Sarah and Nat's South American Travels: January 2009

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Ushuaia - End of the world, Beginning of everything

After the long trip to Ushuaia, we decided we should probably hang out for a while. And the fact that the buses only leave Monday, Wednesday and Friday and get booked up three days in advance helped us make this decision. The city and its surroundings are amazingly beautiful - snow capped mountains, the Beagle Channel, lupino flowers and colorful buildings.

From the deck of the Barracuda (the sign says "Ushuaia - end of the world,
beginning of everything" in English and Spanish)

Mountains around Ushuaia

View of Ushuaia from the mountains - thanks, Aga!

Lupinos

Our Ushuaia partners in crime, Aga and Christina, aka "The Crazy Two"

First night at Hostel Antarctica - pizza, beer and wine on the patio

View of the sunset from our hostel balcony

Don't worry, Mom, we held hands and looked both ways the whole time!

Guess it's time to turn back around...

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

It's the end of the world as we know it

What we thought would be a simple 14 hour bus ride from Rio Gallegos to Ushuaia actually involved a bus, four international border checks, a ferry across the Straits of Magellan, dolphins, thousands of sheep and some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

Our bus on the ferry

First border check

Crossing the Straits of Magellan

Dolphins

Sheep (aka corderos)

The Beauty of Tierra Del Fuego

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Lobos and Llamas

We took a long drive to Puerto Piramides on Peninsula Valdes. Beautiful beach and lots of lobos (sea lions)! On the drive home, Nat's job was to watch out for the llamas (and sheep and sometimes, the bushes) that were playing chicken with the car!

Friday, January 16, 2009

The Road to Rawson

Strangely enough, there was a Welsh colony in Argentina and one of the towns that still has a Welsh presence is Gaiman, famous for its tea houses. We went to the cheesiest of them all, Casa Gales de Te. Their claim to fame is that Princess Diana once had tea there
and the place is full of Princess Di memorabilia. And some cute outside attractions :)

Afterwards, we tried to go to the seaside town of Rawson to see the dolphins, but we got "lost" multiple times- meaning Nat and Victor spent too much time joking around and not enough time watching the signs! We finally made it Rawson for a quick walk and picture at the lighthouse.

Casa Gales de Te - Welsh House of Tea

I'm a little teapot...

Cake for lunch - sorry Mom and Dad, but Poppa and Grandma would approve!

Princess Di's shrine

A sign in Welsh - can anyone translate?

The end of the road - the lighthouse in Rawson

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Madryn and Mate

We left BsAs on January 5 and traveled to the beach town of Puerto Madryn. We stayed at the Hostel El Refugio and met Erica and Victor. Erica and Victor are from Lincoln, Argentina where Erica teaches English and Victor is studying to be a lawyer. Not only are they awesome people, but we got to see a side of Argentina we probably wouldn't have otherwise gotten to experience.