Tierra del Fuego

After leaving Torres del Paine we have a couple travel days working our way back south again. (Another side-effect of our scrambled travel plans is that instead of just working our way all the way down to Antarctica and back, we've gone south, then a ways north, then south again before heading home.)

A brutally early start gets us to the border to Argentina before it was open, though to be honest I think I could probably defeat the security if I put my mind to it:

We had a 24-our stopover in El Calafate but mostly used it as a chance to catch up on internet and laundry. The city mostly serves as a launching pad for trips into the mountains and glaciers to the north, and we had too little time and much too little energy to squeeze something in.

The next day we've flown to Ushuaia, the southernmost city it the world in the heart of Tierra del Fuego ("The Land of Fire"), also known as "La Fin del la Mondo" ("End of the World"). This is the main port for large cruise ships rounding the Horn and the streets our clogged with tourists. The crowds of people make us long for our crowds of Antarctic penguins, guano and all. Thoroughly disgusted, we hit the local grocery store and got some supplies to spend the evening in the common room of our B&B. Jessica is cheating on Gibson with Löm, the inn's dog:

Tomorrow we board another cruise (yes, two cruises in one trip; that's how we roll) with the goal of being at Cape Horn before the end of the year. Fellow travellers we've encountered on this trip have been on the same cruise and reported rough seas with ten-meter swells. It's time to see if our incredible string of good weather holds up...

(Written on Dec 28.)