Tierra del Fuego

Hi Everyone, By popular demand, here are some photos from our trip to Ushuaia (round 1). We are currently in Punta Arenas in Chile, on our way to Torres del Paine national park, where we will do a four day self-guided camping trip. We´ll be heading back to Ushuaia next week to embark on our Antarctic Cruise! YAY! While in Ushuaia, we had two small adventures. The first was to Tierra del Fuego National Park (Note: there are no volcanoes or anything resembling fire in Tierra del Fuego. The land was named as such because the native people who once lived here took fire with them everywhere they went, even in their canoes while fishing!). The national park was a great introduction to the awesome landscape of southern Argentina / Chile. We did one relatively easy coastal hike along the Beagle Channel (approx. 3 hours), and then a much more difficult hike up Mount Guanaco. We didn´t have time to do the whole hike (despite the 19 hours of daylight), but we had heard that there was a nice vista point after about an hour an half. We set out on the hike with the goal of reaching it, but not sure if we would have enough time before having to turn back to catch the last minibus back to town. Fortunately, about 3 minutes before we had told ourselves we would turn back we reached it, and it was spectacular! Definitely worth the steep climb. Adventure #2 was to Glacier Martial, which hovers over the city of Ushuaia. There are many options for getting there. The easiest is taxi + chairlift + short hike. We wanted to ¨fully break in¨ our hiking boots in preparation for Torres del Paine, so we chose to walk the whole thing (about 8hrs round trip). By the end, I was whining, Dena was limping, and we were pretty miserable, but we won the battle vs. the hiking boots. The hike itself was also stunning (we´re going to run out of adjectives soon), as we were walking along a large creek of melting glaciar water (delicious), with waterfalls every 10 minutes or so. We made it all the way to the top, and even had some fun in the snow (video coming soon -- huge thanks to Abba Gidi and Imma Paula for the awesome camcorder that they gave me for my birthday!). That´s all for now. Look out for another post in a few days when we get back from Torres del Paine. Love, Amit and Dena

View from coastal hike in Tierra del Fuego National Park View from our glorious vista point Waterfall on way up to Glacier Martial Glacier Martial Amit taking a break before ascending up to the glacier (this is where most people start their hike) The view from the top (see how far we came, that´s Ushuaia in the background)