Loud and brash, Buenos Aires was grand, but the whole reason for my trip was to leave the big city and head for the big mountains. In Argentina, that means Patagonia – the huge region that encompasses the southern part of this vast country.
(Random trivia time – Argentina is the 8th largest country in the world. Coming from Luxembourg on the other side of the spectrum as the 6th smallest, the sheer scale of the place takes some getting used to.)
Logistics-wise, actually having a job during this trip meant that I was able to hop on a 3 hour flight – instead of 72 hour bus ride. Thank YOU Kabam!
Now, Buenos Aires was pretty fun, but overall, I still was feeling a bit let down by my trip. I didn’t really click with BA; I’m not a partier, and with my fun luggage issues along with some examples of the locals being pretty pushy, it meant that I was still waiting to be completely in holiday mode.
And thankfully, Ushuaia came at the nick of time. The southernmost town in the world, it is the jumping off point for trips to Antartica. Surrounded by perpetually snow-capped mountains, it’s also a playground for anyone who loves being in nature – with hiking, trekking, and kayaking to boot. Perfect.
My flight in was sketchy. A three hour flight from Buenos Aires ended with our approach taken us between soaring mountain peaks, and then with a sharp right turn to the airfield. The pilots on this run definitely earn their keep here – as gusty winds come swirling off the Beagle Channel and mountains – making even a routine landing… interesting, and a success prompted a wave of relieved applause.
One of the highlights of the hike had to be the naturally curious caracara that found me at lunch. I was taking a break by the bay when a striking large bird of prey landed nearby and started scooting closer. He wasn’t interested in the food, but just kept checking me and the other hikers out. As a bonus, he even played nice for the camera:
Let’s just say I was suitably inspired to vow never, never, EVER do the shared hostel thing. Sheesh - an extra 20 Euros a night is well worth the peace of mind.
Annnnd, back to the fun stuff - the next day dawned bright and clear. I met up with Marine, a cool French girl from Paris, and our kayaking guide Danny – and we headed out for a day of paddling on the Beagle Channel.
What an absolutely awesome day. Sure, it was a butt-kicker, as my shoulders quickly informed me that a daily routine of mouse-clicking in the office wasn’t really training for this sort of thing. But, aches and pains quickly faded to the background, as we got to explore a series of small islands in the bay.
Now, my experience with these guys had been limited to admiring them laze in the sun off Pier 39 in San Francisco. Cute, sleek, and playful – your instinctive reaction was an “awww”…
The last leg of the trip was brutal. We had to paddle in the face of strong afternoon winds and waves for about two hours to get back to town. My shoulders had cooperated up to now, but they were definitely making their displeasure known (and felt!) – but like a Homer Simpon-esque champion, I kept powering on – fuelled by dreams of that first amazing taste of a post-paddle beer. "Beer...", *paddle*, "beer!", *paddle*, and so on.
Marine and I teamed up for a hike the next day, as we took the trail up to Cerro Guanaco – a 900m peak in the national park. As a bonus, we got to stop at the 'end of the road' - literally. The Pan-American Highway, stretching from Alaska to Argentina over 10,000 miles, ended here... it really highlighted the feeling of being at the bottom of world.
On the trail, we again lucky with superb weather as we started out, and we headed up, up, and up the trail. The views just kept getting better, especially as we passed from the forest to the exposed mountain slopes.
My last full day in Ushuaia was the most memorable, if also the most terrifying. Marine and I had signed up for a full day guided hike up another summit – with the prospect (I thought) of a bit of snow-shoeing up the top.
No sweat I figured – a non-technical hike… I can handle that.
It was only as our guide unpacked our gear that I found out that instead of going up with snowshoes, we’d be climbing with crampons, rope, and ice axes. For you children of the 80’s – my reaction was pretty much like Scooby-Doo spotting a ghost… “ruh-ro!”
(Random trivia time – Argentina is the 8th largest country in the world. Coming from Luxembourg on the other side of the spectrum as the 6th smallest, the sheer scale of the place takes some getting used to.)
Logistics-wise, actually having a job during this trip meant that I was able to hop on a 3 hour flight – instead of 72 hour bus ride. Thank YOU Kabam!
Now, Buenos Aires was pretty fun, but overall, I still was feeling a bit let down by my trip. I didn’t really click with BA; I’m not a partier, and with my fun luggage issues along with some examples of the locals being pretty pushy, it meant that I was still waiting to be completely in holiday mode.
And thankfully, Ushuaia came at the nick of time. The southernmost town in the world, it is the jumping off point for trips to Antartica. Surrounded by perpetually snow-capped mountains, it’s also a playground for anyone who loves being in nature – with hiking, trekking, and kayaking to boot. Perfect.
