Ushuaia - "City at the End of the World"

12/28/16

Back to Argentina to visit Ushuaia, population 65,000, discovered in 1884, and one of the most important cities on Tiera del Fuego's Island. This was one of the first meeting points of the Yamana culture and Anglican missionaries. It is a former penal colony whose name is a Yamana word for "bay that stretches into the sunset."  And today it is a small but busy port with a frontier atmosphere, bordered by the snow-capped Andes Mountains on one side and the Beagle Channel on the other.

We enjoy a final feeding (breakfast), put our luggage outside the cabin doors and say goodbye to an incredible crew. Will so miss Mariano, Augustin, Louis, Sergio and Sarah.

Ushuaia is so very interesting with its bright, colorful buildings in a mishmash of various architectural styles - if they can be called that. It's nice to have that splash of color to lighten the mood of the overcast skies and mountains and their shades of gray.

Inez, our local guide takes us first to an administrative office near the shore so we can collect up to 5 different passport stamps for Ushuaia - all very cool.

Then we head out to get the lay of the land while we wait for our hotel rooms to be ready. We make a quick stop to photograph a very colorful patch of deep lilac lupines and beautiful red poppies.

Our next stop was the Plaza Islas Malvinas, a memorial for those who fought and died during the battle with England over ownership of the Maldives. Later we listened to a veteran from that war - at that time a young man of 18 who had no clue about what he was about to endure. He was very interesting and really shared a heartfelt story that only demonstrated the uselessness of war and senseless loss of life.

Malvinas Memorial

As we continued onto our home visit to Gabriela and her family, we stopped at a series of shrines in the woods and made sure to once again visit Santuario Gauchito Gil and pour a beer to thank el Gauchito for the kind weather that enabled us to land on Cape Horn. Shelley did the honors after she took a swig from the can - well, she had to make sure the beer was good after all. Then as we watched, she dribbled the beer all around the perimeter of the shrine (we were VERY grateful after all).

Shelley in triumph.

A dead soldier.

Shrines of different shapes and sizes.

I was so very relieved that our home visit was next because my stomach was growling like I hadn't eaten for days. Gabriela's family was going to show us a typical Ushuaia home and treat us to a "snack" (this is in quotation marks because these snacks gave new meaning to the word). We enjoyed delicious spinach dumplings, a wonderful lentil stew, fresh bread, an incredible milk cake and 3-layered chocolate caramel brownie. 

Gabriela was delightful, as was her husband, 10-yr. old daughter Sol and 7-yr. old Lara. They traveled quite a bit and had a wonderful collection of souvenirs on eclectic bookshelves located throughout their home.

 Gabi and Lara serve the milk cake and brownies.

 Lara

 Gabi's husband.

Sol.

After our meal, Gabriela gave us a thorough presentation on the drink Argentinians and Chileans drink like there's no tomorrow - Mate. Think of a French press with aromatic tea leaves. I will leave it to her expert explanation, but just know that I believe it to be extremely addicting to all ages of the population.

https://youtu.be/kz5IQ0Rcmy0

https://youtu.be/ptst7S4O93o

After we checked into the hotel, we walked over to visit the Ushuaia Prison Museum, which was moved to Ushuaia in December 1902 for humanitarian reasons. In 1911, the President signed a decree that merged the Military Prison and the jail of Ushuaia.  One wing of the jail contained individual cells - some with their original wooden doors - and another charted the history of the early penal colonies and the prison itself. 

We had a bit of free time until dinner, so I walked around Ushuaia and took some fun photos of this very eclectic souvenir shop - you know, the kind where every souvenir is made in China. And like La Boca in Argentina, this shop had hilarious paper mache figures posing on balconies.  (Must be a South American thing).

Dinner was at Freddy's - the place for king crab. Michelle's choice of natural crab easily won best presentation (above)

I had crab with spices. It was the most exquisite seafood I have ever tasted. Wished I could have eaten there more than once.