The southern most point of my trip. And possibly the destination I was looking forward to the most. Or was that Mendoza??

My expectations for Ushuaia were: lots of snow, cold temperatures, windy, southern lights (Aurora Australis) and that it would be quiet as it is off-season and who else was crazy enough to venture down here... I got none of that! There was no snow. Seems like the south is struggling with a lack of snow now like the Alps did at the beginning of the year! So skiing was struck of the list of possible activities. It wasn't cold either. Although, during my boat trip of the Beagle Channel I was told by the guide that it is a common misconception that Ushuaia is cold. It actually has the smallest variation in temperatures of all Argentina. Summer is between 8-12 degrees and winter is between -2 and 4 degrees. It wasn't windy when I arrived, however on the day I was leaving the wind decided to make an appearance, which resulted in a 4 hour delay of my flight! I didn't see the southern lights either... Ushuaia may be the southern most city in the world, but its on the same latitude as Newcastle. That combined with the fact that the magnetic south pole is currently located over near Australia all means that seeing the southern lights was pretty unlikely... And, well, there were enough other crazy people there.

A lot of the activities were unavailable, like sailing to Antarctica. Which makes sense as its winter now, but due to the lack of snow, some of the winter activities weren't available either. A lot of the ski lifts/pistes were closed so I didn't bother trying to ski. What I wanted to do was go husky dog sledding. That was only possible in combination with snow shoeing. Not something I particularly wanted to do but I had no choice.

The huskies were more interested in rolling around in the snow than they were in going anywhere. Much to the irritation of the musher!

Snow shoeing wasn´t as hard as I thought it would be. Although, I didn´t really see the point in it. Snow shoeing is meant to be for when there is deep snow. This snow was 5mm deep at most! It would have been easier to walk with my boots. Or so I thought. Until I took the snow shoes off and had to walk back to the restaurant without them and realized just how slippery it actually was!

This was the destination of our snow shoe walk - a frozen waterfall

I also went of a boat tour of the Beagle Channel. We saw lots of seals and birds.

We even managed to find 3 baby penguins swimming along...

And sailed past the End of the World lighthouse, also called Faro Les Eclaireurs.

We also stopped at the one of the bigger islands and walked to the top of it.

I took the following photo at midday, showing how high the sun gets here...

Onboard the boat I got to experience something very Argentinian.. Dinking mate. It´s a kind of tea, but its not made with tea leaves, but bark of a tree. And it tastes like that. Very bitter and well, tree-like... Its drunk from something goblet like with a strwaw, which is called a bombilla.

You put the leaves in the goblet and keep adding hot water from a thermos until you run out of water. The straw/bombilla filters the leaves. There is a whole etiquettethat goes along with drinking mate. Such as you cannot say thank you when someone hands you the mate, but only after you have drank it and are returning the goblet to them. And when you return it to the person, you have to do so with the straw/bombilla pointing towards them.

Ushuaia began as place to send criminals. It started as a prison and it’s a good place for a prison really. I mean where was anyone going to escape to!? The prison is still there and they have now turned it into a series of museums: the prison museum but also an art gallery, an Antarctica museum, penguin museum and a strange section dedicated to Total´s presence in the area (I suspect Total may sponsor the museums).

Only one person managed to escape the prion - or at least that is what they assume. They never found his body. Numerous others attempted to escape but returned of their own will due to the cold, lack of food and not actually being able to get anywhere. I can´t blame them...