Flip Flop Flying

I sat next to a murderer on the plane. When we were all in the bus that was ferrying us from the departure gate to the plane, there was a moth doing its mothy thing with the strip lighting. Clearly this annoyed this one fellow, and he made several attempts to kill it before finally sending it plummeting in a dusty spiral to the ground. I made sure that I gave him minimal armrest access as punishment for his crime.

Three and a half hours in the sky later, and I’m in Ushuaia, the capital of the province of Tierra del Fuego. And, ooh, it’s a bit nippy. A touch below zero with a bit of a biting wind. How strange. After three months of sunshine and warmth, it’s a curious thing to be somewhere cold. My breath is all visible when it comes out of my gob. My fingers feeling a touch gelid when they’re outside of my pockets. There’s wind on my face, and I’m wearing three layers, with a cap on, and a hood up. Was it really only yesterday that I was sat around in a t-shirt with the ceiling fan on?

Ushuaia, on first impressions, is a fairly ordinary town. A few nice old buildings, but nothing special. And it seems to totally exist for tourists. The one main street is full of stuff for us. It’s like being in Skegness. Well, it’s not, but you know what I mean. But what surrounds the town is pretty special. The Beagle Channel on one side, and wonderful snow-topped mountains on the other sides.

Despite having only a brief nap last night on the plane, I was pretty get-up-and-go when I got here. I dumped my stuff at the B&B; and went out to get myself booked on a boat trip. I did that, then got a map and had a little look around the town. One thing that is immediately obvious here, to a Brit anyway, is how Tierra del Fuegians Fueguinos still seem to believe that the Falklands should belong to Argentina. Look at this inset on the map of Tierra del Fuego, for example:

And there’s some sort of memorial to, I assume, the war dead:

Which looks very cool from the back where it’s just a plain solid green colour to highlight the cut-out Falkland Islands:

Anyway, the boat trip was ace. Saw some cormorants, sea lions and had a walk around on an island. I’ll let the pictures explain, ’cause my laptop battery’s nearly dead and the waitress is giving me “are you gonna order another drink, you freeloading nerd?”-looks.