Ushuaia 10/29/12 - 10/31/12

Ushuaia is known as the southern-most city of the world, so that alone made it a cool place to be.  On a side note, there is a town in Chile that is farther south; however, it doesn't have enough people to meet the "city" threshold, so Ushuaia still holds this title.  It was also lovely because we arrived in 3 hours by flight instead of 3 days by bus!  The main street in town had a feel as if it was a ski town village which went well with all the mountains surrounding it.  We really, really enjoyed this area of the world.  

For the remainder of the afternoon we planned out what we wanted to do while in Ushuaia.  Of course, Kristin had her mind set on penguins, and Matt thought it was a great idea as well!  On our first full day of adventure we took a taxi up to the ski area where we were able to walk up the mountain and get an overview of the city below.  There was lots of snow about halfway up and we didn't have the right gear, so we settled for making it to the top ski lift for some good views.

Later that day we went on the penguin tour.  We took a bus through the mountains for about an hour and a half (excellent views) and then arrived at a ranch where we took a 20 minute boat ride out to the island.  

We got to spend a little over an hour on the island with the penguins.  Kristin was like a little kid with too much kool-aid and candy in their system, but with good reason.  How cool are penguins?!?  We had a great time watching, observing, and being with the penguins!  They are such interesting animals.  Kristin said the penguin tour is in her top 10 for sure.  Sorry for the overload of penguin pics, Kristin had a hard time narrowing them down from over 100 ;-).

Short clip of the funny little guys!!

The next day we headed into Tierra del Fuego National Park for about 5 hours of hiking and some wonderful scenery.  We hiked along the coast through forests while catching views of the mountains.  And the weather was great, finally no rain!!

We stayed at La Posta hostel in Ushuaia and it was such a great place!  It was warm, felt like a cabin, had two kitchens, and was extremely clean and comfortable, not to mention family-owned and super friendly.  It cost us about $18 each for dorm beds.