Ushuaia–Fin del Mundo

The first few days have been busy with flying, sleeping and eating.  Too much of some, not enough of others!  This photo of the Andes was taken leaving Santiago enroute to Buenos Aires.

I did spend the night in Buenos Aires on the way down, but since I’ll be spending 2 nights there on the way home, I’ll save that for later.

I booked a window seat for my flight to Ushuaia so that I’d be able to see the Andes as we were approaching the airport.  I wasn’t disappointed, I had a nice close up view of the mountains (maybe too close??)

Luckily my bag was one of the first on the luggage belt, so I was quickly out of the aeropuerto.

At this point I have to go off on a bit of a tangent – Argentinians like to kiss each other.  Just a peck on the cheek, but people (male and female) will stop when they see someone they know and give them a quick peck.  My driver at the airport in Ushuaia (male) saw someone entering the airport that he knew (also male) – they exchange greetings and a “kiss”; an Aerolineas employee who was escorting a young girl to her parents just stopped and gave one of the airport workers a quick “kiss” as she was passing by.

Back to the trip…

Up, up, up we went to my hotel, the Hotel Arakur, which is perched high above Ushuaia in the Cerro Alarken nature reserve.  This place is pretty new (still not quite finished actually) and is built of stone, wood and glass.

And it has a great view of the city and the harbour, especially from the pool!

“Parilla” is big in Argentina – barbequed meat, cooked over an open fire.  This was the front window of one of the many Parilla’s in Ushuaia.

Not for me though, my dinner was a big pile of crab!  And, in my defense, I thought I was ordering just a glass of wine..

This day ends with a few photos of downtown Ushuaia at night.  Because we’re so far south, the sun sets very late.  These were taken at around 10:30 pm.