Ohhhh... Ushuaia...
I’m at “The End of the World” in Ushuaia. As far south as you can go in Argentina. It’s the gateway to the Antarctic – the place where 90% of the cruises depart from.
I took a bus here. The only road goes through Chile, and I'd been told that I wouldn't be allowed to get off the bus and that I wouldn't need to worry about immigration or customs - but it was quite the opposite. I had to get off the bus several times, gave up my fruit at the border - they had fruit sniffing dogs. I didn't need to go through immigration for Chile - I was considered "in transit". But I did go through immigration coming back into Argentina. I got a brand new visa.
Some of the scenery was really nice, but the climate controls on the bus were non-existent. Freezing in the morning, but by mid afternoon I was stripping down to my underwear.
I took a bus here. The only road goes through Chile, and I'd been told that I wouldn't be allowed to get off the bus and that I wouldn't need to worry about immigration or customs - but it was quite the opposite. I had to get off the bus several times, gave up my fruit at the border - they had fruit sniffing dogs. I didn't need to go through immigration for Chile - I was considered "in transit". But I did go through immigration coming back into Argentina. I got a brand new visa.
Some of the scenery was really nice, but the climate controls on the bus were non-existent. Freezing in the morning, but by mid afternoon I was stripping down to my underwear.
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And now I’m in Ushuaia. It’s been a rough week. I got to Ushuaia expecting to do some camping. But when I got here, it was so cold! And windy! And wet! It was also late evening and I’d been on a bus since 3 AM, and I was tired.
So I changed my mind, but I had a really hard time finding any vacancies in town. I had been on the tourist route all through December, so I was surprised by the sheer number of travelers here, and the lack of hotels. There were a couple of hotel rooms available, but they were well over $100 CAD per night and none of them had particularly good reviews. I didn’t search all that long before I settled on a dorm room. The hostel was quite nice. Clean and well maintained, free breakfast, great staff, cheap – and of course, temporary. I figured I’d survive. And I did. It wasn’t bad. The room wasn’t full; there were belongings on the beds, but no sign of the girls that owned them. Perhaps they were out camping, or partying. Or maybe they found other beds to share?
I found a private room in a hostel on Airbnb – not super cheap but reasonable if I stayed for a week. From the reviews, it sounded like the room was good but noisy (it’s in a hostel), but I don’t mind noise and the location was okay. I booked it. The charge went through without any problems. I didn’t love that I didn’t get a reply from the host, but that has happened before without any issue.
But, I did have to spend one more night in the dorm. Again, some girls were missing in action, so it wasn’t bad.
I killed a bit of time at the hostel, using the wifi. I also found some alligator clips, so I added some stretch cord to them. After lunch, I headed up the hill (and I mean UP, this town is on the side of a mountain). I went to the coordinates provided by the Airbnb map. That was NOT the right location. I stood on a corner turning in circles for a few minutes while staring at my phone. Dogs were barking at me. Someone came out of their house to ask what I was doing. They didn’t know my Airbnb host and I sure didn’t see anything that looked like a hostel.
I tried calling my Airbnb host – a man answered and didn’t appear to know the host. He didn’t speak any English and I really couldn’t understand him at all over the phone. I said I had an Airbnb reservation, and I did understand the part where he said “no”. It’s not uncommon for phone numbers to change (my Argentinian phone number keeps getting calls and texts for someone who had my number before me). I gave up on the call. Still no reply on Airbnb.
After a bit of digging in the app, I found the actual street address and plugged that into maps. I was about a kilometer away. Okay, no big deal… right?
I proceeded to walk through a pretty rough part of town – most of the town is rough already, not a particularly nice place. But this part was bordering on nasty. There was garbage everywhere, stray dogs, abandoned buildings, a mattress on the road. I saw a dead cat – and by the looks of it, its death was a mercy.
I found the hostel. The door didn’t open, so I rang the bell. No reply. I gave the door another try, and it turned out it was open, but it had sunk on the hinges so it was jamming on the floor and required a really hard push. A sign said reception was 2 floors up, so I went up. And the place was packed. There were dozens of young people scattered about. Yep, noisy!
A guy met me at the reception desk. His voice sounded familiar – the guy from the phone. Still didn’t know my Airbnb host. When I showed him my Airbnb reservation, he told me it had been two years since they’d had that room available. I hadn’t checked the dates on the reviews, so yeah… the reviews might have been old. But, but... my payment had gone through!
