Day 4: Lighthouse, Wildlife and Museum

It started to rain late last night, and evidently it rained the whole night. I could hear it because there is a tin roof right outside my window. So, it was dak dak dak dak the entire night. I slept ok, I guess, I did wake up before the alarm came up, not sure if it was the rain or my body was adjusting for the schedule here. Lang Lang told me at breakfast that the forecast says it gonna rain in Ushuaia almost daily, but that is not always true. He said April and May, however, do tend to rain a lot. Nonetheless, when I was done with breakfast, and went out to the pier, the rain stopped. I had my umbrella but I didn’t even get to use it. It was still cloudy, but not terrible.

I got to the pier at 8:20am, the navigation tour wouldn’t start until 9am, I walked around the seaside and came back, there was still nobody, it was almost 5 mins to 9. I wondered if I was at the wrong place, and then I bumped into Samantha. She pointed out that I needed to exchange my tour voucher to a boarding pass at another travel agency (next door to the travel agency I booked the tour). Luckily I bumped into her, otherwise, I would have missed my tour and have to go with the next one. Anyway, we paid the port fee and off we embarked the catamaran.

At the end, we didn’t move for another hour at the dock, but that was ok, maybe they were waiting for another group or waiting for the sun to come out. I was not in a rush, and the cloud did start to break out, and had some faint blue appearing. It worked out just fine. We finally moved around 10am, before the guide finished her descriptions, some insensitive people, (hand raising) including myself, already went outside the deck to take pictures of Ushuaia from a distance. We needed some fresh air anyway. There were lots of Brazilians on the boat, also Uruguayans, some Dutch and Chinese (from Mainland I believe). Our first stop was a tiny rock island with hundreds of birds dotting the island. From a quick glance, they looked like Penguins actually, also in tuxedo colors with a hint of navy blue on the back.

Next we arrived at a small green island where we got off the boat and walk around. Nothing too spectacular at this point. It was ok. I got myself a cafe con leche after I got back on the boat, and we continued to cruise to another island with a bunch of sea lions, all lazy sunbathers, many were baby sea lions, some even seemed to be drinking milk from their moms. By the way, do sea lions have nipples and milk? For which I am not exactly sure, but it looked like it anyway. That was a cool island, the sea lions were howling at each other, with fog coming out from their mouths, I could only imagine how stinky that must be to smell that for the other sea lion. He was probably saying: Oy! fish for dinner last night. Before we even left that island, my eyes had already fixed on the next object in sight, the Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse.

If you have seen the movie Happy Together, you know, there is a lighthouse at the end of the world where you are supposed to leave your secrets. Unlike the movie, you cannot really get on the island or climb the lighthouse. That is unfortunate. Looking at it up close was pretty haunting. I didn’t prepare the record tapes of secrets, nor did I have time to think of one to leave it there, I just kept taking pictures and videos. This is another thing I have wanted to see in Argentina. Box checked! The tour was pretty short, just 2 hours. We came back a few minutes before noon. It was a good cruise, short but have covered all the highlights.

Went to a restaurant called Banana’s and had the menu del dia (menu of the day), which included a creamy soup and variety of breads, a mushroom risotto dish and a coffee. The soup and breads were fantastic, just those two were enough to fill me up. The risotto was far from comparison with the one I had last night, this one was more like a bad mac and cheese. Quite frankly, I didn’t even finish it. The espresso was good. After lunch, I went to a museum complex and saw the exhibitions about maritime, Antarctica expeditions, old time prisons and penguins art. I spent almost 2 hours there. Not on my recommendation list for Ushuaia if you would ever come here, but if you have an afternoon free up and want to kill some times, this museum can be a good choice. No plan for the rest of the evening, just relaxing and catch up with blogs and posting pictures.
 
It is true that Argentina is like an southern European country, it can be Italy or Spain. In my room here, there is a second bowl next to the toilet in the bathroom where you can wash your mmm mmm. Also, the whole in the afternoon shops are closed for a few hours thing, so people can take a nap or something, it is the same here. The coffee cultures and dining habits are also very similar. They even look like Italians and Spaniards to be honest. Sometimes I wonder how that come to be this way, in lower part of South America (Chile and Argentina), people are more like Europeans, while the upper part (Peru upwards) have more mixed blood or indigenous people around. That is kind of an interesting fact.

A minor update to my itinerary. I was talking to Samantha about Iguazu Falls today, she has already been to both Argentinean side and Brazilian side. I was convinced that I will try to get to the Brazilian side if possible. It is supposed to be more beautiful, and turned out my HK passport also does not need a visa to Brazil. But my time there is pretty tight, so we'll see. I can always consult with the B&B when I get there.

Other pictures of Ushuaia:

Wildlife of Ushuaia: