We had another tour planned for today with Tours by Design. Today, the plan is to take a helicopter to a
hiking path that leads to Laguna Esmeralda (Emerald Lagoon). After a quick safety briefing at the helipad,
Damon, me and our private guide (plus the pilot) took off in an R-44 (Damon’s
input to the blog). To me, it was a
little orange helicopter. Of course,
Damon got the awesome seat in front and I had the back seat, which was fine,
because I liked having his seat to hold onto during flight.
We lifted off and flew over Ushuaia giving us a great view
of the entire town, and then to the mountains.
This helicopter was small and light and it barely felt like we were
moving. The pilot took us all around the
mountains – at one point, we seemed so close to the mountain that I felt like I
could reach out and touch the rock face.
We flew over a glacier called “albino eye” because the glacier fed into
a lake that was completely white and from above, it was shaped like an eye. Hard to get a good pic, but the glacial melt was totally white.
After the glacier, we flew between two mountain peaks
and then dropped into the valley. If
you’ve ever been in one of those virtual reality movies where you are on a fake
glider and fly off a cliff… yes, that is what we did in the helicopter. A little rough for me. Although we had some amazing views of peat bogs (more on that below).
Eventually, we landed on top of a mountain to enjoy the view
and have a champagne toast. Back in the
helicopter, I did get to sit in the front seat for the last few minutes.
We were dropped off right next to the hiking
path and felt like royalty since the other people on the path had already hiked
20 minutes from the parking lot to get to this spot.
The hike to Esmeralda was about an hour. We started in a forest and made our way into a
peat bog. Ushuaia has something like 98%
of the peat bogs in Argentina and they are heavily regulated as they only grow
about 1cm every 100 years. They are,
admittedly, kind of fun to walk on because they are soft and squishy, but not
too wet at the surface where we were walking.
It was like walking on a sponge.
Eventually we got to Esmeralda and were rewarded with a
beautiful lake that was a surreal blue/green cloudy color. We sat on the shore for lunch and then headed
back the way we came.
We had perfect
weather on the hike out – sunny, nice temperature for a hike, but in Ushuaia,
the weather changes in a heartbeat.
About halfway through our walk back, we went from sunny and nice to
hail/snow which then turned to rain making the last 10-15 minutes wet.
Our guide, a native Argentinian, spoke English well but we
did teach him one new word that we thought might come in handy given who he was
hiking with… clumsy! I had to demonstrate
repeatedly in order to help him understand the word. No special acting was required.
We drove back to town and had extra time, so we headed to
the Prison Museum, which was housed in the actual prison (the one that started
the town of Ushuaia 100 years ago). The
prison is shaped sort of like a hand – there is one main common area with five
“prongs” or wings that shoot out from it.
Each prong was a long hallway with cells lining each side of the
hallway, 2 stories high.
The first hall we went in was the main museum and had a
history of the prison and some of the more notorious prisoners. It had been painted and each cell had a
different story or exhibit about what went on there. The cells were tiny – we measured most of them
at close to 6x6 (maybe a touch bigger) although some might have been 6x8. It seemed that this tiny space housed 2
prisoners in a bunk. The cells had been
painted at some point to house navy sailors after the prison closed, so they
weren’t horrific, but everything was cement and just felt cold.
One wing was closed and another was an art gallery that we
skipped. The two most interesting wings,
though, were the “historical” wing – this one was completely untouched. It was cold, crumbling and it gave you some
sense of what the prisoners had to live in.
The last wing was the souvenir shop.
The entire wing along with each individual cell had been painted bright
colors, was heated and well lit, and each cell had a different type of souvenir
– t-shirts, stuffed animals, fleece jackets, etc. I just kept thinking that 100 years ago, this
was a maximum-security prison where the prisoners lived in hell, and now their
cells are a tourist attraction selling blue and yellow striped pajamas and oven
mitts.
After the prison, we had our afternoon coffee and snack and
then headed back to the hotel to chill before our 8:30pm pick up to have dinner
with Martin & Camila. Martin picked
us up and we went to their house after a quick tour of the amazing new house
they are building. We were promised an
Argentinian BBQ and a sampling of (by my best guess), every type of meat that
has ever existed. There was enough meat
to feed an army! Kudos to the chef
because we sampled from a monster platter of beef and lamb (I skipped the blood
sausage) and everything was amazing.
Food aside, I think the highlight of the evening was
watching their dogs drool at the kitchen window – keep in mind that the window
is about 5’ off the ground and the dogs have to jump on top of their outdoor
doghouse to be able to peer into the window.
After a fantastic feast, we went back to the hotel to ready ourselves
for our next amazing adventure tomorrow.
3 Days and Counting.
No comments:
Post a Comment