I dropped my bags onto the floor, took photos of the hostel and submitted a refund request to Airbnb. It said the host had an hour to respond (ha, yeah, right). By the way, it’s been 5 days. Still no response from Airbnb. I did tweet a couple of times which triggered a twitter bot to ask for my info – but still no actual person I don’t think (a copy/pasted reply, at any rate). If I don’t hear anything by morning, I’ll dispute the charge on my credit card. And raise a little more hell on twitter.
I’d had enough of walking around looking for a place to stay, I didn’t need to see any more dead cats, didn’t want to shout at any more stray dogs. I needed a good night’s sleep - not another night in a dorm. I went camping.
Before leaving town, I bought food and a cheap, foil covered sleeping mat to help combat the cold a bit.
I went to the Tierra del Fuego National Park. There are shuttles that run every hour or two. It was $15 for a return ticket. I was expecting to also pay a park entrance fee and camping fee, but the shuttle driver moved the pylons at the park gate and drove past the line-up of cars. He said that if you enter after 3pm it’s free. I like free.
The camping is “wild camping” meaning there are no facilities. The only things in the camping area were a few concrete fire pits, but I didn’t bring any wood. I had read there were chemical toilets at the campground – and that was a fairly recent post – but I never did find any toilets. I used the bushes.
It rained a bit in the evening, but it was a lovely night. It wasn’t very cold and I was comfortable. When the rain stopped in the middle of the night, it was eerily quiet. I don’t remember the last time I experienced that level of quiet. It was just me and my tinnitus. There were a couple of other tents in the campground, but far enough away that I never heard any noise from either. I slept well.
In the morning, I was surprised to see the sun. Up to that point, every moment in Ushuaia had been overcast, rainy and windy. It was a sunny, warm day from start to finish, so I had a nice time in the park.
So I changed my mind, but I had a really hard time finding any vacancies in town. I had been on the tourist route all through December, so I was surprised by the sheer number of travelers here, and the lack of hotels. There were a couple of hotel rooms available, but they were well over $100 CAD per night and none of them had particularly good reviews. I didn’t search all that long before I settled on a dorm room. The hostel was quite nice. Clean and well maintained, free breakfast, great staff, cheap – and of course, temporary. I figured I’d survive. And I did. It wasn’t bad. The room wasn’t full; there were belongings on the beds, but no sign of the girls that owned them. Perhaps they were out camping, or partying. Or maybe they found other beds to share?
I found a private room in a hostel on Airbnb – not super cheap but reasonable if I stayed for a week. From the reviews, it sounded like the room was good but noisy (it’s in a hostel), but I don’t mind noise and the location was okay. I booked it. The charge went through without any problems. I didn’t love that I didn’t get a reply from the host, but that has happened before without any issue.
But, I did have to spend one more night in the dorm. Again, some girls were missing in action, so it wasn’t bad.
I killed a bit of time at the hostel, using the wifi. I also found some alligator clips, so I added some stretch cord to them. After lunch, I headed up the hill (and I mean UP, this town is on the side of a mountain). I went to the coordinates provided by the Airbnb map. That was NOT the right location. I stood on a corner turning in circles for a few minutes while staring at my phone. Dogs were barking at me. Someone came out of their house to ask what I was doing. They didn’t know my Airbnb host and I sure didn’t see anything that looked like a hostel.
I tried calling my Airbnb host – a man answered and didn’t appear to know the host. He didn’t speak any English and I really couldn’t understand him at all over the phone. I said I had an Airbnb reservation, and I did understand the part where he said “no”. It’s not uncommon for phone numbers to change (my Argentinian phone number keeps getting calls and texts for someone who had my number before me). I gave up on the call. Still no reply on Airbnb.
After a bit of digging in the app, I found the actual street address and plugged that into maps. I was about a kilometer away. Okay, no big deal… right?
I proceeded to walk through a pretty rough part of town – most of the town is rough already, not a particularly nice place. But this part was bordering on nasty. There was garbage everywhere, stray dogs, abandoned buildings, a mattress on the road. I saw a dead cat – and by the looks of it, its death was a mercy.
I found the hostel. The door didn’t open, so I rang the bell. No reply. I gave the door another try, and it turned out it was open, but it had sunk on the hinges so it was jamming on the floor and required a really hard push. A sign said reception was 2 floors up, so I went up. And the place was packed. There were dozens of young people scattered about. Yep, noisy!
