Patagonian Peregrination Part 5

Enjoying my final day in Ushuaia I decided that it would be appropriate for me to have a post reflecting on my time here on this wonderful island. Well that and its raining right now and I have already checked out of my hotel so I am sitting in a café enjoying an Irish coffee and some medialunes waiting for the rain to stop and have nothing to do. Ushuaia....what can I even say....

Let me start with what I actually think right away....Ushuaia is just like Bali only cold and South American. I know that doesn't really make sense, but it does, trust me. Let me explain. Both are small islands that rely heavily upon the tourist industry to drive their economy. The locals, while clearly having their own identity, have a rather confusing past to an outsider. Not to them of course it makes perfect sense to them. But just as in Bali trying to remember who lived here first and who conquered who is no easy feat. Another way they are similar....they are both places of mountains and ocean. This is something I hadn't really experienced until Bali and haven't experienced again until my trip here. How one group of people can be so comfortable going for high altitudes on land to sailing the sea is beyond me but both the Balinese and local Ushuaians do it without a blink of an eye. Another similarity is how the island actually breaks down. Basically part of the island is completely overrun with tourists. Behind that some ways is the part of the island where most of the locals live and or work. Further back than that is simply uninhabited and remains a place to show off to tourists. Its fascinating to me how to seemingly very different places are so very similar in such fundamental ways.

Here is a picture that I think sort of truly represents Ushuaia....a combination of both see, that crazy hill, and the mountain beyond.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you think you are a genius?? I know this sounds ridiculous but I mean one of those moments where you think of something and are sure you are the first person to think of it which is absolutely preposterous but you still want to think it was your idea anyways.....well I definitely felt that way in Ushuaia....This place is the PERFECT place to start a green energy initiative. It is small enough that it would be easily manageable. The fact that everyone who is not in the tourism industry struggles to really make it working at some factory so there is an ample work force. They have the longest days of any place in South America because of their southern location. The winds here are crazy strong.  And they have a huge energy office here on the island. I don't understand why this hasn't happened yet. They could easily have solar panels that rival Germany and wind turbines unlike anywhere else in the world. I'm sure I am not the first person to think this but sometimes its fun to think you are a genius and are the only one who see the big picture. 

The most important thing I got out of Ushuaia though is the fact that I really am more comfortable here in Argentina than I thought. I have definitely taken a piece of Argentina with me. The fact that it is raining right now and I just decided to stop at a café to keep my computer and stuff from getting wet. The fact that English speaking tourists won't talk to me because they think I am Argentine and twice have spoken to me in broken Spanish to ask for directions. Even the idea that I am just perfectly okay with milling around one street while I wait for my 5:30 pick-up and drop off at the airport.....I really am taking a part of the laid back atmosphere home with me. Will I be as laid back as they are as a whole....absolutely not...my life dictates otherwise. But I will have the ability to calmly just enjoy a few hours doing nothing more than sitting drinking a coffee or sipping maté every once in a while. Well it has stopped raining and my computer is running out of battery life. 

Chau...tal luego....

Patagonian Peregrination Part 4

Finally the end to DAY 2 in Ushuaia.....what did I do to end such a thrilling day you ask....simple really, I went for a sail! That's right I got on a huge Catamaran and sailed through the Beagle Channel!! How freaking cool is that?? I saw sea lions, Cormorants, and PENGUINS!! This trip is how I justify this being NOT a vacation and part of my studying as well. For those of you who don't know in addition to my major in Nursing I also have a Minor in Marine Studies....so this jaunt through the Beagle Channel was not for sheer enjoyment at all. Having to sit aboard such a big boat and take pictures of beautiful scenery and see real live Penguins was all adding to my collegial education in marine studies...and that is my story and I'm sticking to it.


The Beagle Channel....where do I even begin....I have no idea! For my geography incompetent....no offense just a fact....the Beagle Channel is a strait of water that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is one of the first ways that early explorers found to get around the continent of South America. Eventually others were found and considered less dangerous so it got rarely used. Most famously the Beagle Channel is where naturalist Charles Darwin first traveled on his famous journey where he laid the foundation for modern Evolutionary theory and science. So was I excited to sail on the Beagle Channel??? ABSOFRIGGINLUTELY!


I got on the ship and immediately headed for the top of the ship. I have been on enough naturalist boats in my life to know that being on the top of the ship like that is really where you get some of the best views of everything, landscape and fauna. There I was on a fairly chilly day sitting atop a ship in the Port of Ushuaia....sometimes I really can't believe my life. When we finally took off I was so happy to once again be heading toward the ocean. It is quite a constant and true theme in my life that somehow I always end up back at the ocean. At the worst points in my life and the best I have always had the ocean....so I was sooo EXCITED that I did actually get to share my experience in Patagonia with the ocean.....okay I'm done I swear back to the trip. 


