It was noon and lunchtime …

… and yes, time for a nice cold beer too…

But then there were justva few hours left before The Wandelgek had to leave for the airport and he decided to spend those on a city walk. First he walked down towards the beagle canal and tge city’s harbor area…

While descending toward the harbor area, The Wandelgek passed by the La Estancia Parilla, where he had eaten a few days before …

… and now he witnessed the delivery of the fresh meat by cooling truck …

He walked further down to the Beagle Channel and while walking he passed many of the traditional wooden houses that were still part of Ushuaia, some of them built when it was still nothing more than a town of released ex prisoners and guards with their families …

There was even an old wooden Roman Catholic church…

Argentina has mainly a Roman Catholic religion, hence the current pope in Rome who ia of Argentine descent. Pope Francis was born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio worked for a time as a bouncer and a janitor as a young man before training to be a chemist and working as a technician in a food science laboratory. After recovering from a severe illness of pneumonia and cysts, he was inspired to join the Jesuits in 1958. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, and from 1973 to 1979 was the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina. He became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. He led the Argentine Church during the December 2001 riots in Argentina. The administrations of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner considered him to be a political rival.

Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI on 28 February 2013, a papal conclave elected Bergoglio as his successor on 13 March. He chose Francis as his papal name in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi.

The Andes were never far away …

In the harbor area of the Beagle Channel were lots of ships, but also lots of them were shipwrecks, like e.g. this one, just rusting away, slowly decaying…

The harbor looks beautiful when there is this clear blue sky and the Andes mountains with their snow peaks are clearly visible …

A large ship was lying outside of the harbor, probably waiting to unload and load some containers as soon as other ships left and made space….

The Wandelgek was still a bit envious of those going further south, but this was for now as far as he could go.

There were many ships travelling to and from Ushuaia…

The Wandelgek kept following the embankment toward the airport…

… because he had one last site in Ushuaia that he really wanted to visit…

…and walking past ships and shipwrecks, he finally got to that iconic spot, which everyone visiting Ushuaia wants to visit. To his surprise, it was not crowded at all. On the contrary, there was no-one else …

Which wasn’t a bad thing when you got there to make some iconic photo’s…

The Falkland/Malvinas connection with Ushuaia was obvious, because Ushuaia was Argentina’s naval head quarters.

Only the seaguls were competing for a better spot on top of the Ushuaia monument…

Next The Wandelgek returned along the embankment to Ushuaia. He wanted to visit a small area in the harbor where containers were stockpiled, that had to be laden on cargo ships for further transport….

But this was not why The Wandelgek wanted to visit the area  He was interested in the beautiful graffiti/streetart paintings that decorated the many warehouses and office buildings…

Most of the streetart had a maritime theme…

These were really great and often overseen by travellers, which is a bit of a shame because these artists deserve to be seen.

Not everything had a maritime theme though…

Last but not least, The Wandelgek decided to visit the area of the harbor from where the tourist ships to Antarctica and to Puerto Williams and Cabo Hornos (Cape Horn/Kaap Hoorn) left.

In this area were many tiny ticket offices…

… like e.g. this one. Puerto Williams is a large village on the southside of the Beagle Channel. Not large enough to be called a town though. Frome here boats left toward Puerto Williams which is Chilean.

And that concluded this city walk. The Wandelgek had to hurry back to his hotel, to get his luggage, to check out and to board the bus to the airport.

This was goodbye to Ushuaia, goodbye to Tierra del Fuego and goodbye to Patagonia at once.

Ushuaia, a town he had embraced immediately, a town which was like a mix of a travel destination and a travel hub for passengers going through. A relaxed town and a town in a wonderful natural setting. In winter it must be harsh to live here, but hey, it was Spring, almost Summer.

The Wandelgek had now travelled through Patagonia for several weeks and although he loved the marine wildlife at its east coast and the rugged desert in its center, he agreed with most other travellers that the Andes was Patagonia’s pearl on its crown. He had seen the relatively green and friendly Andes in its northern lake district, the rugged, harsh, cold Andes in its southern lake district and the end of the continental Andes in Tierra del Fuego and all of these were magnificently beautiful and he would not have wanted to miss any of them.

The flight out of Patagonia was with Aerolíneas Argentinas and it was due to leave Ushuaia late in the afternoon at about 17.35 hrs. Boarding time was a bit earlier ar 16.50 though. The flight is a really long one and takes several hours to get back to Buenos Aires, where it all started. Remember that Ushuaia is much closer to Antarctica then to its capital city!

At abot 22.00 hrs, The Wandelgek was driving back to his hotel, where he checked in, dumped his stuff in his room and went down for a quick drink and a snack…

My next blogposts are about the still quite exiting and adventurous end of my journeys in this part of the world.I did reserve some time to see a bit more of south america so buckle up and join me for the next adventures.

For now:

VIVA PATAGONIA !!!