antarctica, and aside from the windy Penguin Island, it’s really not super-cold. Hoping for the same luck with the weather tomorrow.



































