With its claim to fame as the southern most city in the world, Ushuaia is the place that motorcyclists and cyclists traditionally end theizr South American odyssey. For us, it was just the end of the first leg, but I guess you would say reaching Ushuaia was proof to ourselves that we had established ourselves as bikers. It was prettty exciting riding in, and later we went down to the water to take silly pictures of us with the bike. But to be honest, we hadn't really thought much about what we would get up to while there, or even if there was anything to do in Ushuaia.
I guess we had expected another bleak and miserable place, but we were pleasantly surprised with its beauty. Its centre is definately touristy, but we decided to lap up, each buying a souvenir t-shirt, and stickers for our panniers.
 |
A tough walk to a 'glacier' we didn't even bother taking a photo of.
I think it melted. The view was nice though. |
Every second tourist you meet is off to Antarctica, this being the closest departure point to the White Continent (if anyone is interested you can get last minute deals from $4000US - including a night camping on the ice). Unknown to me was that Ushuaia was founded as a penal colony where convicts from the remainder of Argentina were sent. The original prison has been turned into a museum, with exhibitions displayed in old jail cells, so we decided to check that out. We celebrated reaching Ushuaia with a night out with some French friends we had met in the hostel (Reece created a new 'penguin' dance, a reenactment of which can be seen below), a considerably more succesful evening than that in Cochrane. After four or five nights of relaxation, including at the magnificent camping facilities available at Club Andino, it was time to start riding North.
Looking awesome guys
ReplyDelete