Tierra del Fuego

NOTE: Click on the photos to see them full size.


Ushuaia from the Beagle Channel with the Martial Glacier high on the mountain.


Guanacos on the pampus in the Northern part of Tierra del Fuego


Steam train which took us to the Tierra del Fuego National Park


View from the Chair Lift as we approached the start of our walk to the Martial Glacier. It was a tad cold when the wind blew...


View of Ushuaia and the Beagle Channel from the Martial Glacier


Us on a snow bank right up under the snout of the hanging glacier above.


One night we heard drumming so followed the sound and found a local version of Carnival going on. We thought the costumes were a bit more modest than the Carnival in Rio, but that is fair enough in this close to Antarctica. However, as the next photo shows the scantily clad dancing girls was the next act...


Dancing girls at Ushuaia's "Carnival"


How's this for cute? One of the unusual shop window displays.


The remains of my mixed Parrilla. Blood sausage remains on plate and intestines on the charcoal burner.


Upland Goose and two chicks. This bird is a native of Patagonia.


Upland gander not too happy about my taking his photo.

Wow we love this place! Thanks Henry for suggesting that we make the effort to get to Ushuaia. This town is very modern and looks like it belongs in the Swiss Alps. There is a very strong European influence here. The town lies on the Beagle Chanel but cannot quite claim the title of the Southern most town in the world as across the channel to the South is another island in Chile with the town of Puerto Williams on it. But this is certainly as far as you can travel by bus, any further South from here needs a boat!

It was funny when we arrived at our hostel here as there was a guy sitting in the lounge area just inside the front door and we both thought we recognised him. We quickly checked into our room as after an all-day bus journey the priority for both of us was to get to the toilet! As we were comtemplating (as one does at such times) , Cheryl remembered who he was. It was Simon Yates famous mountaineer who we saw in Brisbane last year and who signed a poster for us. Unfortunately, by the time we emerged he had left but the owner confirmed that it was indeed him.

The place names around here remind you of its historical significance. To get here we crossed the Strait of Magellan. Between here and Antarctica is the Drake Passage, and to the West is the Darwin Range.

Magellan called this island the Island of Smoke because of the smoke of the fires of the Fuegan aboriginies. However the King of Spain thought that was a bit bland and changed it to Land of Fire so Tierra del Fuego it is today.

Behind the town of Ushuaia is the equivilant of Mt Coot-tha but this mountain has a chairlift and a glacier on it. We went up there this week and walked to a snow field right up under the snout of this huge hanging glacier called the Martial Glacier. Our first glacier in South America!

There is no shortage of things to do here, another day we visited the nearby National Park by taking a steam train ride, then a walk past beaver dams. Today we have been out on a boat to visit the local sea-lion colony.

When in Argentina you must try their famous barbeques called parrilla, so I asked the waiter what parrilla he recommended and he suggested the mixed version to try a bit of everything. Well what a cholesterol load it was, I'm sure the Australian Heart Foundation would not approve! It came out on a little charcol burner, probably to stop the fat congealing before it was in my arteries, and I washed it down with a big glass of the local red. The recogisable pieces were great, chicken, beef, lamb, sausage and ribs. But the black sausage was not to my liking and the other strange shapes were very chewy and not very tasty. It turned out that the black sausage was blood and the other bits were intestines.

There seems to be a bit of a competition going between the trendy shops here as to who can come up with the most original window mannequins. So far we have seen penguins, punks and dogs, but the winner has to be the cyclopes.

The next major destination for us is the Torres del Paine National Park back in Chile so that should be our next blog entry.

While we were waiting...

The perfect cone of the Osorno volcano across lake Llanquihue


Bavarian architecture in the town of Puerto Varas


Impressive falls in the Rio Petrohue.


The island of Margarita in the emerald waters of the All Saints Lake. The island and the house are owned by the founder of Chile´s largest tour operator.


Colourful stilt houses in Castro, the capital of the island of Chiloé

While we were waiting for the Navimag Ferry to be repaired from its encounter with a rock on a previous voyage we have been taking a look around the Southern Lakes district and the island of Chiloé. Tonight we are in Castro (no we are not in Cuba, but isn´t it a great name! Especially for this country that suffered so much from US meddling). The artisans of Chiloé are a bit disappointing after the creativity of the Peruvians. The speciality here is wool and wood and if we wanted to bring you all a wooden spoon as a souvenir we would be set!

