On the way to town from the airport, I asked the driver if it was always this windy in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in South America. He said it was unusual, but that ran contrary to what I’d been experiencing since I arrived in Patagonia. In fact, just last week I was actually blown off my feet by gusts reaching 55 mph. What I learned during my five day stay in Ushuaia is that they don’t really have a summer as we know it.
Normally I’d ave walked the one hour from the airport in order to save five dollars in cab fare, if not for the economic benefit, for the principle of not spending money on something I could do myself. With wind blowing the rain vertically, however, I decided this would be a rare capitulation to a city that decided not provide public transit from its airport.
I’d chosen to come here simply because of its geographic significance. Historically, the town served as a supply outpost for ships sailing the Beagle channel. Today, it’s the launchpoint for cruises to Antarctica. After research revealed that these cruises start at $7000, I decided to spend a week simply allowing my imagination to board the ships for remote ports.
The hostel I chose was perfectly situated to realize this experience with second floor bay windows in the common room that overlooked the main street and harbor. With hot coffee and tea available 24 hours, I didn’t expect to see this town beyond the perspective of the multi paned wood windows lining the common room.
I joke with people about what doing nothing means to me. I’ve often described a day spent walking a town for hours as doing nothing. From my perspective, I didn’t attend an event or enter a facility so my experience basically constitutes doing nothing, but others measure nothing by the amount of exertion involved. Again, walking all day doesn’t seem like much exertion so I’d not likely tell you about it.
Feeling somewhat guilty about declining all of the excursions offered by the hostel, I finally relented and chose to the cheapest activity which was a hike to Laguna Esmeralda. The fee simply covered transportation to and from the trailhead at a cost I was willing to pay.
You have to understand that Patagonia had been bleeding my finances since I arrived. Normally I travel to cities, and I can fill my days exploring on foot to observe parks, buildings, and neighborhoods all for the low cost of a little exercise. Staying in this remote area meant there was nothing to do but visit the national parks all of which had entrance fees to rival those of the United States. It’s not that they weren’t worth the price; I just hadn’t expected to be spending for one park after another over the course of two weeks.
Like national parks in the US, there is no public transportation to access them so you must either book a tour or pay for transportation via a private bus company. Though the number stops in the parks were limited compared to a tour, I opted for the cheaper private bus. While less expensive than a tour, the private buses typically cost as much as the national park entrance fee.
It was for this reason, I’d decided to stop spending money on parks and settle in for a week in Ushuaia. Having made an exception for Laguna Esmeralda, I hopped on the shuttle that took me to the trailhead. This particular trail was outside the national park so there was no admission fee, something I’d soon understand should have been charged for the maintenance of the park.
The day before, plenty of people had warned me that the trail was muddy and even recommended I rent boots or put plastic bags over my feet since I only had my sandals. Sandals turned out to be the best footwear for this trek which could not be more accurately described using any word other than ‘bog’. I followed the many side trails that worked their way over tree roots and through shrubs to avoid the main trail which was a slick 3 inches of mud.
I hated damaging the forest floor further, but I wasn’t up for 8 miles of walking a trail with the consistency of glue. As it turns out, I needn’t have bothered avoiding the trail since once it broke from the shelter of the trees, it descended into an open meadow immersed in pools of water from the incessant rain that had been dumping throughout Patagonia since I arrived. There were many downed branches strategically placed to walk across in case you wanted to increase the drama as you fell into the mud.
Many times I have tried to avoid getting my feet wet and an equal number of times given up once I’ve slipped or found it impossible to do otherwise. I embraced the mud and let my Keen sandals do what they were designed to do, trek in water. Another 45 minutes and I arrived at the turquoise colored lake. With the constant drizzle, there was not a dry surface on which to sit so I ate my lunch standing at the shore of the lake. Perhaps on a sunny day it looks like an emerald nestled between the cloud capped peaks, but today it was that milky blue color that you often see from glacially fed waters.
