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| The flag has taken a beating from the wind. |
Greetings from the end of the world! We are sitting in the breakfast room at our hotel. While that sounds quite mundane, it is far from boring, as the room is completely made of glass, so we have a 360° view of the spectacular wind-swept panorama that surrounds Ushuaia - snow-topped mountains behind and the turbulent Beagle Channel in front. And the wind is howling outside - as it has been since we first caught sight of the little town from the 'plane, as we were gliding down though the mountain tops - almost close enough to touch. The flight in was quite bumpy, and now we know why - the wind is omnipresent, strong and gusty, bending the trees into a perpetual tilt, rattling the roofs and covering the ocean with whitecaps. The town's flag has taken a battering, and I really don't know how the beautiful flowers along the foreshore have held out for so long - I could barely walk along there today! (see below).
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View from the breakfast room in our hotel, 'Hotel Mustapic'.
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| Flowers defying the wind on the forshore |
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| Me finding it very difficult to make headway |
Despite the wind, we have had surprisingly good weather, lots of sun, only a few spots of rain now and then and temperatures around 15°C. We made the most of it yesterday by heading out to the national park to do some hiking. The Cerro Guanaco trail took us up, up, up, a very steep climb that was rewarded by a panoramic view down over Lago Roca and the snow-covered Chilean Andes on the other side.
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| The well-earned view on the Cerro Guanaco trail |
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| Spooky, speaking forest |
The Senda Hito XXIV hike took us along the northeast shore of Largo Roca to the Chilean border, through a fairytale forest full of lichen-covered trees in various stages of falling down - many had been caught in the branches of their neighbours on the way down and remained there, creaking eerily in the wind....felt like the forest was alive - slightly spooky!
We also did several shorter hikes around the numerous lakes and swamps in the park, seeing a huge variety of birdlife, including several huge birds of prey - Mic was in his element and took photo after photo - luckily they seemed very used to people and let us get very close. Similarly, we got a bit of a surprise to meet a fox (el zorro) coming towards us on the path - completely unafraid and seeming to think he owned the park ;)
We spent several hours exploring the wetlands before a nasty looking storm front and a huge army of mosquitoes sent us heading for home at 7pm.
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| One of many birds of prey we spotted in the park - likely to be a Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle |
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| Here comes the rain! |
Today we have been exploring the town a little - it consists of one main street full of shops selling hiking equipment and advertising 'last-minute' bookings for trips to Antarctica (starting from US$ 3,500 pp!). We feel much more appropriately dressed in our hiking gear here than we did in trendy B.A. :P But the too-cool-for-school teenagers are here too - although they have added thick hoodies to their super-cool outfits ;)
We also discovered a funny shop - see below - Honecker obviously got into a new line of business when he came over here - and started spelling his name the way he pronounced it! :P
Did you sample any of his wares?
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