Travel days are perfect when they are boring.  Today was quite smooth as far as travel days go. Well, aside from the fact that Leanne and Kyle could barely walk after yesterday’s monster hike.  In our hotel at breakfast, there was a couple from India that did not speak any Spanish and the hotel receptionist did not speak any English.  So the couple asked Kyle is he could ask the receptionist in Spanish to arrange a taxi for them to the airport.   Kyle swings into action and even understands when the receptionist asks if they want the taxi now or after breakfast.  Mission accomplished as the taxis are ordered. 

Kyle continues his quest to remember high school Spanish from 35 years ago by ordering taxis for us after breakfast.  We have to split into two taxis and Kyle starts pratting away in Spanish to the taxi driver.  The driver is asking Kyle easy questions and speaking slowly.  The perfect combination as Kyle fills the entire 25 minute drive working on his Spanish.  We generally spent a week or less in other countries so there was not as much incentive to learn the language beyond the basic phrases.  But we will be spending two months in South America so the investment in speaking Spanish will pay greater dividends.  It is easy to see how spending time in a country can help learn a language compared to a classroom.

We navigate the tiny domestic airport with ease. The flight is only a little over an hour. This is our second LATAM Airlines flight they get two thumbs up once again. 

We arrive in Ushuaia, Argentina 🇦🇷 at around 1:30 on. Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world and dubs itself the town at the Fin Del Mundo (End of the World).  Despite Argentina’s marketing claims, Chile disputes this saying they have the southernmost city in the world with Port Williams.  In a plan specifically designed to wrestle the title away from Argentina, Chile created Port Williams in 1953.  While Port Williams is technically further south than Ushuaia, it only has 2,874 people compared to 56,000 for Ushuaia.  Argentina’s response to all this folly is to say that Chile may have the southernmost “village” but Ushuaia is the southernmost “city” due to the much larger population.

We emerge from the airport to perhaps the best airport views we have seen.  All surrounding the airport is 360 degrees of snow-capped mountains.  The town was first settled 135 years ago as a penal colony that could not be permeated by the freezing temperatures of the Atlantic or the impassable mountain ranges.   Ushuaia is reminiscent of an Alps town with tall chalets and simple wooden houses flanked by majestic mountains. It’s not only a great place for hikers but it is the port for most all of the Antarctica cruises out of South America. We set sail in two days. 

After getting checked into and settled in Hosteria America, we walk down to the main strip of town to get some travel errands done.  Rain is coming down in steady droves drenching us despite our rain shells.  We take a short cut through a park that requires us to walk down about 200 wooden stairs.  Not so bad until the rotten wood in the stairs starts to move and snap under our weight about halfway down.  The further down we go, the worse it gets with us having to pick our way around stairs that have already fallen through lest we fall to a certain death on the rocks below.  We breathe a collective sigh of relief when we are all safely on the road.  “We will all be taking the long way back on the solid cement,” Kyle vows.

We are looking for a quick lunch and think we have found a place with a place that resembles an Argentine version of McDonalds with pictures of burgers and chicken sandwiches on the wall above the cash registers.  The two cashiers don’t speak English but they do have menus in English which makes ordering much easier.  We place our order and sit down at a plastic table and chairs similar to McDonalds.  We wait and wait.  The two cashiers are just sitting there talking to each other.  Unlike McDonalds, there is no kitchen visible from where we sit.  Maybe there is a cook behind a secret wall working up his kitchen magic.   We are the only customers in there but somehow it takes 45 minutes to serve our burgers and fries.  Kyle points out that they must consider 45 minutes “fast” compared to the 2-3 hours it takes in a sit down restaurant.

The kids peel off and head back to the hotel while we make arrangements for tomorrow. We book a boat ride around the Beagle Channel and arrange for a car rental to drive to Tierra Del Fuego National Park. Kyle and Leanne set out to explore some of the town. We visit the town’s Catholic Church Nuestra Senora De La Merced (Our Lady of Mercy) to put in prayers to the man upstairs.  The church which was founded in 1815 was painted in a bright saffron color with a Gothic style ceiling. We have much to be thankful for. We then head down to the port and coastline which has a park.  The rain had stopped and yielded way to the sun. This results in a highlight with us seeing a brilliant rainbow over the Beagle Channel past various docked sailboats. 

Back at the hotel, Kyle has somehow managed to locate the Sunday NFL Football playoffs on TV even though it was dubbed over in Spanish.  The Philadelphia Eagles are playing the Seahawks in the playoff game.  Leanne’s family are all Eagles fans and since Kyle and Justin’s NY Giants are so terrible, they watch the game and root for the Eagles.  Unfortunately, their quarterback gets knocked out of the game with a concussion early in the game and the Eagles have to roll out a backup quarterback who is over 40 years old and looks like he hasn’t played a game in 10 years.  So not surprisingly the Eagles end up losing the game.