My flight in was sketchy. A three hour flight from Buenos Aires ended with our approach taken us between soaring mountain peaks, and then with a sharp right turn to the airfield. The pilots on this run definitely earn their keep here – as gusty winds come swirling off the Beagle Channel and mountains – making even a routine landing… interesting, and a success prompted a wave of relieved applause.
I got sorted at a pretty cool hostel called Freestyle – with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the water – and then started planning my stay here. This is where luck smiled on me – as while all of the daily tourist excursions were really tame (the most extreme water activity I found included a grand total of 45 minutes on a river in an inflatable canoe… yawn), I ended up finding an agency who had a customer looking to do more fun stuff. Hiring a guide as a solo traveller is egregiously expensive, but with two people it actually works out. So, I signed up for a full day kayaking trip as well as an ice hike, and then called it a day with a tasty locally brewed stout beer.
My first full day saw me hitting the trail at the Ushuaia National Park – a gorgeous expanse of forests, somewhat sheltered bays (well, as calm as Ushuaia’s winds allow!), and snow-capped mountains. The coastal path was a great introduction, meandering around a peninsula and back into the local park headquarters, with stunning views of mountains at every turn.
One of the highlights of the hike had to be the naturally curious caracara that found me at lunch. I was taking a break by the bay when a striking large bird of prey landed nearby and started scooting closer. He wasn’t interested in the food, but just kept checking me and the other hikers out. As a bonus, he even played nice for the camera:
Back in town, I followed the recommendation of the friendly girl at the travel agency – eating at Chiko’s – a locals-only place that served up a tasty Argentinean seafood stew alongside yet another nice glass of malbec.
After heading back to the hostel that night, I came to those defining turning points as a traveller. Most backpackers go through a few distinct phases as they get older. There’s the “save money at all costs” approach of the college student, who loves the thought of sharing a 12 person dorm room. Most travellers migrate into steadily improving rooms – but still embrace the hostel concept, sharing rooms with others so they have more money for more important things… like beer.
But, eventually, most folks get tired of the inevitable pain and suffering sharing rooms with total strangers bring. Every backpacker has their share of stories about horror roommates, and I’m no different. Lovely Ushuaia took it to whole new level, and probably made me swear off shared rooms for good.
The reason? I crashed at 11:30, only to awoken by an idiot turning the lights on to noisily browse his things before bed. Fine. That happens. But at 2am, I woke up again to… uh… some overly affectionate activities by my two male roommates.
Seriously.
Let’s just say I was suitably inspired to vow never, never, EVER do the shared hostel thing. Sheesh - an extra 20 Euros a night is well worth the peace of mind.
Annnnd, back to the fun stuff - the next day dawned bright and clear. I met up with Marine, a cool French girl from Paris, and our kayaking guide Danny – and we headed out for a day of paddling on the Beagle Channel.
What an absolutely awesome day. Sure, it was a butt-kicker, as my shoulders quickly informed me that a daily routine of mouse-clicking in the office wasn’t really training for this sort of thing. But, aches and pains quickly faded to the background, as we got to explore a series of small islands in the bay.
Danny was a font of interesting information during lunch; we even compared notes as the Falklands issue. Turns out he was a teenager in the Argentine army, and only avoided action due to his unit getting laid low by a nasty illness. Danny was blunt - saying that it was almost criminal to send a poorly-trained force to the islands purely to keep the Argentine population distracted from domestic troubles.
Back on the water, we got lucky - the wind and waves were calm enough for Danny to let us risk paddling to an exposed island, home to a colony of sea lions.
Now, my experience with these guys had been limited to admiring them laze in the sun off Pier 39 in San Francisco. Cute, sleek, and playful – your instinctive reaction was an “awww”…
That was vastly different to the feeling I got as we got closer to the island. Our tiny kayak eventually got to about 30 feet away – and it was amazing to see the sea lions so close. They started to get a little nervous and about a dozen came into the water – where we felt a whole lot more vulnerable in our tiny fiberglass boat.
However, it was only when we saw one of the heavily maned, big, and fairly grumpy males start looking like he wanted to make our acquaintance up close in the water that we decided to call it a day.
The rest of the trip was equally cool – we got swarmed by a huge flock of quarrelling seabirds, and had the chance to land on an island and hike up for the 360 degree views of the mountains around Ushuaia.
The last leg of the trip was brutal. We had to paddle in the face of strong afternoon winds and waves for about two hours to get back to town. My shoulders had cooperated up to now, but they were definitely making their displeasure known (and felt!) – but like a Homer Simpon-esque champion, I kept powering on – fuelled by dreams of that first amazing taste of a post-paddle beer. "Beer...", *paddle*, "beer!", *paddle*, and so on.
