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.All Trips / Argentina / South America
A Final Hike in Tierra del Fuego National Park
The final chapter of our exploration of Patagonia was a visit to Bahia Lapataia (Lapataia Bay). Here you’ll find the southern most point of the Pan-American Highway, the longest highway on earth. At a parking lot beside the road’s end, you’ll find this sign marking this important landmark. It’s only about a 45 minute drive from Ushuaia, but is the farthest south you can drive in the Western Hemisphere.
We drove to the area, parked, and hiked a little through a swampy forest of beech and evergreens. Fortunately there were boardwalk trails through the wettest areas, so our feet didn’t get soaked. The weather was wet and cold and windy — not exactly terrific hiking weather, but typical of the area. The …
.All Trips / Chile / South America
Exploring the Fjords of Patagonia: 2) A Hike in Tierra del Fuego
After a good dinner, an evening of pleasant conversation with our fellow cruisers and a good night’s sleep aboard the Australis, we found ourselves in Ainsworth Bay, in the Tierra del Fuego region of Chile. The area is part of the protected lands of Alberto de Agostini National Park. Ainsworth Bay is a fjord fed by the meltwater of the nearby Marinelli Glacier, itself part of the larger Darwin Ice Field.
Our route to Ainsworth Bay
We boarded the zodiacs and were zipped to shore, where in small groups of about 10-12 we were lead by a guide through a subpolar Patagonian coastal rainforest.
The weather was highly changeable. When we landed it was gently drizzling, but after a while the rain broke and soon the sun poked …
.All Trips / Argentina / South America
Exploring the Fjords of Patagonia: 1) The Australis
There’s a fascinating leg of our Patagonian journey which I haven’t shared with you yet. We took a 4 day cruise into the Fjordlands at the southern end of South America, mostly coastal Chile and a bit of Argentina. This journey into Tierra del Fuego was a truly memorable adventure!
The cruise began at the Port in the frontier town of Puenta Arenas, Chile. Here we boarded the Chilean-owned adventure ship, Australis, which was to take us to the “uttermost end of the earth”. Australis is an expedition cruise company specializing in exploring the waterways of Tierra del Fuego, including the Strait of Magellan and Beagle Channel. The Australis is relatively small, carrying only about 200 passengers, which is very much to your advantage …
Tagged Argentina, Australis, Chile, fjordlands, Patagonia, Puenta Arenas, Tierra del Fuego
