4 days at Ushuaia in Tierra Del Fuego, Patagonia
The mountain chain that started in Alaska as the Northern Rockies and became the Andes in South America is now ending and our hearts are pounding … we are about to see Ushuaia, the last major town in the Southern Hemisphere, at the “End of the World”. Then the deep blue waters of the Beagle Channel come into view, we see land-forms floating in the sea and slowly a city cradled by snow-capped mountains emerges. I wish time had frozen just then and we could keep looking at this dramatic setting of mountains, hills, water, small islets and a city poised at the edge of the sea.
The pilot did some fine maneuvering and we landed on an air-strip beautifully located next to the water - we were in Ushuaia (population 60,000 plus), stretched along the north shore of the Beagle Channel, a full 3194 kms away from Buenos Aires. Only since the beginning of the 1980s did it get discovered as a tourist destination though Ushuaia dates back to 1870, when the Anglican South American Missionary Society decided to place the archipelago’s first permanent European settlement here.
While walking around Ushuaia and during side-trips around the city, we realized how the city has taken off in recent times. It has become the “Gateway to Antarctica” where tourists from all over the world gather to embark on cruises heading to the icy continent. Its general acceptance as the city at the “End of the world” has brought in curious tourists who then get to enjoy its natural bounties in summer and it is growing as a ski destination and dog-sledding too. The tourist boom, Ushuaia’s status as a duty-free manufacturing location and fishing transformed this one-time penal colony and naval base into a booming city. Unfortunately, walking around the city, we saw evidence of uncontrolled growth and sprawl. Our hotel luckily was on the edge of the town where we got unhindered views of the sea and got to see some exquisite sun-sets - late at 10 PM in the night (Do check our snaps of the sunsets on my page at Flickr.com).
We discovered the natural wonders of Tierra Del Fuego thanks to the excellent group of guides from Canal Tours. Laura (pronounced Lauda), accompanied us on a trek up a hill in Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, Argentina's first coastal national park all the time getting newere and more interesting views of the Beagle Channel and snow-capped mountains. Along the trail, she explained to us all about the beaver issues in the park, told us all about the trees and plants - deciduous beech, evergreen beech, firebrush, calafate etc – but interestingly gave us personal insights including on how she left Buenos Aires busy ways and settled in this area drawn by the natural charms of the Andes and Patagonia.
Earlier in the day, Laura and the energetic & fun-loving gang from Canal Tours of Facu, Juan etc accompanied us in inflatable canoes to paddle to the Ovando River and cooked us a fabulous meal out in the park close to the crystal-clear water of Laguna Verde. While paddling in our boats, we saw more birds than we could keep track of - petrels, albatross, steamer ducks etc and all surrounded by laughter, jokes and much merriment. It was interesting to see the purposefulness of the big city born (and raised) Laura in contrast to her locally raised totally “chilled-out” team members.
While we missed the gang from Canal Tour on our next day’s boat trip through the Beagle Canal and to the historic Harberton Estancia (or ranch), we enjoyed every moment of our day trip as we got to see some beautiful sights, aquatic creatures (island colonies teeming with penguins, sea-lions and cormorants) and exchange interesting life & travel stories with fellow travelers from France, Austria, Australia and the UK.
The weather cooperated perfectly with us while we sailed the Beagle Channel and we got to see the opening out to the route that took ships to Antarctica and got a glimpse of the town of Puerto Willams across the Chilean border. While admiring the funny antics of the penguins on Martillo Island, I bumped into a French couple and was left amazed by how they had sold off their home and decided to take a “round the world” trip for 6 months. They had booked flights from key cities to jump to certain points in Latin America, Asia and finally Europe but had not decided on the precise routes between these points. That story of meandering left me mesmerized.
Equally interesting were the tales of their lives and travel that a couple of British ladies shared with me. Their narration took me to different parts of the world and points in history. Interestingly, we met quite few British travelers mostly ladies who were enjoying their lives after their retirements seeing the world. But the most energetic of all these women was a lady who was more than 75 (let me call her Ms Maple for the sake of this note ;)). Ms Maple despite her advanced years was very sprightly and moved more quickly than most other younger tourists, was the most inquisitive visitor and often reminded the guides that she “needed detailed answers to her questions” as she had not travelled “ to the end of the world” to get “half-answers and miss out on nuances”. I am sure she will make lives of more tourist all over the world more interesting ;) for a very long time. Power to her!
Having visited the islands full of penguins, sea-lions and the cormorants, the boat dropped us off at Harberton Estancia (or ranch). The oldest Estancia on Tierra del Fuego and the oldest house on the Argentine part of the island, it was built in 1886 on a narrow peninsula overlooking the Beagle Channel overlooking a perfectly sheltered cove. Here we met Amy, a student from Boston doing post graduation in marine biology under the guidance of the wife of one of the descendants of Tommy Bridges. (You bet , I was envious of Amy’s good fortune of doing her post-graduation in this idyllic setting). Amy was asked to be our English speaking guide and told us about the fascinating life on the estancia and its long history. She explained how its founder, the missionary Thomas (Tommy) Bridges, was given the land by the Argentine Congress under President Roca for his work among the local tribes and for his help in rescuing the victims of the numerous shipwrecks in the channel.
