Paddling the Beagle Channel and Hiking

 The shrine to 'Goucho Gil'.

 The offerings of cigarettes and alcohol that have been left.

Olympic paddler?

 Our guide Nahuel anchors the raft with handfuls of kelp.

 The sealion colony. 

A noisy conversation.

Trying to reach the rest from the wrong side of the rock.

 Helping to anchor the raft before the wind rips it off.

 The hike through the forest to ...

 The beautiful and loud Larsitasaj Falls on the river of the same name. 

 Trekking across the open steppe.

Larsitasaj La Thesita de Almanza Restaurant where we had an amazing meal.

  This was the appetizer, mussels, mushrooms, peppers and onions. Followed by a king crab chowder.

Left to right: the hostess/cook Lore, Nahuel, the waiter/ husband Lito, and our driver Fabricio.

Saturday, November 16^th.

After breakfast this morning we were picked up by Nahuel our guide and Fabricio our driver for the day in a Land Rover Defender. They picked up a local pastry delight that they said we had to try as it is pretty much a regular snack for locals. It was okay, just a light pastry with no filling. Then we drove east on the number 3 highway out of Ushuaia. About 15 minutes in we stopped at a local spot beside the road where there were lots of little shrines dedicated to specific saints. Nahuel wanted to show us the one for Santuario Gauchito Gil (basically the cowboy or gaucho saint). Apparently truck drivers make offerings to him for safe trips. He showed us the offerings inside which consisted of cigarettes that were lit and left to burn out and empty bottles of whiskey and beer.

Then we drove for about a half hour before turning off the main road onto a secondary dirt road which we followed for another half hour or so. We stopped the Land Rover beside the Beagle Channel and they offloaded the rubber raft from the roof. They gave us waterproof pants, a lifejacket and a paddle. Nahuel, John and I set off in the raft for some paddling. We paddled for about a half hour out to a rock in the channel that was covered in sealions. We could hear them and smell them before we saw them. When we got there Nahuel reached into the water and grabbed two strands of kelp and held them as a sort of anchor so we wouldn’t drift while we took photos. It is funny how things keep working out for us, I had thought about taking a tour boat on the Beagle Channel to see a number of things, but most we had already seen. The one thing I was interested in was sealions. So, instead of being jammed into a tourist boat, here we were paddling with our own guide. The wind picked up as we paddled back and the current was trying to push us in the wrong direction, so the paddle back was much more difficult. But, Nahuel said that compared to the couple he had two days ago we were Olympic paddlers.

When we finally got to where Fabricio had driven to, we loaded the raft back onto the roof and drove for about ten minutes to the site where we were to hike. This time Fabricio joined us. This was a wonderful spot that reminded me of Mongolia. We walked through three different landscapes. The first was a mostly grassy, cleared, flat area with lots of horse waste and then we entered a more natural area where all the dead trees had not been cleared and finally into a forest that had many dead trees lying in amongst the live ones. We continued through the forest until we found the Larsitasaj River. As we followed it upstream we could hear rushing water. We climbed along the river edge until we came to a beautiful waterfall. We stayed there for a break and then turned around and retraced our steps back to the vehicle. Then Fabricio drove us to La Thesita de Almanza, a small locally famous restaurant on the edge of the Beagle Channel run by Lito, a large overweight man and his very thin wife Lore. It is in a small fishing village called Almanza. Here they farm mussels and catch king crab. We had a beer each and a three-course lunch: a bowl of mussels, bacon, mushrooms and onion in a kind of soup, followed by a king crab stew of mostly crab chunks in a creamy cheese sauce and for dessert we had French vanilla ice cream in coffee with toasted slivered almonds. An amazing meal!

All that was left to do was drive back to Ushuaia. Amazingly we both stayed awake the whole way. On the way back it started to rain, and rained hard most of the night, except when we went out for dinner! We were told that even though they get some precipitation 300 days a year, they don’t often get rain that hard.

We hung out in the room for a couple of hours before going out for dinner. We were both still full, but we had already paid for this meal in the package. So, we headed out hoping for something light, but… The restaurant was very nice and they had a table reserved for us. The set menu was mozzarella cheese stick, a large beef steak with mashed potatoes and a brownie with ice cream! This plus a bottle of malbec and we were totally done! We waddled back to the room by 10:00 and to sleep shortly afterwards. Yikes. Somebody has to do this.