Marine and I teamed up for a hike the next day, as we took the trail up to Cerro Guanaco – a 900m peak in the national park. As a bonus, we got to stop at the 'end of the road' - literally. The Pan-American Highway, stretching from Alaska to Argentina over 10,000 miles, ended here... it really highlighted the feeling of being at the bottom of world.
On the trail, we again lucky with superb weather as we started out, and we headed up, up, and up the trail. The views just kept getting better, especially as we passed from the forest to the exposed mountain slopes.
The plan was to eventually get to the summit – but the conditions didn’t cooperate. The trail eventually trailed off into a 12” wide path of loose rock meandering across a sheer face. Add in snow, ice, and more and more gusts of wind, and both Marine and I decided to play it safe – the last 50 meters from the summit were seriously dodgy – and one slip would mean a long and probably unhealthy exposure to the wonders of gravity.
Back at the base camp, we found out that the trail was actually marked closed for exactly those reason – whoops!
My last full day in Ushuaia was the most memorable, if also the most terrifying. Marine and I had signed up for a full day guided hike up another summit – with the prospect (I thought) of a bit of snow-shoeing up the top.
No sweat I figured – a non-technical hike… I can handle that.
It was only as our guide unpacked our gear that I found out that instead of going up with snowshoes, we’d be climbing with crampons, rope, and ice axes. For you children of the 80’s – my reaction was pretty much like Scooby-Doo spotting a ghost… “ruh-ro!”
But what the heck – I was committed, so figured I’d give it the ol’ college try. Our hike took us through a mile of soggy peat bogs, then past a series of beaver dams. It was pretty amazing seeing all of the changes a family of beavers can wreak on the land – the forest was a series of stumps, and half-gnawed logs.
That was fun – but it was time to start going up, and up, and up some more.
By this point, we were only halfway up. Another hour of climbing to the snow line, and we then put on the crampons and hauled out the ice axes to start our ascent up. The training was brief - "this is how you walk, and oh, if you slip, just fall down so that point of the axe digs in the snow." I was never exactly sure how I'd pull this off instinctively if I started careening down the slope. 'course, our guide did have us secured by a rope as well, but let's just say that I was more than a bit antsy.
Fleeting thoughts of mortality aside, the views were absolutely stunning. As we slowly inched our way up nearly vertical slopes, we got to take in vistas that took your breath away. (Sorry, that took whatever breath I had as I wheezed my way up, one sloooow step at a time.)
And finally, just when I was thinking my burning muscles were about done, we reached the summit.
We were fortunate again - the wind died down to nothing, and the skies were crystal clear. My big camera's battery died from the cold, but I got to use my iPhone's cool new app (360 Panorama) for, well, panoramic shots:
http://360.io/9qTLkC (you can move left and right to see the whole view)
Gorgeous.
Thankfully, gravity was our friend on the way down. It WAS scary starting off - as the least experienced, I got to lead the three of us, with our guide bracing us at the rear. That very first step - convincing yourself that walking from a flat surface back down a super steep slope was a good idea - was dicey. On the plus side, the views were awesome - and we got to enjoy walking towards them with each step. The minor bad news? The rows of mountains stretching into the distance reminded me of exactly how much empty space was around, and how far it'd be if we slipped. Yikes.
Six hours up, and four hours down - that was a long, yet absolutely fantastic day. When we got back to down, we had surprisingly good tacos and a big glass of wine, and then I was absolutely dead to the world. A nice sleep in, and I took a short flight over to El Calafate to start the 'main' part of my trip - Torres Del Paine and FitzRoy National Parks!
Fleeting thoughts of mortality aside, the views were absolutely stunning. As we slowly inched our way up nearly vertical slopes, we got to take in vistas that took your breath away. (Sorry, that took whatever breath I had as I wheezed my way up, one sloooow step at a time.)
And finally, just when I was thinking my burning muscles were about done, we reached the summit.
We were fortunate again - the wind died down to nothing, and the skies were crystal clear. My big camera's battery died from the cold, but I got to use my iPhone's cool new app (360 Panorama) for, well, panoramic shots:
http://360.io/9qTLkC (you can move left and right to see the whole view)
Gorgeous.
Thankfully, gravity was our friend on the way down. It WAS scary starting off - as the least experienced, I got to lead the three of us, with our guide bracing us at the rear. That very first step - convincing yourself that walking from a flat surface back down a super steep slope was a good idea - was dicey. On the plus side, the views were awesome - and we got to enjoy walking towards them with each step. The minor bad news? The rows of mountains stretching into the distance reminded me of exactly how much empty space was around, and how far it'd be if we slipped. Yikes.
Six hours up, and four hours down - that was a long, yet absolutely fantastic day. When we got back to down, we had surprisingly good tacos and a big glass of wine, and then I was absolutely dead to the world. A nice sleep in, and I took a short flight over to El Calafate to start the 'main' part of my trip - Torres Del Paine and FitzRoy National Parks!
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