Ushuaia, The Edge Of The Earth
Going to Ushuaia was 100% Lucas’s idea, and what a bright idea it was!! We spent 6 nights in the small Argentinian city, the southern most city in the world, and not too far from Antarctica. So yes, even in December it was very cold.
The first day we walked up to “Glacier” Martial, which we just assumed would still exist, but it actually doesn’t. Nonetheless it was still a great first activity for us with about 3-4 hours of walking all up, reaching some snow at the top.
The second day we went to Tierra del Fuego National Park to do a 10km coastal walk. However, after over an hour of trying to hitchhike to the location, we got to the park entrance to find it costs $70 pp/day. We ended up just ubering straight back to town. After this I ended up exploring Ushuaia town centre, while Lucas went on a different coastal walk.
Day three and four we did an overnight tramp, where we camped the night at Laguna del Caminante. This was a loop track, with roughly 14km of hiking each day. We had sunny weather on the first day and no rain during the night, though the conditions were a bit harsher on the second day. We also had a shower of rain come through right as we were setting up the tent which made for a slightly rushed and frantic job. For context on how cold the night in the tent was, I slept in my thermals, socks, puffer jacket, gloves, and beanie while it stayed on.
On our final day in Ushuaia we thought we had better do Laguna Esmeralda, one of the most popular hikes around Ushuaia, and an easy 4.5km to get to the lake. When we were having our breakfast that morning we got told about hiking past the laguna to the Ojo del Albino Glacier which we assumed we might just be able to whip up to as an addition. However, we made it possibly halfway up to the Glacier before we realised we may have bitten off more than we could chew with the food, warm clothes, and sore legs we had. We’ve decided we will just have to come back to do it another time!
Side note, the breakfast we had at our hostel (Amanecer der la Bahia) was very good!! We got pancakes with dulce de leche (a staple in Argentina), toast, cereal, juice and the best coffee yet!!
We cooked most of our dinners in Ushuaia because of how expensive it was down there. Though the night we finished the 2 day tramp we decided to get a drink at the Dublin Pub, and a Choripan for dinner which topped our last one in Buenos Aires! We didn’t get any photos of the Choripan unfortunately, but it was massive, and only cost us $11. We went back the next night for the same thing.
If you can put up with the harsh coldness in Ushuaia, it is well worth a visit! There was still a number of amazing looking hikes we ran out of time to do. We are now on our way up to Puerto Natales, El Calafate, and El Chalten where we will explore Torres del Paine and Mt Fitzroy.
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