Patagonia - Ushuaia, "el fin del mundo"

After an exhilarating few days having our breaths taken away by the magnificent landscapes in Patagonia, we were ready for the last stop on our Patagonian journey - Ushuaia, "el fin del mundo"  as the Argentinians called it (the end of the world). After a short 1.5 hr flight from El Calafate, we arrived in Ushuaia - a bustling town, the capital of Tierra del Fuego, a busy port for cruise ships and also hopping off point for adventure trips to Antartica. There were any number of excellent restaurants and our first night we headed straight for the fisherman's restaurant to try the king crab. We picked our own live crab and it was quite an experience. More later on Foodsparks, the food blog.

The main reason for our visit to Ushuaia was to see the penguins on Martillo Island and a zoologist had delivered an interesting lecture on penguins the evening of our arrival to prepare us for the trip.  In the morning we boarded a catamaran that took us down the Beagle channel.  Along the way we saw king cormorants and other birds in flight - there were islands full of sea lions and cormorants. There was a slight wind and the sea was just slightly choppy, enough to make a few people sea-sick, but not too badly.

The catamaran took us to the Estancia Harberton, a historic farm founded in 1886, the oldest in Tierra del Fuego.  From there, we boarded a zodiac which took us to Martillo Island. All through the trip, we were entertained by a charming naturalist (his name is Valentin!) who gave us interesting details delivered in inimitable style - this guy is a natural showman, which certainly enhanced our enjoyment of the trip.  

We were lucky that one lone King Penguin was sitting on the beach as we landed. The rest were Magellanic and Gentoo penguins. We were warned to keep at least 2 or 3 metres from the penguins in order not to disturb them.  The guide took us through to the rookery where the penguins were mottling. The young penguins had already left the nest at this time of the year, in fact, in a few weeks (in April), these penguins would all be gone.  The penguin pairs were fascinating to watch and we had to be dragged away when our hour on the island was up.There were not only penguins on the island, we saw at least 10 different kinds of birds and you can see some of them below.

We had lunch at the Estancia and a guided tour of the museum which had a huge collection of whale bones. The trip back to Ushuaia was on a 4x4 bus!  It was quite a day! It was topped off at dinner by a treat of merluza negra (Patagonian toothfish), the sweetest fish I have ever tasted in my life (no exaggeration), a far cry from the frozen Chilean sea bass, the closest thing to this we could sink our teeth into at home.  

I was lucky to capture some cormorants in flight - no wonder, there were several  islands full of them in the Beagle Channel 

And islands full of sea lions AND cormorants

A Southern Giant Petrel - note the tube beak

This looked like a Chilean Skua

 

Sandpiper in flight

The lone King Penguin on Martillo Island - the Gentoo penguins were keeping it company

This photo gives a better idea of the rookery

 

An informative chart showing the annual cycle of the Magellanic Penguins - note how they will be migrating from mid-April to mid-September so they won't be on the island.

It was molting season for the Magellanic penguins, there were feathers everywhere! And they were helping each other clean up...

Peaceful coexistence of the different kinds of birds on the island...

Upland Geese

Sooty Shearwater

Skua

Caracara

Upland sandpiper

Gentoo penguin drinking

Social gathering

Waiting?

 

Taking a stroll along the beach (King cormorants)

The zodiac that took us back to the Estancia

Local guide Valentin hamming it up for the paparazzi...

The historic Estancia Haberton

The 4x4 that took us back to Ushuaia

We stopped by this lookout of the river between the windblown flag trees

Back to Ushuaia, at the foot of the Martial Range

 

Goodbye, beautiful Patagonia!

We flew back to Buenos Aires the following day...


Next post:  Buenos Aires, the "Paris of the South America"

Patagonia - Torres del Paine National Park

Torres del Paine was for me the high point of our tour - a place that I had wanted to go to for years.  And now the wish came true and triple blessed with a warm, sunny, windless day - an unusual phenomenon for the Patagonian park famous for its wind! When we first arrived near sunset the day before, we were not sure if we would actually see the famous towers after being told by the local guide that it had been raining before we got there and no one had seen the towers for a week! Having gone through the disappointment of not seeing the volcano in Puerto Varas, we were not optimistic. When one of the towers peeked through the clouds, every body scrambled for pictures as we may not see it again!

As it turned out, it was a magical evening with one of the towers being caught by the setting sun.  The following morning, it was even more magical when we stopped at the lookout to see the massif above the village with a thin layer of mist in between - it was Lord of the Rings country in Patagonia! The rest of the day continued to be one "wow" after another - awe-inspiring through and through.  We ran out of words to describe the wonderment.  You can see for yourselves the photos below.

This image of the Paine Massif was the reason for our trip to Patagonia  - and I was overjoyed that I was able to capture it!

 

This was all we saw when we first arrived in Torres del Paine the evening before!          Why wouldn't we be worried?

And then it got better as the evening progressed - but still no one could predict what it would be like in the morning

Morning came - our hopes were up!

This has got to be the most magical landscape I have ever came across - not even in New Zealand, the original Lord of the Rings country...

 

And then we saw this view from the bus - the local guide told us we would not be stopping for 2 hours.  I begged her to stop and let us take a photo before the reflection disappeared.  She changed her itinerary and we s made photo stops all the way to the waterfalls!  A terrific example of listening to customer input!  Good for you, GAdventures staff! (at Lake Pehoe)

Salto Grande Waterfall

This was the high point of the day - what an awe-inspiring panorama!

Lunch time!  We saw this Andean deer and many birds as we ate lunch by the river.

Austral Thrush

Austral Blackbird

Rufuos Collared Sparrow - it must know that it's on camera!

Patagonian Sierra-FInch

After lunch we did a "short" hike to Grey Beach and up to the lookout to see the Grey glacier flowing from the Southern Patagonian Icefield.  That was hardly a "stroll" on the beach because we were walking in 100 km wind.  The pebble beach was a wind tunnel!  But we got to experience at least a little of what Patagonian wind felt like.  There was another "short" climb up to the glacier lookout but it was the end of the day and we were all tired.  And the glacier was far away so we took a few pictures and left.  That was a two hour roundtrip even though it felt much longer.

View of the massif from the beach

The Grey Glacier

 We saw a lot of wildlife in and near the park. 

A rhea near the road to Torres del Paine

A Gray Flanked Cinclodes

A king cormorant at the waterfront in Puerto Nattales

Guanaco in the Park

Upland Geese near the hotel

We were extremely lucky - as we were leaving the park the following morning, it was cloudy and windy.  100mph winds were in the forecast!

Next post:  El Calafate and the Perito Moreno Glacier