You would think that driving from Argentina to Argentina would be easy, but you would be wrong. Getting from the Argentinian mainland to my next destination on the Argentinian side of Tierra del Fuego was an adventure in itself. The drive requires transiting through Chile and the big hang up is that I was trying to do it with an Argentinian rental car. I read that about 40% of people who show up with rental cars aren’t allowed to cross. When I asked the rental car company for all the required permits and paperwork, they gave me everything I needed no problem, I said gracías, and the Spanish only speaking staff said good luck, in English! I took that as an ominous sign. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing.

The short version is go through Argentina immigration, drive across the border, go through Chile immigration and customs (for the car), drive about 140 miles through Chile including a ferry across the Magellan Strait, go through Chile immigration on the other side, drive across the border, go through Argentina immigration and customs (for the car), and voila! As nervous as I was, the process was actually pretty smooth and easy, if a bit time consuming. What should only be a five and a half hour drive from Río Gallegos to Ushuaia, turned into a little over eight hours, but I made it.

The drive was mostly flat and kind of boring, but as I got closer I could see mountains off in the distance (above). Awesome! As I passed by the giant Lago Fagnano, my excitement was just getting started. I was also still on a bit of a high from my success with all the border stuff.

I left Lago Fagnano in the dust, passed by the beautiful Lago Escondido, and headed through an amazing mountain pass until I reached Ushuaia in the late afternoon. This days drive went a lot better than I was expecting.

Ushuaia is waaay south. It sits on the shore of the Beagle Channel at the south end of Tierra del Fuego and is considered the world’s southernmost city. Way south! Like if you see the exit for Antarctica you went too far, south. Anyway, it’s a ridiculously beautiful seaside city surrounded by mountains on the back end. I think I’m gonna like this stop.

Ushuaia is also a bit on the touristy side, but I didn’t mind after the extreme remoteness of the coast. It started out as a penal colony in the 1890’s and now the old prison is a massive collection of museums. There’s a museum of prison history, a museum of city history, a museum about the history of Antarctic exploration, a museum about native Tierra del Fuego peoples, and an art museum. It took all day, but I really enjoyed it. The cell blocks were all remodeled and looked pretty to accommodate the museums except this one.

There was a lot of information in that prison. My favorite piece was the copy of the map Ferdinand Magellan used on his voyage. You’ll notice there’s no Pacific Ocean on that map. He found the Strait of Magellan in 1520 and when sailing through it for the first time he saw fires along the coast of the island and decided to call it Tierra del Fuego (land of fire). Also, it wasn’t called the Strait of Magellan yet. Back then they called it What’s This.

Here’s a random picture of a dolphin gull. These guys are a native species here and are hanging all around Ushuaia Bay. They’re really pretty, but also kind of disorienting. I saw this one when I walked to the other side of the bay for my panorama shot.

The main thing to do in Ushuaia is to visit Tierra del Fuego National Park, so I knocked that out on day one (I’m skipping around a bit). There’s a lot of different trails around the area. I planned out a route combining a bunch of different ones that would get me to all the cool stuff. I started on the Paseo de la Isla trail, mostly because from where I parked it was either that or walk along the dusty main road. No thanks!

Eventually that swung around to Laguna Verde. I’m just starting and I’m already impressed. After all the flatness of the coast, being surrounded by trees and mountains and lakes suits me just fine.

Next, a little side hike out to Laguna Negra. This is also a bird watchers paradise. There are cormorants hanging around the water, and these mating pairs of upland geese are everywhere.

I don’t know what this guy is, but he was very adamant about letting me know that worm was his, make no mistake! Ok little guy, chill! I also saw several giant woodpeckers. They’re hard to get pictures of though because they’re very shy, I had to be sneaky with this one. I was surprised when this caracara landed near me and let me photograph him though.

I took another little side hike out to a place labeled as Castorera. I had no idea what castorera meant and with no cell signal I couldn’t look it up. Turns out it means beaver dam. Beavers are not a native species here. Apparently, they transported fifty beavers here from North America in 1946 in the hopes of starting a fur trade, which never manifested. The abundance of food and absence of predators meant that the beavers were now in heaven and they pretty much decimated about a quarter of Tierra del Fuego’s forests. Patagonian trees don’t resprout and grow in different directions when the water rises like in North America, here they just drown and die. Anyway, they’ve been trying to get rid of the beavers ever since. There are two castoreras in the center of the picture below and those trees right on the other side are in Chile.

The main hub of activity in Tierra del Fuego National Park is Lapataia bay. There’s a nice long hike that follows the shore as far as your allowed. After that it’s a “strict” nature preserve. No access allowed.

