Ushuaia, El Calafate and the Holidays

I wanted to do something fun on Christmas day to make up for missing all the festivities at home so I spent the day at the end of the world in Ushuaia, Argentina with the wildlife.

Found out that sea lions are called ‘lions’ because the males have a mane…learn something new everyday.  These aren’t males, just pregnant females. Went walking with penguins.  They sure do walk funny. It was on a wildlife preserve so we could get really close…you can see the mommy and baby right behind me.

After an 18 hour, four border crossing bus ride, I’m up in El Calafate which is a pretty little town with lots of cafes and shops.  The main draw here is the Puerto Moreno Glacier which I visited yesterday. It’s ridiculously beautiful.  Our tour started out by walking along kilometres of balconies across from the glacier where we could eat lunch and watch huge chunks fall into the lake.  The sounds of cracking and thundering were amazing. Then we hopped on a boat to get closer.

We walked through a lush forest…... and went trekking on the glacier for about 90 minutes. The trek ended with glacier ice in whiskey.

So far, the holidays are shaping up pretty well.  :)