Ushuaia, Argentina or the end of the earth

We finally made it! We have been in Ushuaia for two nights now. It's absolutely beautiful and surrounded by snow capped mountains and a bay. It is cold and windy here. The actual end of the Pan-American is in the Tierra del Fuego national park, so we went there yesterday.

End of the Road, Ushuaia, Argentina

The park was beautiful, but it's hard to hike in the cold with such strong winds. This is the actual southern point we could get to in the park:

Tierra del Fuego Park, Ushuaia, Argentina

The park also had lots of wildlife. There were supposed to be beavers that were brought in and are now an invasive species, but we only saw dams, no beavers. I guess it's okay since we can see them in the US.

Red-headed woodpecker, Ushuaia, Argentina

We are now trying to sell the car (if you know anyone that wants to buy a car for cheap in Ushuaia, let me know!), which because of Argentinean import laws is proving to be very challenging.  Argentina will not let citizens import used cars, unless they have been out of Argentina for more than six months. Even those that can import, there is a duty of 78% on the car. Because we only have a temporary import, we can only sell to an expat or someone that will drive it illegally (or figure out how to import it). Our chances of selling it to an expat in Buenos Aires would be better, but that would mean having to drive back up there. So right now, we are taking our chances selling it here, maybe for parts. 

Prison Museum, Ushuaia, Argentina

Another problem with hanging out in Ushuaia is that there's not much to do outside of skiing and boat trips. As I said we originally wanted to go to Antarctica and we even went to a travel agent to ask about it. At first she told us they had a trip leaving October 29th for only $2900 per person (the normal cost is almost 5k)! It turns out that boat didn't actually go to Antarctica, only to the South Georgia Islands, the boat to Antarctica didn't leave until November 11th and was for 18 days. So, we will not be going. We did however check out the prison museum in Ushuaia, which turns out was originally a penal colony. The museum was a strange mix of art, history of the town, maritime museum and prison museum. Not only was it a prison museum, it was a museum of other prison museums. Someone had gone to prison museums all over the world and taken pictures. Crazy how many of them exist. 

More pictures soon when I have better internet!