Ushuaia, Patagonia, Argentina
Where you’re not allowed to forget that you’re in El Fin del Mundo
Air passengers in Argentina have a cute custom whereby, upon landing in their destination, they clap happily. Upon touchdown in Ushuaia, though, the clapping had a bit of a desperate undertone since the turbulence felt on the approach to the airport — punctuated by loud fearful gasps from the passengers — was particularly stomach-churning. I guess everyone arriving in the town touted as El Fin del Mundo was relieved that the process did not spell a literal fin del mundo.
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Chalten, we miss your trails that begin and end within walking distance to town!
It seemed like a silly thing to do, but we took a taxi to the trailhead of the Estancia Tunel hike — basically a trail following the outline of a hill that faced the Beagle Channel. I had chosen the trail because (1) it was classified as easy; (2) it faced the water, and N. always loves water views; (3) it might still provide opportunities for good photo ops. Only the first two reasons proved to be true. We didn’t even go all the way to the Estancia Tunel because we had to turn back in order to make it on time for the taxi that was coming back to pick us up. I hate hiking on a schedule.
In the afternoon, we hopped on a catamaran for a ride in the Beagle Channel.
Which, we should have known, would be a tourist trap designed to squeeze as much money out of the haplessly trapped people on the boat. Before we even got on, we were sternly told that food and drinks were not allowed to be brought on the boat, which was a naked way of saying, “We expect you to buy drinks and food on the boat!” Before the safety demonstration — how to put on a life vest — we were presented with a speech and list of prices by two young women who had the unenviable task of being photographers on the boat and hence of pushing photo packets on aforementioned tourists.
We puttered along the channel — famous and named for the ship that carried Charles Darwin as a naturalist — and… saw pretty much the same views that we had seen on our morning hike today!
We stopped on a little island, which seemed to offer nothing particularly noteworthy, except as an opportunity for the photographers to make tourists hold a “Fin Del Mundo” sign and an Argentinian flag, so they could take the pictures that they would later try to push onto the picture-taking victims.
Same thing at the Faro des Eclaireurs — the lighthouse which has become a symbol of the Beagle Channel. We sensed it before we saw it because the colony of what appeared to be fewer than 100 sea lions sunning on one side of the little island smelled like 1,000 — it’s amazing how stinky they are, given that they basically do the equivalent of plunging into a bath several times a day. The rest of the rocky surface was covered by Emperor cormorants — not to be confused with Emperor penguins — which had that same black and white tuxedo look. I can easily imagine parents of a small child being tempted to say, “Honey, look! Penguins!” It was not easy to tell the difference.
On the way back to port, I’m sure the captain and photographers breathed sighs of relief: they directed passengers to the presence of a whale in the area. For a few minutes, while we followed its tail and its sprays from its blowhole, we almost forgot that we were in el fin del mundo.
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After much see-sawing on my part, we chose to do what almost every tourist here in Ushuaia — don’t forget, La Ciudad mas Astral del Mundo! — does and that’s hike the Laguna Esmeralda trail.
Which again required a taxi ride to the trailhead. The lady taxi driver was kind and talkative and stopped at a mirador which gave us an open view of some of the mountains ringing the town. Similar to those near El Chalten, these also sported some snow in the summits while the tree lines below showed autumnal colors. Our disappointment towards the city — el mas astral del mundo! — began to dissipate a bit.
At the trailhead, an enterprising fellow had his truck loaded with hiking boots and hiking poles.
I was a bit confused by his business plan. I’m just not sure if I, as an investor on Shark Tank, would be convinced by the guy’s pitch for a business: “This is a great opportunity: most of the tourists who come to Ushuaia will want to hike the Laguna Esmeralda Trail. In the tourist office, in the hotels, in the taxis, all the tourists are told that the Laguna Esmeralda is the best hike in town; the marketing work is done and the customer base is built. So when the tourists come — especially those who don’t hike regularly and when they do, only with sneakers — I will be at the trailhead, with a truck full of hiking boots and poles, and be ready to serve this demand. I’ll have men’s and women’s boots of all sizes and hiking poles, because this trail is notoriously muddy…”
He certainly seemed to be doing brisk business; I overheard one lady say, “No, it’s too small; I think I need a larger size…” It gave the nature hike the same vibe one gets picking up shoes at a bowling alley.