We wrapped our visit to Ushuaia by walking through the city one last time, soaking in the view of the sun set for one last time and reflecting on the visit. What we didn’t know was that another exciting part of Patagonia was just waiting to be discovered and we were about to meet some great people - in the province of Santa Cruz.
2 days at Puerto Santa Cruz and Mont Leon National Park in Santa Cruz, Patagonia (landed at Rio Gallegos airport)
Thankfully, the town of Puerto Santa Cruz is just getting used to receiving English speaking tourists and so instead of a regular guide, we had the grand fortune of having Lisu (Alice) as our principal guide on this part of our trip. Lisu teaches English in Puerto Santa Cruz and just a few weeks prior to our trip, was drafted for the first time to guide English speaking visitors to the area. She along with Leo, Marta, Susana, Hernando and Florencia (all from the town of Puerto Santa Cruz) made our trip to this un-hyped and less known part of Argentina extremely memorable.
Puerto Santa Cruz is a small town of approximately 3,000 inhabitants situated on the southern margin of the estuary of river Santa Cruz where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. It is located in an area whose dramatic landscape had fascinated the likes of Juan Serrano (part of the explorer Ferdinand’s Magellan´s team) and the legendary British scientist/explorer Charles Darwin. The winds in the area are very strong and the terrain bereft of significant vegetation, both of which probably have prevented a population explosion here, despite its long history and past as a capital of the Santa Cruz province. The Government and military establishments along with fishing and some estancias seem to be the main backbone of the economy here at present. However, I am sensing that the tourism wave is about to hit this town when Mont Leon National Park finally gets “fully” discovered (more about that later in this posting).
After the initial hesitation between strangers meeting for the first time, Lisu opened up and we were able to gain a much more meaningful appreciation of the people and the land than we normally could have imagined. Her passion for the region is infectious and automatically transfers to the people listening to her. Over the next 2 days, she infused in us a deep fondness for the strip of Patagonia that we were visiting and a respect for the natural wonders of the area. Lisu moved to the region from Buenos Aires more than 3 decades back and fell in love with the open vast lands instantly. Her narration of the personal events and stories in the different parts of the area made the entire experience of visiting Puerto Santa Cruz and Mont Leon National Park more intimate for us and left an indelible imprint on our minds.
With Lisu was Leo, who drove us from the airport at Rio Gallegos to Puerto Santa Cruz on the 1st day and then across to El Calafate a couple of days later. Leo works in a coal mine (driving trucks) for 7 day stretches and then gets a week off in which he takes on other assignments. He shared with us interesting facts about the benevolent nature of his mining company and their excellent attitude to their workers, the joys of growing up in a town like Puerto Santa Cruz as a youngster and the various encounters with wildlife in the region. In all our interactions with him, we got a glimpse of how keen he was to share the treasures of his land with us. Thanks to him, we never missed the chance to get a look at any flock of flamingos or herd of guanacos that we passed as we drove through the wind carved terrain of Patagonia.
Lisu and Leo, not only did a perfect job of guiding us on different aspects of the area but patiently and cheerfully responded to my various questions on Argentina and Patagonia – politics, sports, business, religion, ethnicity, how the system works – be it the banks, the Government et al. On arriving in the town of Puerto Santa Cruz, Lisu introduced me to Marta, the owner of the travel agency, KAT, responsible for our hotel & travel arrangements while we were here.
Marta has an undeniable “presence” about her – one of being in command and in charge. I got a sense that nothing can escape her though her experienced eyes would betray nothing and her response to a situation would always be very measured and deliberate. Her efficient arrangements made our trip to Puerto Santa Cruz and the area extremely pleasant. Though we interacted with her very briefly, we discovered a very interesting aspect of her – her passion for animals. Over the several decades that she had spent here, she had reared many wild animals including a guanaco (kind of llama) that among other funny things squirted liquid on passers-by and kids loved dodging the liquid projectile from the funny animal. But even more fascinating was that upon a request from her then young son, she had reared for more than a dozen years, a puma (a mountain lion for those readers who have not read or seen a visual of the big cat of the Americas)! She shared with us - like an indulging Mum does about her child – how she walking every day with the big cat unchained on her property, the puma’s love for being fed “dulce de leche” (see my 1st of my 3 postings on Argentina about the milk product) from Marta’s hands.
For the 2 nights that in Puerto Santa Cruz, we stayed at the Kawo Hotel-apartment, the perfect stop-over for us in this quiet town. Run with the warmth of a bed and break-fast, everything is managed efficiently by the highly energetic and enthusiastic Senora Susana (we will forever remember Susana’s booming laughter that can light up a room) and her extremely polite and attentive husband, Horacio. The couple have grown the hotel in a systematic manner over the years all the while paying a lot of attention to details. While Horacio was very relaxed and used to the current slow pace of the town, I could sense the underlying eagerness to increase the pace. I felt that no one in this town is better prepared than Susana and Horacio to scale up their operations (daily provisions, consumer goods and hotel) when the tourist wave hits this quiet town. Our best wishes are with them.
