Two Beers and a Pretzel

I made it to Ushuia last night.  If you look on a map of South America, go all the way to the bottom – it’s the last real city on the Beagle channel before Antarctica.

Two buses for a total of 36 glorious hours as a passenger.  I booked a bus from Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos (about 1/2 way), but could not get a ticket all the way to Ushuia.  The bus from Puerto Madryn was comfy, but someone kept using some nasty hairspray that just hung around and gave me a headache. The bus provided blankets – which I used to filter the air.  When we stopped at Comodoro Rivadavia, I was lucky enough to find one ticket agent with one ticket left from Rio Gallegos to Ushuia.  Whew!  Because they say getting tickets in and out of Ushuia can be difficult, and the only thing to do in Rio Gallegos is to sit and watch the fishing boats unload their catch.

Taking pictures out bus windows produces some really bad images, but I did manage to catch a great picture of the sunrise the other day…

In Rio Gallegos I boarded a different bus and met a few German friends who had stayed in the same hostel in Puerto Madryn.  Down here, you cross paths with a lot of other travellers.  We crossed into Chile with the usual delays at the border, the bus took a ferry across the Straits of Magellan, then we crossed back into Argentina.  A quick stop in Rio Grande, then on to Ushuia.

For anyone thinking about Ushuia, you should try to fly to Rio Grande and take the bus to Ushuia – the scenery is stunning, and would be lost if you fly the whole way.