Beagle Canal and Tierra de Fuego National Park

The boat ride through the canal was awesome. I paid $150 pesos for a three hour tour to see cormorants, sea lions, Ushuaia’s lighthouse, and an island where natives (with a height of 1,5 meters) lived (completely naked eating the sea lion fat for warmth) for the past 6,000 years until the British invaded in 1882 or 1892. Though the weather was a bit volatile–from rain to sun to rain to clouds to wind to sun–the scenery and not to mention our guide and captain, José and Leo, made up for it.  The scenes were gorgeous especially with the autumn colors, creating a red and yellow backdrop along the canal. Rainbows also seemed to pop up everywhere, there were four during the whole tour! The cormorants (both King and Imperial Cormorants) were neat and the lighthouse was, well, a lighthouse. The sea lions were tight–they followed us in the boat! The kept jumping up out of the water trying to keep up with the boat. They also smelled terribly, but the young sea lions (2-4 months old) were too cute. We then went to an island where natives lived for 6,000 years only on the sea lion meat, and then that was not available, mussels and birds. The wildlife was beautiful and it was interesting to see how the plants adapted to their environment–for example, all of the bushes were very low due to the wind and grew their branches in the direction of the wind (southwest).  It was very cold and windy, nonetheless, and afterwords I was inspired to buy gloves and a hat. I cannot remember a time when I bought gloves or a hat–I usually steal my sister’s winter apparel back home. It was funny to think that less than 4 months ago in Halong Bay, Vietnam I thought it was cold…was a wrong about that one! I also went to the tourism office with a French girl from my dorm to get our passports stamped saying “La Ciudad más Austral del Mundo.”

The National Park was also very nice, but the Beagle Canal was more impressive in terms of wildlife (except the red foxes!). The park was filled with peat moss–so water logged it was incredible. There were many different types of beech trees in the forests as well. Per usual Tierra de Fuego weather, the morning was increadbley foggy and rainy, the midday brightend up, and then it rained again.  We toured the beaver dam as well and saw how much havock they reaked on the environment. In Canada especially, beavers eat trees that are 15 to 30 years old, while in Tierra de Fuego, the European-introduced beavers ate up the 300 year old trees, and without preditors, destroyed the ecosystem. I went with two Argentineans so the tour was in Spanish–thank God, because my Spanish has really gone down hill although I do not know the words for half of the plant species I was told today.

Most importantly, I have decided that Ushuaia has better dulce de leche than Buenos Aires (although it does not beat Uruguay’s). I am not sure why or what brand my hostel uses at breakfast but it is much creamier. It could also be that here I first put butter on my bread, and then dulce de leche (aka a double whammy for my arteries)

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