We finally take off and I couldn't help but snap pictures like crazy. It was just so beautiful, plus now that I know how to use the panorama tool on my camera I could get some great shots of the whole island and the mountains and the ocean.... 


Without further ado I guess here are the pictures:

These are NOT penguins....they are in fact a type of cormorant....although all of the tourists kept screaming "Penguinos" or "Pingon" or some other word that no doubt meant penguin over the captain telling us that it was los cormorones....It was at this point that I realized that penguin is one of those words that in almost every language sounds hysterical....I mean you get a pretty good image of what kind of a bird you are going to see just by the sound of the word penguin if you ask me.

Sea lions resting at the shore of the island.

I found this bird to be hysterical. I have no idea what kind it is but it just kept sort of bopping along on the boat right behind all of the people taking pictures of all of the other animals...I just got a kick out of it that's all.

Doesn't this look like it should be a painting out of Maine or something...well it 's not its a Lighthouse in the Beagle Channel in a picture that I took!

Me....I hate pictures of me....I attempted to get more of me in the last few days to appease a certain member of my family who claims I am never in any of my pictures (cough cough Mom)

These in fact are Penguins! Los Pinguinos!!! So cute!

Seriously the island was covered in them....and they swim so fast I was absolutely stunned!

A bigger picture of the whole island covered in penguins.

A final picture to end my sail in the Beagle Channel.....

Patagonian Peregrination Part 3

The rest of DAY 2 Almost!


After finishing my ride on the Tren del Fin del Mundo I ended up in Tierra del Fuego Parque Nacional, again for my non-Spanish speakers that is Land of Fire National Park. This place is AMAZING!! It is a combined effort of Chile and Argentina to preserve some ridiculous number of pristine hectares of mountains and forests. And they really do preserve it. There are certain places that are designated camping grounds but other than that there is NOTHING and it is IMMACULATE!! Everything from the trees, to the grass, to the water looks like it is straight out of a commercial about what the world looked like before people.


Tierra del Fuego is home to a large amount of the native animals of Ushuaia. Most of the native animals are types of birds, but they do have some other species like gray foxes. A lot of the animals of Tierra del Fuego were actually introduced species. Some like the rabbits and European foxes came over like they did in North America and thrived but eventually assimilated into the habitat. There was one animal however that really effed stuff up from an ecological perspective though.


Here comes the environmentalist in me....ready for it.....so the greedy people who helped establish Ushuaia and Patagonia as productive part of Argentina thought that one industry that could thrive here was FUR. That's right PETA.....Ushuaia was supposed to be a fur industrial complex. So they shipped in a bunch of beaver thinking that they would thrive the same way they did in Canada. Unfortunately, what no one thought of is the fact that summers in Ushuaia are actually warmer than summers in Canada. This means the beavers got lighter and thinner coats which suck for making a warm fur-lined jacket. What were the beavers good for? Oh that's right making dams to protect themselves against natural predators like wolves and bears...wait what's that you say there are no wolves and bears in Patagonia.....and the dams are really just stopping the mountain springs and causing destruction of entire forests and therefore everything that lives within it???? What a dilemma we have caused.....stupid humans! So now in order to preserve the natural habitat that is Tierra del Fuego there is a joint effort on behalf of the Argentine and Chilean governments to eradicate the beaver in this area.....what does that mean exactly? Find a beaver, kill it up, and all the day no one really cares. I know that sounds terrible but that truly is the problem with invasive species. So until someone figures out how to get rid of them or help them co-exist in their new environment that is what has to happen.....I have dubbed this the BEAVER PROBLEM....just cause I think it's a funny name.


Well now that I have told you that wonderful peace of disturbing news let me put up some pictures of Tierra del Fuego.....

This is a shout out to the Yámana...the native people that lived here before the Argentines sent down their prisoners....I always feel a subtle pang of guilt whenever I talk about extinguished Native American tribes.

I learned how to use the landscape tool on my phone....get ready I have a lot of these now!

Reminds me A LOT
of one of the mountains in Bali actually, isn't that funny.

I have been to the end of the PanAmerican Highway!!!! What what!?!? So cool!

Those are some of my pictures from Tierra del Fuego. The place is absolutely AMAZING!!! If you ever get the chance you have to check it out. I mean getting a chance to hike in the Andes Mountains, which because of how South I was went from East to West instead of North to South, just a lot of FUN!!

Patagonia Peregrination Part 2

Okay so let me first start by saying that originally I was just going to do days in my journey, but realized about an hour and a half into today's trek that I was going to have to break today up into 3 different parts. That being said let's get to business because I have a lot of pictures and information to post.

