Saturday 19th December 2015
I woke up around 6.30am and went for brekky downstairs. Erratic Rock’s breakfast is known among backpackers for being really filling and great. Had a yummy brekky!
Here is the entrance area / living room. Very cosy!
I got to the bus station and here was the first bus I was taking.
And off we went, in the direction of Punta Arenas.
Here is a map to see where Puerto Natales and Ushuaia. A roughly 700km bus journey to the end of the end of the world!
At some point, the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and I got transferred from the bus on the left to the bus on the right. Sure, euh..ok. If you guys know what you are doing!
We arrived at this random place where we stopped for an hour, waiting to board a boat to cross the channel.
I went inside.
I was hungry and I ordered a sandwich which turned out to be the crappiest sandwich of my entire trip probably!!
The interesting thing in this place were the frames on the walls, photos of the Tehuelche people and the way they used to live. There was a lot of reflection though and it was hard to get good shots.
The little lighthouse where we were called Boca Oriental.
A boat arrived and some trucks got out but it wasn’t our boat.
Then our boat arrived and we walked in.
The boat journey was pretty short, maybe 20 minutes, and uninteresting apart from one penguin surfacing and disappearing very quickly and a couple of common jellyfish.
At the arrival, two guys were holding some additional levelling for the bus.
We were driving in the direction of Onaissin.
When I had caught up with my parents in Santiago early November, my dad had handed over to me a couple of maps, including one detailed map of Tierra del Fuego. I had finally reached the moment where it came handy. It was really great to study it and get an idea of where I could be. Such an interesting part of the world with an endless empty landscape.
We passed these guys who were using this sophisticated machinery to build a new road.
We arrived at the border where we would exit Chile.
I laughed when reading the French version here. Small wink to French people. 😀
Getting an exit stamp on the passeport.
No-man’s land but almost in Argentina.
Getting an entry stamp into Argentina.
Then we arrived in Rio Grande, the closest maritime city to the Falkland Island, also known as Malvinas Islands, occupied by the British, that the Argentinians want to get back.
We arrived at the Rio Grande bus station around 6pm. In my bus were two other European girls, a German girl and a Danish one I think who were both also heading to Ushuaia but kind of living in their own world a bit, which was fine with me that day. I was catching up on blogging in the bus so didn’t mind not chatting for once.
Across the road was a panaderia where I went to buy some queso balls and empanadas. I was really happy to still have some Argentinian pesos as there were no ATMs or change counter around.
Here was our next bus, the Rio Grande to Ushuaia one. We took off around 6.30pm.
Ready for my last bus ride south. To the end of the end of the world, at the end of the end of my first South American trip. Whoohooo. Exciting and at the same time, saaad! Why do things always come to an end?
The bus ride was magic. The landscape was gigantic. The emptiness of nothingness, everywhere the eye could see. The true Patagonia. I could imagine it foggy and windy and dark in winter and Tehuelches galloping in the steppes hunting guanacos. And the sky. The immensity of the Patagonian sky. It was exciting to be there, on that bus, at that moment and soak all of this in. We dropped some people in Tolhuin. We continued. At some point, there were many many trees chopped on the right. What was going on here? I wondered. To the left were mountains. To the right, some lakes. The sun was slowly setting down.
We arrived at this lake, Lago Escondido. Very pretty lake.
Another shot, from higher up, before it disappeared from our view.
We passed a bus stop saying Ushuaia.
And here we arrived, at the edge of the city, constructing, developing.
Ushuaia is first of all a harbour where goods arrive.
Almost there.
And here we were. We got there around 10pm!!
In Rio Grande, I had realised that maybe it could be good to have a rough idea of where hostels were located and maybe send an enquiry so that I wouldn’t be searching a hostel for too long after this long journey arriving at 10pm, so I had searched on Tripadvisor, found one called Antarctica Hostel which had good ratings and sent them an email but had not had time to receive their reply. I decided to walk to the hostel and see if they had been able to book a room for me. Here are some photos of the walk in the streets of Ushuaia towards the hostel.
Made it to the hostel. They had reserved a bed for me in a 6-beds dorm. Great!
Next to the reception was this advert. Here we were, in Ushuaia, the main departing point for Antarctica. That made me dream!!
That advert made me dream too. Cape Horn! The Southern Point!
I went to the dorm and there was a British girl there living in New York who had just come back from the 19 days trip to Antarctica and a British couple who had just come back from the 10 days trip. Their stories and photos made me dream. It was really inspiring to be in Ushuaia, at the doorstep of Antarctica. I felt like one day, I would have to come back!!
Tomorrow, a chilled out day, sleeping in and exploring a bit of Ushuaia by foot! I reached the end of the world. Il mondo del fin del mondo. Whoohooo!!!
Pom explores 