USHUAIA

Ushuaia airport in Tierra del Fuego has to be one of the most spectacularly set airports of anywhere in the world ...... even better than San Francisco, Hong Kong or Tahiti (in our opinion anyway). Given the fact that it´s at ´the end of the world´on the southern tip of South America you can imagine that it´s an area that is not despoiled by high rise buildings and scattered houses. The airport itself literally sits in the middle of the Beagle channel between Argentine and Chilean territory and when the pilot makes his approach you feel as if he is going for a splash down landing! Ushuaia itself is a slightly wierd ´city´ in that it is very small and has a slightly world weary feel to it. Everyone is really welcoming (apart from the people who frequent the Islas Malvenas Veterans office)....... for those of you too young to remember .... this was the Falkland war of the early eighties. Again managed to find a nice Pousada which had lovely views over the Beagle Channel and a slightly eccentric owner who was a psychologist in her spare time. Also discovered another really good restaurant called Le Boudoin which we both thoroughly recommend to anyone visiting .... In Ushuaia we did the usual tourist things of sailing on the Beagle Channel to see the sea lions and the host of other wildlife and also visited the National Park here to do some walking. Whilst the park was lovely I felt a little disappointed by the fact that we had come thousands of miles to the tip of South America only to be told to stick to the path (admittedly the path took us 6 hourse to walk but it was still a path). None of your wander where you will here ! We did, however, find a route into the mountains directly behind Ushuaia where we were free to pick a mountain and choose our own route up it .... much better and much more beautiful I feel as it was not covered with other tourists!!!!

Almost booked a lastminute trip to Antarctica but having spoken to a few people around andhaving looked at reviews on the web decided to spend more time inPatagonia.