A guy met me at the reception desk. His voice sounded familiar – the guy from the phone. Still didn’t know my Airbnb host. When I showed him my Airbnb reservation, he told me it had been two years since they’d had that room available. I hadn’t checked the dates on the reviews, so yeah… the reviews might have been old. But, but... my payment had gone through!
I dropped my bags onto the floor, took photos of the hostel and submitted a refund request to Airbnb. It said the host had an hour to respond (ha, yeah, right). By the way, it’s been 5 days. Still no response from Airbnb. I did tweet a couple of times which triggered a twitter bot to ask for my info – but still no actual person I don’t think (a copy/pasted reply, at any rate). If I don’t hear anything by morning, I’ll dispute the charge on my credit card. And raise a little more hell on twitter.
I’d had enough of walking around looking for a place to stay, I didn’t need to see any more dead cats, didn’t want to shout at any more stray dogs. I needed a good night’s sleep - not another night in a dorm. I went camping.
Before leaving town, I bought food and a cheap, foil covered sleeping mat to help combat the cold a bit.
I went to the Tierra del Fuego National Park. There are shuttles that run every hour or two. It was $15 for a return ticket. I was expecting to also pay a park entrance fee and camping fee, but the shuttle driver moved the pylons at the park gate and drove past the line-up of cars. He said that if you enter after 3pm it’s free. I like free.
The camping is “wild camping” meaning there are no facilities. The only things in the camping area were a few concrete fire pits, but I didn’t bring any wood. I had read there were chemical toilets at the campground – and that was a fairly recent post – but I never did find any toilets. I used the bushes.
It rained a bit in the evening, but it was a lovely night. It wasn’t very cold and I was comfortable. When the rain stopped in the middle of the night, it was eerily quiet. I don’t remember the last time I experienced that level of quiet. It was just me and my tinnitus. There were a couple of other tents in the campground, but far enough away that I never heard any noise from either. I slept well.
In the morning, I was surprised to see the sun. Up to that point, every moment in Ushuaia had been overcast, rainy and windy. It was a sunny, warm day from start to finish, so I had a nice time in the park.
Tierra del Fuego National Park
I walked 2 km to the park administration building that had bathrooms. I was hoping to get coffee too, but the cafeteria and gift shop were being renovated. The bathrooms were absolutely disgusting. I mean really, utterly gross, so bad I decided not to use them at all, but as I was backing away from the horror, a woman came in with gloves and cleaning supplies. I went outside, waited a half hour until she was done. I am honestly astonished at what she was able to do. I thought the bathroom was too far gone! I would have torched the place. I have no idea how she got the toilets flushed. I guess she sees the bathrooms in that condition a lot. There weren’t any other people, so I took advantage of the power outlet on the counter to charge my mobile phone a bit and gave myself a bit of a sponge bath at the sink. About the time I was leaving, a large tourist bus arrived, and I had a feeling the bathroom was about to be destroyed yet again.
I spent a few hours walking around a couple of the lakes. Saw a few birds from a distance, and it’s a pretty place, but somewhat unremarkable. I spent the rest of the day hanging out by my tent and enjoying the pond. It was a lovely, sunny day with almost no insects, and I really enjoyed the solitude. I also had lots of tiny birds that were very curious about me. I’m sure they get a lot of food from other campers. They probably would have eaten right out of my hand if I’d offered them food.
The second night of camping started out okay… but the sky was still clear, and I knew it was going to get cold. And it did. Not long after midnight I had to get up. I put on all my warm clothes, but I was still too cold to sleep. I watched some videos on my laptop, with what battery I had left. It normally puts out a lot of heat, but the air in my tent soaked that up really quick. I was getting tired around 2 AM, but it was still really cold. I did something you’re never, ever supposed to do – I lit my camp stove inside my tent. I’ve watched enough Everest documentaries to know that people do it. And it wasn’t like I was balancing a pot on top of it or anything. I held onto it very carefully and kept the flame low. It threw off enough heat to make me comfortable within just a couple of minutes, but it did something else I wasn’t expecting, it dried the inside of my tent fly rather quickly. It was really wet with condensation because of the drastic drop in temperature. I don’t know if the dry fly helped raise the temperature in the tent, or if it was because it was around that time that it clouded over and started to rain, but I was pretty warm after that and slept great.
It rained all night and into the morning. But I had those alligator clips, so no water under my tent this time! Totally dry! It finally stopped raining around 10 AM and the sun came out a few times, just enough that I was able to dry and pack up my tent before it started raining again. I waited about an hour and a half for the next bus and went back to town.