After our ferry trip to the South was cancelled, we moved to Puerto Varas on the shores of Lake Llanquihue. The scenery around there is spectacular with lakes (funnily enough), volcanos and the snow capped peaks of the Andes on the border with Argentina. It was also interesting to see the extent of the German influence in the architecture, the language (the locals say ya instead of si), the food and of course the beer! The common brand of beer is Kunstmann (cuidado con la pronunciacion!) which is a very satisfactory lager.

We also visited the amazing lake of All Saints which is deep emerald green in colour and has black volcanic sandy beaches. The locals were all sun baking on it but it just looked dirty compared to Australian sand.

The Navimag people tell us that the ferry is ready to go again on Monday so hopefully our next post will be from way down South.

Itinery update 6 February

Arrived at Navimag Ferry office to find that the voyage had been cancelled. Apparently the boat hit a rock last week and is being repaired. It may sail next week so we will wait to see what happens. Meanwhile there is the Lakes district to explore.

Mon 13Feb, Depart Puerto Montt, Navimag Ferry, 4.00pm
Thur 16 Feb, Arrive Puerto Natales, 4.00pm
Arrive Nat. Park Torres del Paine
10 Day Trek Depart Nat. Park Torres del Paine Arrive Punta Arenas
Mon 17 Apr, LAN Airlines S.A. QF 0322, Depart 11:15pm Santiago to Auckland
Wed 19 Apr, Qantas QF 0116, Depart 6:30am Auckland to Brisbane

Slipping down Pablo Neruda´s thin country

Cheryl checking out a firm butt in Temuco


The rail-motor from Temuco to Puerto Montt


The central valley of Chile (or is it somewhere in Australia?) complete with a line of blue gums in the background.


Volcan Osorno, there are about twenty of these volcanoes in the lakes district. This one looks like it needs to be climbed if I can get my hands on an ice axe, plastic boots and crampons when we return.


The view from our hotel room in Puerto Montt


The fish market at the Angelmò. Yes, they are sea urchins on the right.

After getting ourselves organised in Santiago, we had a day trip to the famous Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. The El Niño effect must be happening here because it poured rain all morning so it was a soggy, muddy Valparaiso that greeted us as we left the bus station. We were less than impressed. There is a new electric train system to Viña del Mar so we took that and found what appears to be Chile`s playground of the wealthy. Needless to say the beaches were not a patch on what we have in Australia however they do have sea lions swimming right beside the bathers!

For a change from busses we decided to take the train to Puerto Montt. What luxury, the first day was 677km to Temuco and was very fast and smooth in an electric train on continuously welded track Travelling in Chile and travelling in Peru are worlds apart. We had a day in Temuco to check out the local culture but ended up spending most of it in the supermarket.

The hotel served up the usual continental breakfast of breadrolls, jam (usually apricot) and coffee. We were getting so sick of that apricot jam that we had already started scouring supermarkets in Santiago for an alternative spread. Peanut butter, nutella, or especially vegemite would have been such a relief. And when I say coffee, I am referring to a tin of Nescafe plonked on the table (or in the more sophisticated establishments, Nescafe served in a silver bowl). It appears that Chileanos have not developed a taste for real coffee despite the excellent coffee grown in Central America. Anyway, we searched every supermarket in Santiago, Valpariaso and Temuco without luck...

After Temuco the train changed to a modern diesel two-coach rail-motor and the track reverted to the old clackety-clack rails. We had a slow but pleasent trip to Puerto Montt. The countryside all the way from Santiago was amazingly fertile. It was through the central valley of Chile and most of the way it looked we could have been somewhere in Australia. There are even eucalypt trees and cattle everywhere. It actually became a bit boring in the end. One big difference though was the area just North of Puerto Montt near Lake Llanquihue where the snow capped Osorno Volcano rises above the Eastern shore of the lake and the towns take on a very Bavarian look. We plan to return to that place when we return from the South.

Puerto Montt is very pretty and we have a great hotel that overlooks the harbour where there has been a different cruise ship anchored each day. And finally we hit pay dirt in the supermarket here, finding both peanut butter and Nutella!!! This place is famous for the seafood although we have no desire to try out the sea urchins we saw in the fish market.

Tomorrow we are boarding the Navimag ferry for our four day journey South to Puerto Natales and the test for Laurie`s stomach...