2012.1.5In the morning at 7am, the ship reached the pier in Ushuaia. Our journey in the Antarctic came to the end. We would spend the rest several days in Argentina.
We checked into Alto Andino Hotel. It’s a little bit off the main road, small but very well built. It’s still too early to get a room, so we left our luggage at the hotel and walked to the city center. Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuego Province and often regarded as the southernmost city in the world. However, compared with Punta Arenas, which is a fully diversified city, Ushuaia’s main function is the gateway for researchers and tourists to explore the Southern Ocean.
Ushuaia really has only one main street, San Martin. At one end of the street, there is a Chinese restaurant, Arco Iris (Rainbow) restaurant. The owner came down from Buenos Aires to manage the restaurant by herself. They run a good lunch buffet and also offer traditional Argentine BBQ. However, we asked the chef to make a special order of tomato soup noodle. It was HUGE. After eating western dishes for more than a week, we finally had a real Chinese comfort food at the world end.
There were many booths around the port selling cruise tours to the Antarctic region. The lowest price of the similar tour like ours was $3500. Only the backpacker can take advantage of this low rate. We stopped at several museums and Souvenir stores, but for the most of the day, we just took time and rested at the hotel room.
Ushuaia is famous for its spider crab dishes. Living in the cold water in Beagle Channel, Spider Crab is a similar species to Alaska King Crab. We had the dinner at La Cantina Fueguina de Freddy on San Martin. The crab was fresh and tasty, but we are still in favor the dishes at Brocolino in Punta Arenas.
