Fin del Mundo

It was surprisingly not as cold as we expected last night. I am not sure if it is because we warmed up the RV for shower time but we all slept comfortably. In the morning the kids played with the neighbors and I fixed a drawer that was apart and started aligning the sliding the cargo door. I also tried to feed celery to a pony and horse and no one liked it. The pony was scared when I got too close but was curious about the celery but freaked out when it got too close. The adult horse chewed it up and then spat it out.

We headed toward Ushuaia after noon and stopped at the large signs at the entrance to take photos. We made a big milestone for the trip. The end of the road south. It isn't technically but it is for most people on the pan American highway. The national Park has a sign at the end of the road in the Park and that has been traditionally the end of the road photos but since the price hike for foreigners in the past three months has made the ticket prices $30 per person and hence probably not worth it for most people. It is a dirt road anyways. There is another dirt road that goes to a naval station to the east of town for a few hours and it is in terrible condition and we have no interest in taking that road. There are Chilean islands south of Ushuaia across the Beagle Channel which boats can visit for tours of penguins. We won't be taking those either. So this is the bottom of the pan am road for us. The RV heads north from here.

We headed to the town center which looked like any cruise port in Alaska. The streets were busy with tourists and tour buses and parking lots were full. The stores here are mostly souvenir shops and outdoor gear and apparel. They even have gear rentals for Antarctic voyages. We found parking on the harbor and went to look for food. There was a Taiwanese take out place that had already cooked food which is common in Taiwan but the food was cold and not super appealing. The kids had a bao each and Christine had a turnip cake but without the turnip which isn't available down here. 

We walked all the way to the other end of the tourist area for another Chinese restaurant but it was only a buffet and was $32 a person which is ridiculous so we had pizza next door which was good for $40.

We went shopping for souvenirs and ice cream. Ellie had some money from her schoolwork and bought a journal for $16. The ice cream was good but pricey. I wanted to buy a 1/2 qt again but the wife said no. She wanted peaked ice cream cones. She saw somewhere that Argentinian ice cream is peaked and sticky. Well they didn't get peaked cones so I guess we will be buying more cones. We spent $24 for three cones.

It started raining as predicted at 5pm and we hustled to the RV and went to find water at a YPF but were turned down. Christine went to a La Anonima supermarket to find stuff for dinner and we headed to the municipal campground on the west side of town. The road was dirt leaving town but there was a less steep road to the camping area. There were many vehicles there already and three more pulled in a few minutes later. Two of them had been at the king penguin reserve yesterday. I struck up a conversation with two of the drivers from Santiago and was invited to tour the custom expedition truck on a Hyundai chassis. It was beautiful inside and well thought out. They did not have lithium nor AC which are expensive in South America due to tariffs presumably.

It was 45F out and the sun had not gone down so it was a early night in. We ate and enjoyed the heater. Tomorrow I need to dump and fill up propane and maybe we can have the kids play at a playground or mall if it is rainy.