Escape from The End of the World
My last blog post ended with Em and I stranded in the Ushuaia airport due to a strike. Luckily, two of the couples we'd met the previous day on our tour to see the penguins were also stranded, but had cell phones that worked and loaned them to us for short periods of time. We were able to call our hotels in the other cities and let them know that we wouldn't be there when expected (turns out they already knew as the strike was pretty well known and the company Em organized most things through had called ahead to let them know. If only they also had let us know). After 6 hours waiting in a line that moved forward at glacial speeds, Em and I made it to the front counter so that I could use my bad Spanglish to communicate and learn that we couldn't get out of the city for three days at a minimum. We were rebooked on a future flight, but the desk clerk told me that she couldn't guarantee that the strike would be over and that we'd get out.
By this point, our helpful driver had long since disappeared, we had no where to stay for the night, and we were slightly freaking out over what would happen to our plans if we stayed at the end of the world for another three days.
We hailed a cab, went back to the center of town, wandered to the tourist office and found out that their was a 16 hour bus that would get us from Ushuaia to El Calafate. Due to everything in the city being open super late, we were able to get to the bus office before they closed and book a one way ticket out of town for the day after (this reduced our stranded time from three days, to one day, but with one additional day lost to travel). Next we acquired a room at a cute little hotel, with a super friendly landlord, ran around trying to find a call center (located in the local convenience store) to reconfirm everything in the other cities, and finally treated ourselves to a nice dinner to celebrate figuring out a tricky situation.
Instead of letting our extra day go to waste, we decided to go hike the Marital Glacier. This seems like a fairly easy thing to do, but we didn't realise that this would be the day the rain decided to come out and play. Martial Glacier is about 3-4 miles outside of town and can be reached part of the time via chairlift, but not this day. We hiked up the ski slope to get to the trailhead and then it was a 45 minute jaunt along the switchbacks through the rain that turned into hail and finally snow, as we reached neared the apex.
The the entire trail is beyond gorgeous, with various shades of green interspersed with small streams and a mountain made of different rocks. The glacier at the pinnacle is different than those in other areas of Argentina in that it doesn't have large shelves with jagged points, but rather looks just like snow and ice one would expect at the top of any mountain. The hike was fun, we got drenched, and we shared a knowing smile with all the other hikers crazy enough to be out on the mountain with us. It was definitely a good way to spend an extra day at the End of the World.
Our escape plan from Ushuaia entailed a series of two buses that run along Argentinian Route 3 (starts in Buenos Aires at the zero marker in Congress Square and finishes in the middle of Tierra del Fuego National Park (we have a picture of us at the end of the line and I have a picture of the beginning of the line)). Through an interesting twist of country lines, even though you're traveling essentially straight north for the majority of the trip, you have to actually leave Argentina and enter Chile for a portion of the trip, before re-entering Argentina to finish the trip. Tierra del Fuego is owned approximately 40% by Chile and 60% by Argentina, but Chile got one of the best parts, the Magellan Strait.
The Magellan Strait connects mainland South America with the Island of Tierra del Fuego and was the safest place for ships to cross from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean before the Panama Canal opened in 1914. When the Strait was first discovered, there was a tax imposed on anyone trying to cross it, but they didn't realise that it was the top of the island of Tierra del Fuego and so when someone sailed around the island and came up the back way, they threw them in prison saying they had illegally crossed. It took years for them to realize you could circumnavigate the land and that it wasn't all a single landmass.
After 18 hours, numerous bad American movies dubbed into Spanish, some terrible food, and Em terrorizing small children, we arrived in El Calafate, were driven to our adorable hostel, and promptly passed out.
By this point, our helpful driver had long since disappeared, we had no where to stay for the night, and we were slightly freaking out over what would happen to our plans if we stayed at the end of the world for another three days.
We hailed a cab, went back to the center of town, wandered to the tourist office and found out that their was a 16 hour bus that would get us from Ushuaia to El Calafate. Due to everything in the city being open super late, we were able to get to the bus office before they closed and book a one way ticket out of town for the day after (this reduced our stranded time from three days, to one day, but with one additional day lost to travel). Next we acquired a room at a cute little hotel, with a super friendly landlord, ran around trying to find a call center (located in the local convenience store) to reconfirm everything in the other cities, and finally treated ourselves to a nice dinner to celebrate figuring out a tricky situation.
Instead of letting our extra day go to waste, we decided to go hike the Marital Glacier. This seems like a fairly easy thing to do, but we didn't realise that this would be the day the rain decided to come out and play. Martial Glacier is about 3-4 miles outside of town and can be reached part of the time via chairlift, but not this day. We hiked up the ski slope to get to the trailhead and then it was a 45 minute jaunt along the switchbacks through the rain that turned into hail and finally snow, as we reached neared the apex.
The the entire trail is beyond gorgeous, with various shades of green interspersed with small streams and a mountain made of different rocks. The glacier at the pinnacle is different than those in other areas of Argentina in that it doesn't have large shelves with jagged points, but rather looks just like snow and ice one would expect at the top of any mountain. The hike was fun, we got drenched, and we shared a knowing smile with all the other hikers crazy enough to be out on the mountain with us. It was definitely a good way to spend an extra day at the End of the World.
Our escape plan from Ushuaia entailed a series of two buses that run along Argentinian Route 3 (starts in Buenos Aires at the zero marker in Congress Square and finishes in the middle of Tierra del Fuego National Park (we have a picture of us at the end of the line and I have a picture of the beginning of the line)). Through an interesting twist of country lines, even though you're traveling essentially straight north for the majority of the trip, you have to actually leave Argentina and enter Chile for a portion of the trip, before re-entering Argentina to finish the trip. Tierra del Fuego is owned approximately 40% by Chile and 60% by Argentina, but Chile got one of the best parts, the Magellan Strait.
The Magellan Strait connects mainland South America with the Island of Tierra del Fuego and was the safest place for ships to cross from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean before the Panama Canal opened in 1914. When the Strait was first discovered, there was a tax imposed on anyone trying to cross it, but they didn't realise that it was the top of the island of Tierra del Fuego and so when someone sailed around the island and came up the back way, they threw them in prison saying they had illegally crossed. It took years for them to realize you could circumnavigate the land and that it wasn't all a single landmass.
After 18 hours, numerous bad American movies dubbed into Spanish, some terrible food, and Em terrorizing small children, we arrived in El Calafate, were driven to our adorable hostel, and promptly passed out.
posted by Robby @ 5:00 AM
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