While walking the streets of the town on the 1st day in Puerto Santa Cruz, we inadvertently dropped into a meeting of the local citizens with park ranger, Mariana. From what we gathered, a discussion was underway on how tourism would impact the town. I had the feeling that this is a hot topic in town as the town braces for an expected influx of tourists to the area due to the growing popularity of the nearby Monte Leon Park. We too had come to the area primarily to visit the park.
Monte León is a 243-square-mile former sheep ranch next to Puerto Santa Cruz. In my perspective, the park defines the phrase “splendid isolation” – it is Patagonia at its most barren, exotic and mystical. Monte Leon covers 60,000 hectares of Patagonian steppes and stretches approximately 25 miles along the Atlantic coast. Its name means Lion Mountain and is derived from a coastal wind carved mountain that resembles the profile of a Big Cat. The park was very recently created thanks to the efforts of the Patagonia Land Trust, a non-profit organization started by the US millionaire and conservationist Douglas Tompkins who donated this land to the Argentine Government with the condition that they establish it as a National Park. Given its very recently endowed status as a national park, it has not yet hit the tourist route as strongly as other parks in Argentina and that was a blessing to us. We got to see this exquisite park before most tourists flock to this destination and probably change it in some way.
Lisu and Florencia (tourist official from the town of Puerto Santa Cruz) accompanied us on the trip to the National Park. The park is home to tens of thousands of Magellanic penguins, hundreds of sea lions, plenty of cormorant and herds of guanacos and we got to leisurely admire all of these (check out our pictures from the park at Flickr.com inside the penguin colony) and even got to walk through the penguin colony and peer into their rocky nests. The birds and animals are the major part of the attraction of the park but the real breath-taking part is the dramatic landscape of the wind shaped hills, the stark beauty of the terrain and the beach caves shaped by the elements of nature. The play of the sunlight on the hills and the howling winds added an extra dose of romance to this wonderful marine park. And of course Lisu made the trip very personal – sharing stories from the past of bringing her kids to the park and times spent on the beach with her family and friends.
We could have spent days visiting this park but we had to move on to the next leg of our journey the next day – El Calafate and Perito Moreno Glacier. Saying “Hasta Luego” to the folks in Puerto Santa Cruz was sad but then we have to always move on if we need to see, learn and experience more.
El Calafate and Perito Moreno Glacier (3 days)
From Puerto Santa Cruz, Leo (who joined us after a day’s hiatus) and Lisu whisked us across the Southern Patagonia roads on a 7 hour journey to our hotel/estancia - El Galpon del Glaciar - at El Calafate.
El Calafate is a hot tourist destination (attracting glacier lovers, hikers, mountaineers and anyone who wants to enjoy nature at its pristine best) and has the trappings of a well developed tourist destination. Situated next to the sparkling blue waters of the largest lake in Argentina, Lago Argentino (catchment area of 17,000 km²), this is a beautiful town where the former Kirchners (the current and last Presidents of Argentina) have their own private home too.
Our hotel was on the working sheep ranch of El Galpon del Glaciar in the lap of nature. I will never be able to forget the majestic view from this property of the lake, the uninhabited shores, the beautiful hills, skies full of birds of different kinds and the rolling pastures with horses and sheep. The place serves delicious food and one can get an amazing glimpse of life on a ranch here (hard working farm hands, sheep shearing, sheep-dogs expertly commanding flock of sheep, horse-riding, and barbecues). The service here was warm and handled expertly by youngsters (Denise, Barbara, Facu …) most of who had come down from Buenos Aires to take advantage of the tourist season and enjoy Patagonia while working here.
From the estancia, we took a bus ride to get to the Perito Moreno Glacier Park. On the way, we had an uninterrupted view of the beautiful lake and even got to see a whole flock of condors, the legendary big bird of the Andes. A 15 minute ride through waters full of floating ice on a boat and we were at the base of the Glacier. Perito Moreno Glacier is a 250 km² ice formation, 30 km in length and one of 48 glaciers fed by the Southern Patagonian Ice Field located in the Andes system shared with Chile. This ice-field is the world's third largest reserve of fresh water.
While glaciers anywhere in the world are very fascinating, what makes this mass of blue ice particularly attractive is the easy accessibility to get to its base and witnessing huge chunks of its walls fall constantly into the lake. Coby and Charlie from the Glacier Park made the climb on the 60 metre high glacier seem much easier than it normally would have been. The glacier climb definitely will rank amongst the most fascinating “active” experiences till date and the views on and from the glacier were amazing, breath-taking and mind-blowing in the superlative. (Side note - Please check out my Flickr.com site for pictures of the blue waters, the ice walls, the mass of ice floes through the hills as the pictures do more justice than any words that I use can).
End note
Having climbed the glacier, we returned to the estancia and enjoyed every moment there taking in as much of the beauty as we could till we finally had to leave for the airport on the 3rd day in El Calafate and fly back to Buenos Aires ending our 9 day vacation in Patagonia. This brief but memorable passage through Patagonia and the wonderful people we met in Patagonia will always be part of our memories and our best wishes are with this wonderful part of our world as it becomes even more popular and draws in more people to visit it and share its joys.
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