Bart and Griet also had some time up their sleeves so we enjoyed a couple of excursions together. The maritime museum, which joined onto the old prison, had a lot going on. Each cell had a different exhibit, ranging from the prison’s history, to famous explorers traveling by sailboat, Antarctica and sea life special to this region.
Did you know?
- The Emperor penguins are the tallest and heaviest of all living penguins in the world and can only be found on The White Continent.
- One of the bigger profile inmates at the Ushuaia penitentiary (when it was open) was Cayetano Santos Godino or commonly referred to as “big eared midget”. He committed heinous crimes on children in Buenos Aires. After several years in prison and beatings from fellow inmates for killing their pet cats he died of strange circumstances.
It was hard to say farewell to Bart and Griet as although in reality we had only spent a short time together we had shared some very significant moments of our trip with them. We can’t wait to see you guys again in your country of deliciousness and once again, a big congratulations on your engagement…..hopefully everyone knows now!
While dining with our new friends from Couchsurfing (Norma, her daughter Victoria, husband Jose and her mum too), Roland stumbled upon the perfect icebreaker. Unaware of his faux pas, Roland politely offered in Spanish (to what he thought) was to wash the dishes. It turns out the Mexican word for ‘dishes’ means something entirely different in Argentina. After some astonished faces, then some snickering and finally some hearty belly laughs we soon learned that he had kindly offered to “wash their bottoms”!
Norma and her family were very accommodating, allowing us to prepare for our flight. Roland spent the better part of a day packaging Big Bird into a cardboard box and making him as small as possible. Seeing the bike in pieces and then in the box was the first of many hard-hitting reality checks. As Big Bird will be staying in Canada, it will be a very long time before he sees the light of day again.
One afternoon we joined Norma, Jose, and Victoria for an outing to Estancia Haberton and Museo Acatushun about 80kms away from Ushuaia. We are not particularly museum people; with our eyes not taking long to glaze over but we found this small private museum excellent. The owner’s collection of marine mammal and bird specimens started out as a hobby but when she realized she had some very rare ones, she dedicated her full attention to this endevour. Now students go there as part of their study experience and participate in the lab work i.e. retrieving a new specimen, cleaning, preparing, and assembling the skeletons for research.
Did you know?
- Orca (killer) whales are not whales. They belong to the dolphin family.
- Estancia Haberton is the oldest farm on the Argentine side of Tierra del Fuego. Thomas Bridges founded this property as well as an Anglican Mission and is famous for befriending the indigenous Yamana Canoe People and learning their language.
Although Ushuaia was officially in summer, a thermal or two didn’t go amiss. However in a matter of a few hours we were sweating out of every pore as we got sucked into the humid, hot air of Buenos Aires.
We have been very fortunate meeting such generous people and this didn’t end in the bustling city. We had door-to-door service from the airport to Rocio and Gabriel’s home who we made contact with through Warmshowers. We made an instant connection as we munched down on homemade pizzas and learnt more about this young Argentine couple. They have cycled through New Zealand, got married the same year as us and are currently in the throws of renovating their new funky house and the best of all they had a ping pong table!
These guys have their own landscaping businesses and although they had chocka days out and about they wanted us to stay and make us feel at home. We only had two nights in this huge city so they gave us some good suggestions of sights to see on our limited time frame. So we checked out Tigre, the popular weekend getaway for Portenos that has many waterways and good shopping on the waterfront. Then we spent a full day walking around the downtown area of Buenos Aires, passing through the districts of Palmero, San Telmo and La Boca. We got to see some street tango performers, do some window-shopping, and enjoy the cool in shady parks and stroll down the famous and colourful ‘Caminito’ boulevard.
Then before we knew it, we were saying goodbye to Rocio and Gabriel (our super great hosts), Argentina, South America and our bicycle trip and we were on a plane to Vancouver, Canada where family, friends and “normality” awaited……………
Weird!
- Background information: we had a crazy flight back to Vancouver that jumped from BA to Santiago, Chile, then to Toronto, Canada and finally Vancouver. So flying to Santiago we had clear views of Mt Aconcagua and the road we cycled on from Mendoza to Santiago. Quite a weird feeling to look down and know we have cycled there but so cool to see perfect, unobstructed views of the tallest mountain in the Americas.
- Expecting to get a package delivered way back in Salta, Argentina (like three months ago) with some new cycling gear and family love, it got stuck in Buenos Aires customs. After many frustrating phone calls, numerous emails by both NZ mum and Belinda we reached a stalemate. We gave up and thought we’d never see the contents of the package, however in a last ditch effort to retrieve it Belinda went to customs at the Buenos Aires airport and after handing over a horrific sum of money we were in possession of our goods. Rather unfortunate but pleased to have something to show for all our fiddle farting around. We would like to thank Orca very very much for donating these very stylish and good quality cycling clothes to us and although we couldn’t enjoy them on this trip we will definitely make good use of them in the future.
Stay tuned for our final blog entry from New Zealand with some interesting facts about our trip, insights and reflections……..