The trail began under tree cover, mostly lenga trees that had already dropped their leaves for the season but whose branches were festooned with “chinese lanterns” — some type of invasive yellow moss that hung on the branches. The trail was well marked and, although muddy, this early in the day the mud was still frozen solid and easy to glide on. N. seemed, for the first time in this town, charmed by his surroundings and kept stopping to take photos.
Soon enough, the trees cleared and we found ourselves in a wetlands zone that seemed magical: a layer of ice was still frozen on every surface because the area was still sheltered from the sun; the lack of wind led to a clear mirrored surface on the lake, which reflected the trees, clouds and even faraway peaks; behind the wetlands, a ring of mountains circled the valley.
My hiking app next showed a “waterfall”, but I didn’t realize until later that this was a reference to a dam built by the resident beavers in the area. From listening to a group hiking with a guide (I know, I’m an informational leech), I learned that the beavers had been introduced by the government to try to spur a fur trade in the area, but the consequences had been both myopically unforeseen and ecologically disastrous — but aren’t they always? How many times has this same story played out in other parts of the world? I read later that the beavers introduced from North America had no predators in the area, and their natural instincts to build dams had devastated the trees in Tierra del Fuego — so, you know, the fin del mundo for the trees in El Fin del Mundo.
After a short section that involved a 34% grade uphill incline, the section highlighted by the hike app as “Boardwalk” was unremarkable… until we reached the area of the trek that the app cautioned, “Mucho Barro Cuidado” (“Very Muddy Careful”).
It was like walking in a gigantic field covered ankle-deep in mud batter: slippery, squishy, sticky. Our only saving grace were our hiking poles — which we brought, thank heavens and which helped us avoid any slides into the goo. Sometimes, it was actually better to walk on the rivulets coming down from the lake rather than on the trail itself.
By the time we arrived at the lakeside, between the effort to avoid splashing in the mud and withstanding the frigid winds that had come to blast our hands frozen, we hardly felt any satisfaction in reaching our destination. We followed the example of other hikers who were hiding from the wind in a copse of trees to the right side of the lake. There, we devoured our lunch in less than five minutes, took hurried pictures, were surprised by the presence of one of those uniformed photographers — same as the ones we saw on the boat yesterday — and hurried the heck down the mountain. Or tried to, anyway.
By this time — around 1 pm — more and more people were coming up the trail. Each of them had the same look on their faces which we probably had: this is much harder and messier than I expected. On the way down the lake, we learned that people coming up had trampled on the frozen mud at midday in full sun, turning it from a chocolate bar consistency to that of a thick chocolate batter. Gee, thanks!
It was time-consuming work to carefully discern where to put each step. Did that spot look firmer? Was there a tree branch that could provide some support? Should I veer off the trail altogether and set off like a pioneer and make my own trail? The problem with this last method was the fact that it led to stomping on tree roots or bushes that, through no fault of their own, became victims of even more deforestation — the beavers were not the only culprits. And so here, as I picked my way through this or that muddy path, I inwardly cursed the park management which had, I realize, unpalatable options: either close the trail and build some paths that are hikable in order to avoid further damage to the area, or keep the trail open and draw the ire of hikers over badly maintained trails. But I realize that closing the trail is probably a no-go: it’s the most famous hike in El Fin del Mundo! (I saw a young woman close to the beginning of the trail, wearing a pair of brand new white sneakers. I would have loved to see what they looked like once she came back.)
N. and I managed to wash some of the mud off in streams here and there. We cleaned up as best as could before getting into the taxi (the lady driver had said she would be back by 2 pm, and had promised to call rescue services if we had not returned by 3 pm).
The boots and poles entrepreneur was doing brisk business.
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Random fact: our hotel concierge mentioned that people in Ushuaia would soon begin taking their Vitamin D. Given its location in the deep austral south, the city would have less and less daylight, culminating in sunlight only from about 10 am to 5 pm in the winter. Yikes!
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Adios Ushuaia, La Ciudad mas Astral del Mundo!
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