Ushuaia

February 23, 2020 to February 28, 2020

Sunday the 23rd Of February

We woke up pretty exhausted today. The beds at the hosteria are cheap, old and worn out so we didn't get a great night's sleep. The breakfast provided is rather meagre as well so our first impressions aren't that good.

We eventually dragged ourselves out to walk into town and have a look around. We checked out a restaurant, the Paso Garibaldi, that has had great reviews and seems reasonably priced but it is closed during the day on a Sunday so we will hopefully return to it later in the week. The menu looks interesting and is quite reasonably priced.

Then it was time for lunch. A great hamburger and a couple of nice craft beers for me and wine and a G&T for Leigh at Hormero's, a pub along the main street.

I meant to take a picture of our hamburgers but all I have got is a picture of my IPA and Leigh's glass of wine.

After that we strolled down to the tourist area near the harbour where I spent some time taking photos of the birds hanging about. Southern Giant Petrels are pelagic or sea birds. In South Africa they are regularly seen far out at sea but here they are common in the harbour. As with all true sea birds like Albatrosses, Petrels and Shearwaters (as opposed to Gulls and Terns that are at best coastal birds) they have glands on their bills that excrete salt allowing them to ingest seawater, hence the name "tube-noses" for pelagic birds.

An immature Southern Giant Petrel. Look at the size of the tube on its bill! With Petrels the tubes are on the top of the bill, often fused into a seemingly single tube, while with Albatrosses they are on the side.

A mature Southern Giant Petrel (as indicated by the pale head).

Her plain looking partner (tired looking as well).

An open boat in a harbour is a strange place for a Black-crowned Night-Heron.

24th of February

We had to move out of the hosteria today. Thank goodness. Another bad night and breakfast was even worse than yesterday. We arrived fifteen minutes after the start of serving and four Russians had already eaten almost all the food. An American lass was almost apoplectic with anger. We kept quiet and filled up as best as we could on bread and jam until that also ran out. As we finished, the owner Aurora arrived with some more food but scarcely enough to feed a single guest let alone the six that were hanging around the dining room hoping for a miracle. My review on Booking.com is the worst I have ever given, bar one.

The objective for today was to arrange boxes for the bicycles for Saturday's flight to Buenios Aires and to book a trip to Isla Martillo to see the penguin colony. Both bicycle shops weren't able to help us and told us to come back later in the week. We will start panicking on Thursday. We did manage to book a trip to the penguins for Wednesday which is the day with the best weather this week.

Talking about the weather, it is only with hindsight that we can appreciate how fortunate we have been over the last few days getting to Ushuaia. I had expected a lot of wind accompanied by cold and rain but our last day of cycling in particular was absolutely perfect from a weather point of view. Today normal service has resumed with fifty kilometer per hour winds, some rain and a bit of snow thrown in as well with the temperature starting off at three degrees when we left the hosteria rising to eight later in the day.

We passed the time waiting to check into our cabana at a coffee shop, abusing their internet service and milking out our hot beverages and empenades for almost three hours. We weren't alone - it seemed that all the other clients had a similar objective. Many of them were from a cruise ship that docked last night. We chatted to a few ex-South Africans who have lived in Australia for the past thirty five years. They are transferring to a 23 day Antarctic cruise taking in the Falkands, South Georgia and the South Shetlands. When I told them how envious I was of them they surprised me by answering that they were envious of us for what we were doing.

Our cabana is on the western side of town and is pretty much just what we need for the next few days. Mirtha, the duena, does not have a large frame but is a lot of person - warm, friendly and unavoidable. I feel that we will be happy here.

Tuesday the 25th of February

After a few hours of work, we headed back to town on foot to try and knock a few things off our list. We are just over a kilometer and a half from the local branch of the La Anonima grocery store chain and another kilometer to the epicentre of the town itself.

We managed to find a few boxes in which to pack our panniers for Saturday's flight but there are still no bike boxes available. We have got the name of a store that sells bubble-wrap and I am now inclined to take that option for packing the bicycles.

I also managed to draw some cash to pay for lodging. The ATMs in Argentina only dish out small amounts of money so it took three withdrawals with all the attendant costs to get enough out. At least most places accept credit cards.

The rugby club we had spotted in Rio Grande is clearly not the most southerly in the world. There is one just down the road from our digs. I can't imagine that there is another one further south.

Wednesday the 26th of February

After a bit of work and putting together a picnic lunch, we headed off down to the toruism booths near the Fin Del Mundo sign to catch our ride to Estancia Harberton and the penguins on Martillo Island. There were twenty of us on the bus ride, in a tough 4x4 vehicle, to the estancia which took a full hour and a half. A number of passengers were feeling motion sick and even yours truly felt less comfortable than he was used to.

It took only ten minutes in a Zodiac to cross the water to Isla Martillo, the only pelagic birds being seen were Black-browed Albatrosses. Out visit to the island was limited to one hour but I could have spent the whole day there.

We had saturation views from close up to three Penguin species. At times we almost had to step over the Magellanics as they just lazed on the path between two of the viewing areas. In between there were Turkey Vultures and Chilean Skuas sniffing around seeing what they might be able to nick from the poor Penguins. Today was definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far.

Once again the weather was on our side with almost no wind or rain during the whole afternoon. By the time we got back to Ushuaia the wind had picked up and during our walk back to our digs after a having supper in town it was gusting over fifty kilometers an hour again.

Thursday the 27th of February

It was pretty cold this morning with a lot of new snow on the hills around the town and a steady drizzle throughout the morning. We worked until midday when it started to clear and I headed off downtown.

The view that greeted us when we opened the door of our digs this morning.

Today was the day when we needed to get our bike boxes sorted out. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. None of the shops in town had any boxes to spare yet so in the end I decided to leave the panicking until the last minute. I will give it one more go tomorrow before we get hysterical.

Friday the 28th of February

A lot of the snow has melted but the view from our digs is still worth looking at.

D-Day to sort out the bikes. We walked up and down the town without any luck. Eventually we ended up at a sports apparal shop called "Popper Store" and the really helpful manager sourced a few boxes from which we could construct something bigger to protect the bicycles. He also directed me to a hardware store called "IMCOFUE" where I was able to buy twenty meters of some spongy plastic wrap to further protect the bikes - no bubble wrap available at all.

Wrapping the bicycles was a real pain but the advantage is that they have not been broken down at all apart from removing the pedals and saddles and turning the handlebars sideways.

Hope they are still in one piece when they come out at the other side.

The last thing to be done was to organize transport to the airport. None of the normal taxi companies appeared able or willing to transport us and the bicycles so it was down to pure luck that I managed to get something organized.

I spied a mini-bus in the main street that had some sign indicating it was special transport. I asked the driver, really nice guy called Gabriel, if he knew of anyway we could get our bicycles to the airport tomorrow morning. He said that he would if he hadn't been booked to another engagement but he would check if a friend of his, also with a mini-bus, could help. So we are booked to be collected at six thirty tomorrow morning by Jorge

Back at our digs we were able to finish sealing boxes and finally settle down to a beer and dinner.

Today's ride: 5 km (3 miles)
Total: 1,954 km (1,213 miles)

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