Day 6: Calafate – Ushuaia

We had our breakfast in our hotel and requested a taxi to go to the airport. The taxi was 700ARS (13€, cash) plus a good tip because the guy was amazing. He explained us why the famous Argentinian barbecue sauce is called “chimichurri” and it’s because the British use to said: “give me curry” which with time turned to “chimichurri” (a sauce Argentinians put on meat). He also told us that locals used to wear guanaco’s leather on their feet to protect themself from the cold, thus their feet looked huge in the Portuguese eyes (back in Magalhães time) and so these called the locals PATAGON (big foot) and therefore their land was called PATAGONIA.

I don’t know if this old man stories were true, but they kind of make sense and love hearing that type of stories from locals.

At 8:00am we were at the airport to take our flight at 9:30am that last 1 hour and 20 minutes. Try to seat on the left side of the plane, the views are beautiful. Once in Ushuaia, we took a remis for 450 ARS (8.3€, cash) to go to our Hotel (Los Acebos). The hotel is quite good, not very modern, but quite comfortable. We got a two-story room with two bathrooms for a reasonable price. Also, the Remis driver was a nice guy, so we took his phone and call him next day to do a tour with him.

BTW, this was the view from our room:

We left our bags and took the hotel’s free shuttle to go to the main port where you can book to boat trips through the Beagle Channel. But before that, we were starving and eager to try the famous Ushuaia crab, so we had lunch at El Viejo Marino: really good and affordable (2890 ARS = 54 € for the three of us + toddler, with card).

We then bought the tickets for the tour for 2890 ARS = 33€ per person (paid with card, but it was low season price) plus 40 ARS for the port’s fee that we paid right before getting into the boat.

We did the route that you can see below, in a very nice catamaran, especially for the toddler. Maybe if you are planning to go without a baby, it’s a good idea to take a smaller boat, with less people, to get closer to the animals and get better shots. Although, beside the amount of people, we had enough time to take all the pictures we wanted.

The tour lasted two and a half hours and departs daily at 10:00am and 3:00pm.

After the tour, we walked a little bit around Ushuaia until we were hungry again and had dinner at Van Gogh restaurant, pretty much because it was the only open restaurant we found and we wanted to go to the hotel to chill before going to sleep. To go to the hotel, we paid 230 ARS (4 €, cash) to a Remis that the restaurant called for us.

Day 7: Ushuaia

We woke up late and had our breakfast in the hotel. At 11:15am, the remis that we met yesterday at the airport, Mr. Dante, picked us up and gave us a tour around Tierra del Fuego National Park. We first went to the famous train station, but we didn’t hop in cause the ride is only 3 km and you can also do it by car.

Because it was winter, the famous mail office is closed, so our next stop was Alakush Center to understand a little better the history of Ushuaia. Dante then took us to Acigamis lake, Laguna Verde, La Castorera, Bahia Lapataia and then back to our hotel. For this tour we paid 3000 ARS (56€, cash) for all of us, and I have to say it was worth it, not only for the tour itself, but because Martin was asleep the whole time and Dante was so nice that he stayed in the car watching over Martin.

Since we got back to the city around 2:30pm, all restaurants were closed (also lots of restaurants closed during winter), so we had lunch in our hotel and chill for a little bit.

At 5:30pm, we took the hotel shuttle to go to downtown and then walked to the famous Ushuaia prison. We took the guided tour in Spanish at 6:30pm, that was included with the entrance ticket (there are other options for tour in English). I have a weird relationship with prisons, one of my favorite books is about the live of a prisoner while in jail (La muerte de Honorio, author: Miguel Otero Silva), I also like tv shows that have to do with prisons, but I guess visiting one is totally different and I’m not sure if I enjoyed it. Maybe I did enjoy it because the history of why this jail is in Ushuaia is interesting.

From there we walked to Garibaldi restaurant to have dinner. The food was delicious, but maybe a little overprice. And, of course, from there we took a Remis back to our hotel.

Here is Dante number in case you want to contact him: +54 92901509404

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