START of DAY 2

Today I got up bright and early had my typical Argentine breakfast, that is an oxymoron trust me, and headed out. My first stop on today's adventure was El Tren del Fin del Mundo....for my non-Spanish speakers, The train of the end of the world. It sounds so dramatic doesn't it? I was so excited for this actually. The way it works is it picks you up at the original train station and brings you into the Tierra del Fuego National Park.


Now the Tren del Fin del Mundo is cool for a lot of reasons but the one that everyone knows pretty much off the top of their head if they are traveling in this region is that its the train that carried the prisoners to jail in Ushuaia. That's right a regular old prison train. Add this to the fact that the prisoners were sent to this area to build their own prison and then occupy it and you have yourself a doozy of a time trying to realize what exactly it is you are doing.


Having heard all of this information as a sort of prologue to my journey to the train I was expecting a lot. I was thinking that I was going to be herded into a train car prisoner style, maybe expected to stand, as I road the train to some remote region in Tierra del Fuego where I would find a broken down prison and maybe be able to see some sort of frozen tundra. I realize the sheer geography of me being able to see frozen tundra is a bit ridiculous considering Antartica is about 1,000 km away, but I can't help the image I had created in my mind. My imagination per usual was extremely inaccurate.


When I arrived at the train station I was actually reminded of something like a cross between Kittery Trading Post in Maine and the entrance at the Blue Hills. It was VERY touristy. This is not to say it is bad, just not anything that I was expecting. I was thinking that the place was going to be deserted, I mean what kind of crazy tourist wants to take a prison train to the end of the world right? I mean besides me obviously.


After getting over the shock of the train station I saw the train. No joke I actually thought it was a model. It slightly resembled one of those trains you would see in Storyland in both size and theme. When I was told that was the actual train I was shocked. We were then herded into the train cars which were all very nice, just again not what I was expecting. The train made a stop along the way where we were actually able to get out and walk around. There was even a waterfall and a lot of horses. I question whether or not the horses were truly wild horses as they all appeared to have been branded. The train ended in the middle of Tierra del Fuego.


Everything was more than beautiful and I have the pictures to prove it. El Tren del Fin del Mundo is definitely worth the time to go and see and enjoy, just try and go without expectations....unless of course you have read my blog and know exactly what to expect.


Without further ado some pictures from the end of the world:

 

This use to be a giant forest...then the prisoners cut it down to build the city of Ushuaia.

The station at the end of the line.....

Patagonian Peregrination Part 1

That's right the first in another multi-part series....Patagonia. Since my crazy hectic week was over I decided it was time to see a little more of Argentina. So I got on a plane and headed first for Ushuaia and soon to come el Calafate. I got into Ushaia this evening around 5:30. My flight was supposed to depart from Buenos Aires at 12:45 but in true Argentine form didn't even take off until about 1:30, which was fine because what did I care. I actually got really lucky on the flight I was the only person on the whole flight who did not have to sit next to anyone!! I got so excited....I always think that is the most awkward part of any flight sitting next to someone you don't know or worse yet someone who smells badly. I actually booked the trip through a travel agent in Buenos Aires so I have the whole thing planned for me and I basically just have to show up....it is AWESOME!!!

Now for my geographically challenged let me point out on a map of Argentina where Ushuaia actually is....

Actually the big touristy slogan for Ushuaia is come see "the End of the World". Its interesting to say the least. The place is very unique. There are boat trips and excursions available all over the place, there are a ton of tourists, I think more people speak English here than they do in Buenos Aires (that may be an exaggeration but I'm honestly not sure), there are trips that leave for Antarctica, and then there are all the locals. I have never really seen anything like it to be honest. 

I am staying at a gorgeous hotel. Seriously from the outside it doesn't look like much but it is a great place call Mil810! Here are some pictures of my room and the view from the dining room/cafe.

                                                        

                                         

                                        This is the cafe which has a balcony where I took the following pictures...

After scoping out the view from my hotel and checking the hotel out which is really just awesome I decided to trek down to the main road in this part of town called San Martin. Below is a picture of the giant hill I had to climb down and then back up to head to the main part of town. Then a bunch of pictures that I took of Ushuaia today. I'm sure there will be more to come tomorrow but I leave you with a few pictures, and by few I mean a lot and by leave you I mean head to the Irish Pub down the street from my hotel! 

The following two pictures are for those who may feel that this is simply a vacation....it is NOT!! I am doing RESEARCH on nursing conditions in all different parts of Argentina....as is demonstrated by my pictures of a nursing strike here in Ushuaia.....and that's my story and I am sticking to it!

 

This is for certain members of my family (you know who you are)!

By far the coolest tag I have seen here. It says "Ushuaia, the end of the World and the Beginning of Everything!" I LOVE that....I mean I don't think it will be the beginning of EVERYTHING for me but maybe the beginning of something! Here's to hoping! Now I am off to the pub!