Ushuaia: Visiting the end of the world where beauty & wildlife abound and the sun never sets

As I mentioned in my last post (Buenos Aires), sometime early on in our world travels, Jos came up with a great idea to visit this city (ok, really a town) almost at the tip of Argentina. This beautiful, rugged, cold place is referred to as “the end of the world.” It is on every t-shirt and hat, so it must be true. :) There is another smaller outpost a little farther South, but it doesn't even have enough people to qualify as a “town.” So, I guess Ushuaia wins. 

It really doesn't matter what you call it, Ushuaia is a breathtakingly beautiful place, with glaciers, forests, ocean channel, mountains, and amazing sea life. Words could never explain this place. Hopefully our pictures do it a little justice. 

We stayed in an amazing hotel, and thankfully, we booked the room with a stunning Beagle Channel view. This is one of the waterways allowing ships to pass through without having to go around the tip of South America — but it’s not as famous or convenient as the Straight of Magellan, which is about 200mi North of Ushuaia. 

Our Ushuaia hotel was amazing, with an indoor/outdoor pool, hot tubs, a wonderful bar/restaurant, and a cool atrium. There was also a long, rocky beach down the hill from the hotel. We actually saw people scuba diving, which is crazy because the water was frigid.🥶 I should have tried it!!🤪🥶 Even though it was summer time in the Southern Hemisphere, the air and wind were extremely chilly. We had planned to do some hiking in Patagonia so, fortunately, had some cold weather gear.

The coolest part of the view from our hotel room was watching the sun going just below the horizon for no more than 3 hours. We would watch the sun set at around 11:30pm, then twilight for a few hours, and then the sun came back up around 2:30am. We were thankful for the blackout shades. It was an incredibly relaxing stay.

I couldn’t get over the view from our hotel. The restaurant also had great food and wine. Also outside the hotel was a 3+ mile hike down the Channel coastline. It was crazy rugged, so I did this one on my own (I am a mountain goat when it comes to hiking). A lot of incredible views of the surrounding mountains, glaciers, and views up and down the Channel. I did some boulder hopping, off-trail scrambling and over fields of peat. I also got hit by a really powerful, but short-lived squall line (translation: ‘rainstorm’). A fun hike for Jim!!!

Of course, we did get out to explore this wonderful, rugged land: including a hike through an old growth forest along the Channel, and one wonderful day out on the water visiting some of the local sealife (YES, we saw Penguins!!!! 🐧🐧🐧), and we paid a visit to the most southern post office in the world. Those postcards still haven’t arrived!

First, the town of Ushuaia. It had 3 main blocks that terraced up the hill from the Channel, with many restaurants and even more tourist shops. This is the main jumping off point for cruises to the Antarctic, so there were also some high-end shops.

We ate at several really nice restaurants with some amazing seafood.. in a land that prides itself on meat!  Above the town, several thousand feet is one of their glaciers. There are also several ski resorts in the area, but it being Summer, there was very little snow. There was, however, a quaint tea house (and, come to find out, a beer house as well). We had some tea, coffee, and some decadent desserts. We spent many hours exploring the town, the waterfront, and the glacier. It was especially nice when the wind stopped and the sun came out.

One day, we took a 6 hour cruise on the Beagle Channel. It was an amazing trip, with some wonderful wildlife. We first stopped by an island with some very large sea lions, followed by a few other islands with many types of sea birds (a little smelly), with the last stop at an island with hundreds (maybe thousands) of penguins. Neither of us have seen penguins in the wild....it was incredible. See our many photos. There was also a professional photographer on the boat, so we got some really nice photos of us.

The next day, we hired a nice driver to take us out for one of the famous shore hikes in the National Park, Tierra del Fuego. The trail head was right at the site of the most southern post office in the world. We mailed a few post cards, which I'm sure will take 6 months to get to the States. The post office was more like a shack on top of a pier. There were many tour buses, so we didn't stay long, and headed out on the trail. It was a fairly easy hike, but I decided to break in my new trekking poles that I purchased at MacPac in New Zealand. A nice hike meandering through old growth forests and along the Channel, with incredible views around every corner. After our hike, the driver took us to some other famous stops in the Park.

This was truly a spectacular place in the World and in Argentina. If you ever head down to Argentina or Chile, you should definitely put this town on the top of your list. If you decide to take an Antarctic cruise out of this port, than be sure to stay over for an extra 4 or so days to enjoy this area.

Next stop, Patagonia!!!