2/2-A Hike and a Visit to a Post Office

Yesterday we did a lot of walking even though we rented a car. The first walk was to a car rental place. On the way we found another one of those shops that sells appliances and stuff, and the occasional bicycle. Did they have a bike box? Yes! They did have a bike box! Now we had two. We just need one more. 

At the car rental place (really looked mostly like someone’s home), no one answered. We finally gave up and, because Markus was already taking the box, we decided to get a bus back.  We found an outbound “A” bus. All the buses run on loops, so it’s not too hard to get on the bus and get off when you want. It was a nice ride to the ‘burbs of Ushuaia. 

After some lunch, we got a taxi to the airport to try again to rent a car (and look at the airport for a bike box). This time we got the car (no bike box). We went back to wait for one final bike shop (box opportunity) to open. They opened at 4:00. We went there, and lo and behold, they had a box! It’s a small one, but it’s a start. I’ll have to gather more cardboard to make it big enough for Billy. I’ll make it work. Tricky part was how do we get the box back to the apartment in the car with three people? The seats folded down, and the box fit in through the trunk. As for me? I sat on Alex’s lap! There are a lot of speed bumps in Ushuaia…but, we made it back. 

We immediately went back to town after dropping off the box. We parked at the Carrefore mercado, and walked to Av. San Martín. It’s the main tourist street. I’d already been up and down San Martín the day I got my shoes. But Alex and Markus hadn’t. We popped into several souvenir shops looking for stickers for the bikes. I finally found an Ushuaia sticker that I liked. We also found a shop that sold Chinese shopping bags for Alex and Markus’ stuff for flying (I still have my IKEA bag). 

We did a little shopping at the Carrefore and went home. Fortunately, we stopped in at the restaurant we had eaten at the night before and picked up some pieces spinach quiche to have for dinner. It was a long, but productive day. 

Now, onto today’s post…

With the car, we wanted to go to Tierra Del Fuego National Park. There was a shortish hike that Markus found (thank heavens I have shoes now). In the National Park is also the end of Ruta 3 which we had ridden from Rio Grande to Ushuaia (we also rode part of it into Rio Gallegos). It starts in Buenos Aires and goes 3079kms to the end in TDF NP. 

We left at 9:00am. It’s only about 15kms to the park entrance, but most of that is gravel (and, of course, all gravel in the park). The weather was good, but rain would be coming. We were prepared. 

It costs 12,000ARG per person to get into the park. The gentleman at the entrance showed us some places on the map. There was a place he suggested we wait to go to after the hike as the first bunch of tour buses were heading there now. We took his advice and continued out to where we would start our hike. 

Our car. Notice there are no other cars or buses. 

The trail was nice. 


I think those mountains are in Chile. 

One of several lagunas

Nice grassy trail 



These yellow posts marked the trail. If you look closely, you can see the next yellow post. Funny thing, right after I took this, Alex went down the wrong trail. Oops. 

Back on the right trail. 



And now for a little section of road walking. Here we had to look out for the dust bombs (buses and cars). 

There was a campground (free) on this side of this bridge, and the other side of the road. There were a number of people camping. 

Bahia Lapataia


See all the buses down there? Don’t want to hike? You can take a tour bus!



The last Ruta 3 sign. 

Truly the end of Ruta 3. Some consider this El Fin Del Mundo. Notice it’s 17,848kms to Alaska. So, that’s how far it is to do the entire Pan American Hwy!

There are also wild horses. This was a colt or filly. 

We spotted a final Matt sticker at the end of the road!

Some pretty berries. 

A “Markus through a hole” sighting. 

Lunch spot. 

We were joined by two of these birds (it looks like the same kind of bird that was guarding our bikes the other day).

They were quite persistent in their hope we would feed them (we didn’t). The one behind Markus was very whiny. I’ll post a video on Facebook. The other was quiet. I named them Willy the Whiner, and Silent Sam.  

Silent Sam. 

We finished, and said goodbye to the birds. Willy followed us for a bit. It would fly overhead, then land in front, and hop along the trail. He finally gave up, but we could see him whining across the water. Silly bird!

Then we saw this family. They are Upland Geese. 

Fuzzy baby by the mama. 

Dad

Mom. 

We made it back to the car after a little more than 10kms. 

We went to the restaurant and had some hot beverages. The clouds were rolling in, and it was starting to rain. 

The peak in the distance is Cerro Guanaco. 

While we were in the restaurant, I opened up Google Maps. Here you can see how close we were to Chile. No road to get there, but maybe a person could hike or bushwhack. 

We departed the restaurant just as a tour bus of cruise ship people came streaming in. Good time to leave. 

Our next stop was back at the place the entrance guy told us to do after the hike. When he was telling us, I didn’t quite understand what he said. Turns out, it is the furthest south post office in the world. 

Correo means post office. 

Notice it’s only 1200 kms to Antártica. 

Yes, you can really send mail from here! I bought a postcard and postage and sent it to my grandkids. 

Inside the post office. 

The postmaster has been there for a very long time. There were photos of him when he was younger. He is even on the rubber stamp that he stamps on whatever you want. 

The old “mailbox”.

All in all, it was another awesome day in Ushuaia! Now it is really raining, but we managed to stay dry while doing what we planned to do!