I returned to the trail head to wait for the shuttle. Afraid I’d be waiting in the rain by the side of the road for a couple hours, I’d taken my time on the trail, but I was delighted to see that a local had set up a makeshift grill and was cooking the best looking sausages I’d seen since my arrival in Argentina. It was an oasis of gastronomic pleasure in the middle of a dreary day.
I returned to the hostel and enjoyed one of the greatest pleasures one can have after a day of getting dirty and sweaty: a hot shower. For the last couple of years I’ve been taking cold showers to conserve resources and build my pain tolerance, but today I decided to provide myself some relief from that dismal hike.
When I passed by the reception desk on my way to the common area, the girl who sold me the shuttle ticket asked how I enjoyed the hike. In a rare burst of negativity, I exclaimed I wouldn’t recommend that hike to anyone. It could have been a nice walk, but it is a case where the entire hike should be done on an elevated boardwalk so as to preserve the nature you’re going to see, but then I would have had to have paid for it.
I committed to not spending anymore money on adventures in Patagonia. That meant missing out on the penguin island boat tour, but my funds had been so unexpectedly depleted in south America that I just stopped caring about what I was missing. I spent the rest of the afternoon looking for the cheapest flight to the cheapest country I could find.
In the end, I accepted that I only had three days left in Patagonia before I’d be headed to more affordable parts of Argentina, and the cost to change my flight exceeded the expenses for those few days. I decided to treat Patagonia as I did Scandinavia. I stopped eating out completely, preparing all my meals in the hostel using the grocery store just down the street. Food consumption was one of the few expenses I could control here.
I was fortunate to choose Ushuaia for cooking as the grocery stores were well stocked. This was in contrast to the groceries in the national parks with shelves that looked like eastern european markets during the cold war. There was even a point at which I was trying to figure out whether the one bunch of grayish-white florets in the bin was cauliflower or broccoli.
Ushuaia, being a town founded on supplying passing ships, was well stocked with vegetables, spices, cheeses, and meats. The only odd omission was seafood. I went to the store intending to buy the ingredients for salmon pasta, but when I asked the butcher where to find the seafood, he told me that they didn’t sell it. I found it ironic that a town surrounded by more water than land did not sell fish. As it turns out, Argentinians are so into their beef that they hardly turn an eye to the ocean.
Despite not being available in the store, seafood can be had at any of the restaurants lining the main street, with the specialty being king crab. I walked by rooms filled with Chinese tourists gathered around bowls overflowing with crap parts. There were also several fine dining establishments, but they seemed kind of out of place in this frontier town.
Like many towns, once you leave the main street or head up a hill, the tourists disappear immediately, so I headed into the hills above the town to take in the perspective of the houses cascading down to the water. One of the unique things I observed is that every house was different. No planned developments here, but I find that common in remote places: they tended to be populated by independent people looking to get away from crowds and crowd mentality. In that way, Ushuaia reminded me much of Ketchikan or Skagway in Alaska.
A little research showed me that they were both established around the same time and by similar people: fishermen, sailors, and pioneers. It explained why everything I saw here seemed so familiar. The view I took in from above the city could have been the gulf of Alaska, including a harbor filled with cruise ships.
I tread carefully down the rain slicked streaks thinking I’d really misunderstood Patagonian summer. While the rest of south America was enjoying warm sunny days, here I was traipsing through weather I’d intended to escape when abandoning Oregon for the winter. While a local told me they do get nice days here, the weather was pretty much the same year round.
It’s true. I’d expected that they get terrible winters here, but they’re relatively mild, with temperatures rarely dropping below freezing. A search of winter images of Ushuaia failed to produce the town buried in snow as I’d expected. Again, it didn’t look a whole lot different than my hometown of Portland was looking at the same moment during its winter.
The next few days were spent writing and catching up on reading with occasional glances at the people below hopping over puddles created by backed up rain gutters and listening to the constant hiss of car tires plying the rain slicked streets.
As often happens when traveling, the sun broke through the clouds on my departure day. To take advantage of this brief exposure, I decided to walk the one hour to the airport and save myself five dollars.