Aconcagua & South America 2004

Well Well I am not alone after all, many thanks for all your comments. IMD will be pleased to hear that something of mild interest occured on Wed night. In what seemed to me a perfectly respectable restaurant in Puntas Areanus High St. I was enjoying my comestibles when I was engaged in conversation by a couple of women at the next table, we chatted away, they in broken English & I in appallingly fractured Spanish, after a short time one made a quite improper suggestion, I dismissed it & carried on chatting, but they were not to be put off, as you might expect from a responsible correspondent, as they say I made my excuses & left! I went to another pub & watched a pink floyd tape of all things, still it was better than the truly awful trumpet music they enjoy here (plenty of work for Neil here if he is still resting).
Next morning whilst having breakfast I overheard that one of the other guests at the Fitzroy hostal had just finished a 1100k trek across antartica, the first Malasian woman (mmmm) to do so, I was very interested to hear about this but as usuall I was late for my bus & had to dash.
The bus left at 9am for Ushuaia (pronounced oosh- y-a) at 11am we reached the Straits of Magellan & it was blowing a howler, hoped to see some sea life on the half hour crossing but disappointed only to see some seaweed. Set foot on Terra Del Fuego & found it a bleak flat barren place, with no fire & lots of wind, The bus took us south to Rio Grande where we changed buses to an old jalopy of a bus, this means a murram road I thought.... correct.
The north of Terra del Fuego is flat barren and with no houses or villages but in the south there are forests & mountains, & a sort of ski resort.
Arrived in Ushuaia at 9pm, so I have reached the top & now I have reached the bottom, so another aim achieved.
Still light of course as this is as far south as Glasgow is north , 54 deg S approx.
Ushuaia was very busy & I had to try quite a few places before finding a bed. 20 quid too!
Very good steak & wine tea. Vino de Casa only 1.60 so that cheered me up. tired so early to bed.

Ushuaia is Fin de la Monde or so they claim, he worlds most southern city pop 30k is that big enough to qualify as a city ? its a very low rise place anyway the same type of architecture as the last few places one & two storey buildings with painted corrigated iron roofs.

Went for a walk this morning & looked out over the Beagle channel, I looked up & down & across,
I looked for quite a while..........................................................................................No Beagles!!

Weather today overcast with light winds, you need a pullover on. Took a look round the museum
housed in an old prison, it was not cushy in the jail in the old days, proper striped suits & hard labour. Served them all right!

Walked down by the docks where many day trips are offered, thought about going on one to see some penguins, fortunatly the notion wore off, if I really feel like looking at penguins I will just have to go to Edinburgh zoo ( is there not some joke about a bloke finding a penguin, take him to the zoo a friend suggests......)

This is the main port of departure for Antartica, so the port is busy with supply vessels & cruise ships, I am not sure if a 2 wk cruise to Antartica appeals to me much as it costs $3000. I can resist it for the time being. Bought some tee shirts this afternoon ( an a salt dish for ma mammy)
By for now SS.