On the hike back I passed by the big viewpoint where I could see all of Lapataia Bay extending out into the Beagle Channel. This place is just unbelievably beautiful, holy crap!

My ticket into the park was for one day, so I still had some work to do. Just north of Lapataia is Lago Roca. I decided to hike the shore as far as I was allowed.

As far as I was allowed was the Chilean border. About a quarter of the lake is in Argentina, the rest is in Chile. I did cross the border briefly… just to test the alarm system, but no alarms sounded. They must not be working. I’ll inform the immigration officials when I drive back north.

When I saw this chimango caracara on the trail, I reached for my super zoom trying hard not to scare him off. But when he saw me, he didn’t fly away, he walked right at me, stood just inches from my feet, and looked me right in the eye. I was dumbfounded!

It turns out the area near the trailhead is a very popular beach area, lots of families and kids. I’m guessing the animals around here get fed a lot because none of them had any fear. The crested caracara below let me get ridiculously close and that fox didn’t even flinch when I showed up, or when the loud obnoxious group of kids ran by.

I made one last stop in the national park before exhausting my one day ticket, Cascada Río Pipo. This was an easy one, only about a half mile hike or so, which is good because my legs are pretty tired. The waterfall was more of a rapid than a waterfall, but it was a good way to end the day.

Being surrounded by beautiful mountains means the national park isn’t the only place to hike around Ushuaia. I had a few trails already mapped out and I decided to start with the Martial Glacier. You can ride the ski lift up a little over half way, but I decided to walk the whole thing instead. I’m glad I walked it too because the trail is right alongside the river and it was really beautiful. Lots of little cascades to keep my eyes occupied the whole way up.

Finally I came out of the trees and reached the point where all the lazy people were getting off of the ski lift and continued up to the glacier. You can see the trail heading up in the middle of the pic below.

It was difficult to tell it was a glacier because it was covered with snow, but it was still a really cool sight. I found a high point to sit and enjoyed the view of the glacier and the view of Ushuaia far below.

Just a short distance down the road from the Martial Glacier trailhead is the Hayas trail out to a few more viewpoints. I still had enough energy for a short hike before calling it a day. First, a walk through the spooky woods.

The first viewpoint of Ushuaia wasn’t that great. It was mostly obscured by trees so I moved on quickly from there. The next viewpoint was of the giant peat bog. Aside from the mountains, these bogs take up the majority of the real estate around here. They’re pretty, but not fun if you have to walk through them.

The end of the trail was the Mirador del Beagle with a view of Ushuaia and the whole Beagle Channel looking east. Just awesome!

Usually the most beautiful places on the planet have the most inhospitable weather. My first few days here in Ushuaia have been perfect though. According to the weather forcast I had one more perfect day ahead, so I figured I’d do the biggest hike on this day. Actually, it was two hikes, but we’ll get to that. My first goal was the Vinciguerra Glacier at the top of that canyon on the left in the pic below. My second goal was to Lago Encantada in that canyon to the right. I knew it was going to be a big day, so I started early.

The hike started off in this stunning river valley. I could see the glacier in the distance so I took a super zoom of it from the river.

Eventually the trail made a hard right and it was up up up the rest of the way. The views were pretty much gone while climbing through the forest. After a long while I came out into this boggy area above the treeline. I couldn’t see the glacier, but I could see that I still had a long climb up. That’s the trail to the left of the stream.

The stream was really beautiful and I was surprised to see a legit waterfall on the way up.

Finally, I made it to the top of the ridge and suddenly, Laguna de los Tempanos and Vinciguerra Glacier were right in front of me. I was suddenly very cold too. My t-shirt was fine while I was climbing, but now it’s time to bundle up. I sat on a rock near the shore, gazed at that amazing sheet of ancient ice, and ate my lunch. Fantastic!

That glacier would have been a great destination all by itself, but I still have some work to do. I descended down roughly two thirds of the way and then made a hard left and started climbing up that other canyon. Near the top, that trail opened up into a bog too, but this time there wasn’t an easy way through it. It was quite a challenge walking the several hundred feet on that spongy ground, trying to avoid huge swaths of mud and praying the next step wouldn’t sink me to my knees. By some miracle, I managed to keep my feet dry and enjoyed Laguna Encantada for a bit before heading back.

The next day I made a quick stop on the way to my next hike, the Valle Carbajal viewpoint. I stopped here on my way into town a few days ago, but the sun was right in my face. This time it’s morning and the sun is behind me. Just look at that incredible view! By the way, for those that were wondering, these mountains are the southern terminus of the Andes range.

