Ushuaia is the southern most city (excluding Puerto Williams, Chile, with 2.5k people) in South America. It sits on the largest island in South America known as Tierra del Fuego (land of fire). Following Britain’s example with Australia, Argentina thought it would be a great place to harbor its worst criminals. Today its primary tourist attraction is outdoorsy stuff and it also serves as the starting point for most Antarctica expeditions.
As we approached the runway, I half expected to see icebergs, glaciers, and penguins every direction which wasn’t the case. Turns out Ushuaia is roughly the same distance south as Scotland is north. That being said, we would get our fill of all three over the next three weeks.
We lucked out with our hostel here, room number 10 at xx. The nearly new room had heated cement floors and a huge window overlooking the Beagle Channel.
We hiked up to Glacier Martial on our first day. It was a good warm-up hike for the next couple of weeks taking about 3 leisurely hours. From the relatively small glacier you can look back the way you came and enjoy some great views of Ushuaia and the channel far below.
The following day, we took a shuttle out to hike up to Lago Estrella (Star Lake). It ended up being our favorite of Ushuaia. At the start you can see a large group of sledding dogs which train year round preparing for the winter season. A portion of the trail stretches across peat moss which we read can be harvested here in six foot deep blocks. It has a uniquely nice padded feeling as you squish across it. The lake is a greenish color due to the mineral deposits from the glacier feed rivers flowing into it. Also enjoying the lake were a group of school kids on a field trip. The whole bunch was decked out in rain boots and wading as far as possible (some too far) into the cold lake in equally cold weather, huh?
Our third hike was in Tierra del Fuego National Park. The trail we chose winds along Ensenada Bay and enjoys some great lookouts to the surrounding mountains and Beagle Channel. The weather was surprisingly perfect weather (Ushuaia is known for extreme wind in Dec-Feb). As we walked along a group of four horses randomly strolled passed us without any human supervision. We will never know if they were wild or somehow allowed to explore the park alone by their owners.
After several days of hoteling it, we decided to get a small cabana(Cabañas del Hain) on the outskirts of town so we could cook our own meals, enjoy some peace and quiet, and relax. Trin whipped up some great pasta and we savored some tasty Malbec. Dinner was complimented with music from our ipod and some great travel speakers that Shaun and Ang gave us.
The prison museum is worth a visit as well. 
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