Argentina: Ushuaia

 February 15, 2023 Ushuaia (oo-shoo-EYE-a), Argentina    

This was a lovely, lively town to sail into at 11:00 am. There were close to 10 cruise ships—some docked and some anchored in the bay. We were lucky and had a spot at the dock. Our afternoon tour was booked, so we disembarked as soon as we could to see the town before the penguin tour.

Coming in to Ushuaia 

Our ship is the small-ish one at the end of dock (left side of photo)

We poured into town with the rest of the tourists, hiking up the hill. It was cold and wet. The first thing we did was buy churros from a street vendor. We had been warned by ship officials: don’t eat any street food in Ushuaia. 

Warmed with churros, we ducked into a chocolate shop to borrow some wi-fi. We were looking for a museum and a lunch spot. It started snowing while we were in the chocolate shop. We bought chocolate with dried blueberries, and downloaded directions to the museum. Museum located, we arrived there only to find they don’t take credit cards or US dollars. Our last Chilean pesos bought the churros and chocolate. We got directions to a money exchange, heading up the hill again. The line was almost out the door. Despite this, these guys were organized and fast and we were soon heading back to the museum with pesos. 

The Museo del Fin del Munro included admittance to a second museum a couple blocks away. We toured the exhibits and discussed with another tourist whether Ushuaia was part of the mainland or on an island. I believed we were on the Argentina mainland. Ushuaia’s motto is “the end of the world” after all. The other tourist was sure we were on an island. We decided to ask the staff. After a bit, the man with the best English was ushered over to us, and he spent considerable time going over a map of the region and explaining that we were in fact on Tierra del Fuego (an island)—the Argentinian part not the Chilean part. Talking to him was the best. He was wonderful.

Museum at the End of the World

Masthead from a long gone ship

Museum garden. Hard to believe but it’s summer here.

Time was ticking, so we headed for the second museum. Here an entire room was devoted to ship wrecks, although there was a lot of ship wreck talk in both museums. Despite being safer than the Drake Passage, this area is no walk in the park for ships. The channel between the end of South America and Tierra del Fuego is treacherous.

We found a place with vegan empanadas on happycow.com, and decided to get some before returning to the ship to meet up for our afternoon tour. Empanadas are classic Patagonia fare, and we hadn’t had any yet. 

On the way to the empanadas, Charlie bought a beautiful jasper pendant from this man.

We found the Triumph Cafe, which consisted of several cafe tables, Triumph motorcycles, and rock & roll. It wasn’t clear whether they sold Triumph motorcycles or just had a bunch. Not much English spoken here, and our waitress was not interested in learning any or trying to understand our poor Spanish. Somehow we ordered. We were told it would take 10-15 minutes.

Our adorable but disinterested waitress

Twenty-five minutes later, we got the empanadas to go. There was barely time to make it back to the ship before the tour. It started raining again as we raced down the hill to the dock. We had to go back through the small customs building, and there were at least a hundred people moving in the opposite direction from us. Like salmon swimming upstream, we made it back and ate empanadas while waiting in the Insignia Lounge for our penguin rookery tour tickets. 

Our tour was aboard one of several large catamarans docked on the harbor. Still bitter cold and windy, we were herded onboard and found a place to sit on the top level by a window but close to the door to the outside deck for better viewing when needed. 

Our catamaran tour boat

From the excursion boat, our small ship next to the Celebrity Infinity.

Our first destination (we were not landing anywhere) was a cormorant nesting spot. Lots of cormorants and fur seals. We continued stopping at one bird rock after another, and over time I grew suspicious whether we would be seeing any penguins on this trip, despite it being called “Penguin Rookery Tour.” Not even an attempt to float by a penguin rock. My opinion of ship tours was not improved by this.

We saw lots of seals and cormorants

Cormorants look a little like penguins when they are standing on a rock. We see them back home regularly on Capital Lake, although not in these numbers. 

Back on board our ship, we proceeded toward the Drake Passage and the seas got rougher, although we were extremely fortunate that our crossing was relatively smooth.