My next hike was to Laguna Submarino, named because it’s shaped like a submarine. The weather was starting to turn a bit though. This morning was nice so far, but it rained a lot last night. Still, I was hopeful.

About three quarters of the way to the lake was the Cascada Submarino. The trail followed the river fairly closely and there were a lot of little random waterfalls along the way. The trail was also a big long mud puddle. There were logs and stones laid down to help with some sections, but it was still exhausting. Some sections I had to get creative with crossing, I did some bush whacking in others, and at one section I ended up gathering logs and building my own bridge. By the time I got to the waterfall I was more than a little annoyed. Cascada Submarino was spectacular though.

The pic below is the boggy area just before the waterfall. As you can see, the area is really beautiful, but also frustrating. Most of these boggy areas, with the abundance of dead trees are thanks to the beavers, or should I say, thanks to the idiots who brought them here. Anyway, after a short debate I decided to continue up to the lake

The trail up from the waterfall wasn’t any better, but after a while there was a whole waterfall even bigger and better than Submarino up there. This waterfall apparently doesn’t get a name. It wasn’t even on the map. I don’t get it!

Continuing up I got another great view of the mysterious second waterfall and a great view across the valley I just climbed. After that the trail turned from mud to mud AND snow. That was when I gave up and turned around. The first few steps in that snow I sank up to my thighs and I had had enough. I went back down to Cascada Submarino, ate lunch by the river, and then sighed knowing I was gonna have to navigate all that mud all the way back down.

As annoyed as I was with the mud, I really did enjoy the hike overall. The river, the waterfalls, the mountain views, just stunning scenery in every direction. On the way down I got a picture of the largest beaver dam I’ve ever seen, and there were five or six caracaras all flying around the forest toward the bottom. They kept picking something out of the trees and eating it. I couldn’t tell what it was because they were a little too far away, but they went bonkers for it.

After the Submarino hike and before heading back to town, I took a quick look at two waterfalls right off the highway. Cascada del Viento was from the side of the road and Cascada de Juan was just a couple hundred feet into the woods.

The GPS does some weird stuff sometimes, like rerouting me into construction zones or onto random and unnecessary dirt roads, but this time it at least gave me a great view of Ushuaia Bay from the other side. That’s Ushuaia on the far right.

My last day in Ushuaia and I have one more big hike in my sights to do, Laguna 5 Hermanos. It’s threatening to rain this afternoon so I’m hoping I can get this one done early. The rivers here are all so wide and strong… and loud.

On the way up the trail passes by a waterfall called Cascada Velo de la Novia (Bridalveil Falls), the most common and least creative waterfall name in the whole world. Like at Submarino, there were two waterfalls, but only one gets a name and a mention on the map. I’m not sure which one is the waterfall and which one is the other waterfall, but here they both are, and they are both awesome! At the second falls there were some ropes set up to help you descend the cliffs so you could get up close and personal.

That river was flowing crazy fast! At one point the trail crossed it via some logs. I don’t know if someone put those logs there or if it was natural, but it was a little sketchy. Still, I made it across.

The pic below is the view of 5 Hermanos Mountain on the way up. Up until this point, the trail was steep, but blissfully mud free. From here the mud was pernicious. Eventually I came to the second river crossing. There were only two thin logs (twigs) across that river and the water was rushing over a third. The two logs led to a huge patch of mud. I couldn’t see a way through the mud on the other side without wading through it and I wasn’t confident enough in my balance on those twigs, so I decided to turn around here. I’m a little bummed, but whatever. It was still a beautiful hike.

I really didn’t plan to have another waterfall day, but I do love waterfalls sooo. I had just enough time left in the day so I went to check out the 7 Cascadas on the edge of town. It’s in a residential type neighborhood behind some houses. I read that it was really well marked, but I didn’t see anything resembling a sign, so I did the best I could.

I don’t know about seven waterfalls. I definitely saw two and an argument could be made for five, but it was hard to tell because most of the time I was on the cliff looking down at the river. Eventually the “trail” just kind of ended. To continue I would’ve had to walk through peoples yards. It was confusing and a little weird, but what I did see was beautiful. Below are the two definites I mentioned.

Well, my time in Ushuaia is now finished. I pondered staying an extra day, but there’s a lot more rain in the forecast and the mud is apparently a fact of life here, not bad luck on my part. Magellan should’ve called this place Tierra del Lodo (land of mud). Tomorrow, I get to drive the immigration/customs gauntlet again back to the mainland. Wish me luck! Until the next post…