Of course, the problem was that I hadn’t had any mobile network while camping, and I still had no accommodations in town. As before, everything was full. I ended up settling for a dorm bed again.
Curious bird in the park
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I taped these loose ducts to stop them from banging in the wind outside my dorm room window
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I couldn’t decide what to do next. Ushuaia is the gateway to the Antarctic. I wanted to find a way to get to Antarctica. It’s possible to get jobs on boats, or to volunteer on boats. Or, if you just walk around town asking for quotes, sometimes you can get a deal that (while still outrageously expensive) is extremely discounted from internet prices. But… Omicron is here! Up until this week, I’d been ahead of Argentina’s third wave. But in the past week, Omicron has exploded. Outgoing Antarctica cruises are being suspended. I’ve heard that every single boat in the past week has had Covid positive passengers and crew. Ships that had sailed were coming back, cancelled mid-trip. I don’t know where they put all the ships, but there were a lot of them anchored around the dock a couple of nights ago. At any rate, I am not getting on a boat any time soon. Time to leave town.
There really isn’t much to do here that doesn't include a boat. I think this town is largely a novelty because it’s so far south. I have struggled to find it interesting - with the exception of one thing – penguins! And other animals too (sea lions and whatnot). So, I booked a trip to go to Martillo island tomorrow. At least I’ll see something while I’m here.
So… dorm room for a few nights? Okay. Two nights ago, I had the dorm to myself. Yesterday, it was empty other than one girl that had a nap in the afternoon and a couple of other people showed up in the evening. All good until 3:30 in the morning when the girl that had napped in the afternoon returned. And she was sniffling. And coughing. ….hmmm yeah… I left the room and went down to the deserted kitchen to surf the web. It was nearly dawn (the horizon never really gets fully dark), so I stayed up, had an early breakfast and checked out of the hostel two days early. The hostel did give me a full refund for the last two nights. It really was a nice hostel. Not their fault, really. But dorms are a bad idea in a pandemic. Especially for old people like me.
I booked an expensive hotel for the next two nights. A real place with a private bathroom, a TV, a big comfy bed, and great internet. I just found out bus service out of town is suspended because of Covid, so my only option is to fly out. I have a flight booked to Buenos Aires Monday night.
But it might already be too late. I feel totally fine now, but I could have Covid. Or maybe not. I did wear my mask a lot of the time at the hostel. And I had a bed beside the window, which I kept wide open as much as I could. Fingers crossed! I want to see penguins tomorrow. I don’t want to get kicked out of my hotel (they take my temperature every time I enter). Most importantly, I don’t want to get stuck in this town with nowhere to sleep! I don’t even know what I would do… I have Covid insurance though. Maybe I should read my policy tonight?
Ohhhh… Omicron…
There really isn’t much to do here that doesn't include a boat. I think this town is largely a novelty because it’s so far south. I have struggled to find it interesting - with the exception of one thing – penguins! And other animals too (sea lions and whatnot). So, I booked a trip to go to Martillo island tomorrow. At least I’ll see something while I’m here.
So… dorm room for a few nights? Okay. Two nights ago, I had the dorm to myself. Yesterday, it was empty other than one girl that had a nap in the afternoon and a couple of other people showed up in the evening. All good until 3:30 in the morning when the girl that had napped in the afternoon returned. And she was sniffling. And coughing. ….hmmm yeah… I left the room and went down to the deserted kitchen to surf the web. It was nearly dawn (the horizon never really gets fully dark), so I stayed up, had an early breakfast and checked out of the hostel two days early. The hostel did give me a full refund for the last two nights. It really was a nice hostel. Not their fault, really. But dorms are a bad idea in a pandemic. Especially for old people like me.
I booked an expensive hotel for the next two nights. A real place with a private bathroom, a TV, a big comfy bed, and great internet. I just found out bus service out of town is suspended because of Covid, so my only option is to fly out. I have a flight booked to Buenos Aires Monday night.
But it might already be too late. I feel totally fine now, but I could have Covid. Or maybe not. I did wear my mask a lot of the time at the hostel. And I had a bed beside the window, which I kept wide open as much as I could. Fingers crossed! I want to see penguins tomorrow. I don’t want to get kicked out of my hotel (they take my temperature every time I enter). Most importantly, I don’t want to get stuck in this town with nowhere to sleep! I don’t even know what I would do… I have Covid insurance though. Maybe I should read my policy tonight?
Ohhhh… Omicron…