We rented a car in Ushuaia to go in and out of the city twice. One of the rules on the rental car agreement was “cars going downhill or uphill always have the right of way for cars on the horizontal.”
That was very confusing to me, but it was always observed on the steep mountain streets.
There were also spanish signs that i think meant “yield,” and round abouts and stop lights that may or may not have overruled that downhill/uphill rule.
It was all very confusing.
We filled up the car with”naftha super,” which Lisa found for us.
Everything is stressful in a rental car!
And no one showed up for our early drop off, and I thought we might miss our plane!
Beavers were introduced to Tierro del Fuego in 1946 to attempt to start a fur industry. The effort failed for various reasons, but the beavers flourished. They are now creating massive destruction in the forrests, which can’t recover like north american forrests, where the trees co-evolved with the beavers.
We took a sunset walk and saw a beaver emerging from its’ mound.
Beaver!
Speaking of sunset – there seemed to be only like 2 hours of night we were so far south!
In Tierra del Fuego, we rented a car and drove about 2 hours out of town, on to dirt roads, to the Harberton Ranch.
It lies on the east mouth of the Beagle channel.
Looking out of the channel, there is an island in the middle. To the left of the island was the Atlantic Ocean, and to the right was the way to Antartica.
The island was disputed over about 50 years ago, which was settled when Argentina gave the island to Chile. It was a bad move, causing Argentina to lose passage to Antartica and rights to vast fishing areas.
There were two friendly dogs. One border collie puppy was obsessed with catching our shadows, and sometimes even his own.Seagulls would pick up blue mussels and drop them on the rocky beach to break them open.
Being in Estancia Harberton felt like we were at the bottom of the world. We were the only guests.
Our personal table!Looking out the mouth of the Beagle Channel.
