Ushuaia for Budget Travelers

Ushuaia is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited. And although hotels are expensive, getting around is not. The city is so near the mountains that you can take fantastic photos without even leaving the city. The Martial Glacier is some 4 miles away. Walking along the coastal avenue that faces the Beagle Channel is pure delight. It is the ideal complement for a visit to Calafate, since it is relatively near. Let me give you some hints on how to save money.

Hotels: Most one star hotels (the cheapest) charge between 40 and 50 dollars for a single room and some 70 dollars for double occupancy. I could mention two that are within this price range: the Cabo de Hornos (50 and 67 dollars for single and double occupancy) that has a reasonably priced cafeteria (a hamburger costs here some 3 dollars) and the Mustapic, that has a beautiful panoramic view, and that charges 40 dollars for single occupancy. I stayed at a Bed-and-Breakfast, Flia. Velazquez, on Juana Fadul Street, and paid 20 dollars for a room without private bathroom. Obviously, there was no TV in the room. If you like an "in-between" option, the hotel Albatros (3 stars) is an excellent option, although you will probably have to pay over 100 dollars per night for single occupancy. The best hotel is the Las Hayas Resort (5 stars) but it is out of town on the road to the Martial Glacier, and you do not have other dining options near. In any case, I understand that this hotel charges some 300 dollars per night for a room.

Eating. A plate of spaghetti and a coke will cost you some 5 dollars, and if you want an all-you-can-eat barbecue, you will have to pay over 9 dollars, plus wine, that could cost another 3 to 5 dollars, or more, depending on what you want. A cup of coffee with 2 croissants costs 3 dollars, but you can have it in the cafeteria area of a gasoline station for one dollar and twenty cents. There you can also buy empanadas at half a dollar, sandwiches at affordable prices and some other fast food. You might want to check out (I did not) at La Anonima Supermarket if they sell prepared food. I use that option in Villa Carlos Paz and save a lot of money.

Quick Tips:

There are many beautiful spots where you can take fantastic photos at a walking distance, specially the port area. Martial glacier is only 4.5 miles away. Mountains are maybe 2 or 3 miles away, and you are just in front of the Beagle channel. Navigation of Beagle channel costs anything between 30 and 60 dollars. Lago Fagnano is a fishing paradise, with large brown trout, probably the best place for fishing in all Argentina after the Rio Grande. There are fishing tours to lago Fagnano that cost some 100 dollars per person, including transportation, motorboat and meals. Traffic vans to the Tierra del Fuego National Park leave every half hour from the gasoline station that is next to the port. The round trip to Lake Roca costs 8 dollars and return is open: you can return on any traffic van of the same company. There is a beautiful campground at lago Roca, that you might want to enjoy if you are fond of camping. Restrooms are incredibly clean, and there is a beautiful forest that protects you from the wind. You will see dozens if wild rabbits everywhere. Trout fishing is possible, but not abundant.

Best Way To Get Around:

There are direct flights to Calafate, but they are expensive for foreigners (and even for nationals). The best option is the direct bus service of TAQSA (www.taqsa.com.ar) that will take you over the Strait of Magellan on a ferry, and change to another bus of the same company in Rio Gallegos. The whole trip will take 12 to 14 hours. You will enter Chilean territory on the way, and will go through a Customs and Immigration check in both Chile and Argentina, so make sure you do not need a visa in either country. Car rental is not expensive, but distances are short, and taxis are cheap; a 5 mile trip (Martial glacier) costs 4 dollars, and a traffic van to lakes Escondido and Fagnano (round trip) costs 17 dollars. Buses from Buenos Aires and from Puerto Madryn: Andesmar to Rio Gallegos (www.andesmar.com.ar) and TAQSA (www.taqsa.com.ar) from Rio Gallegos to Ushuaia. Travel time from Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos 18 hours and another 10 hours to Ushuaia. Travel time from Buenos Aires to Rio Gallegos: 36 hours. A stopover at Puerto Madryn is highly recommended. Premium bed service goes as far as Comodoro Rivadavia and continues as regular bed service.

THE CITY OF USHUAIA Ushuaia is delightful. Unfortunately, it is one of the three most expensive destinations in Argentina, together with El Calafate (the glaciers) and Las Leñas (the main ski center in Mendoza). Fortunately, everything is so near that you can enjoy it thoroughly walking around the city. The Martial Glacier is only five miles away; there are panoramic viewpoints with incredible views within a distance of ten blocks, and even the port area deserves a visit if you are interested in taking beautiful and unforgettable photos. I arrived with rainy weather and was afraid that weather was going to spoil my vacations. How mistaken I was! Rain is so soft that it hardly bothers at all, and if you have brought a good raincoat, I suggest that you walk the streets even if it is raining. WHERE TO GO: The road from the old airport to the downtown gives you the opportunity to take beautiful photos, and when you come in from the new airport you can ask the taxi driver to take you along this road (quiero ir a Ushuaia por el camino del aeropuerto viejo o Bahia Redonda). The Municipal Tourist board has taken some incredible photos in this area. To have a glance, just click on this link and then on Ushuaia en imágenes. You will find 30 or 40 beautiful photos of the whole area. I will add some of my own at the end of each experience. A taxi to the Martial Glacier will cost you only $4 each way, and you will have to pay $8 to use the chairlift. If you are a senior citizen, you will pay less than half this rate, but you must request it, or they will charge you the normal fee. The Tierra del Fuego National Park is only 20 miles away, and a traffic van to get there costs 25 or 30 pesos ($8 or $10) for the round trip, depending on whether you go to Lago Roca (my choice) or to Bahía Lapataia (also beautiful, but with no infrastructure). At Lago Roca, there is a beautiful campground and a very nice cafeteria, a few steps away from the lake, near to which you will see many wild rabbits. The sanitary services there deserve a Top Rating. And, of course, you will want to navigate the Beagle Channel. Different options cost from $30 to $60 per passenger. It is the only expensive tour. The $60 tour takes you to Penguin Island (Isla de los Pinguinos). If you are not going to Puerto Madryn or Cabo Vírgenes, south of Río Gallegos, you might want to take this option. Otherwise, I would take the $30 tour, that includes some trekking. I really enjoyed it. You can also go on traffic vans to lake Fagnano, a fishing paradise, where you can fish very nice trout from the shore, or take a fishing tour with a local travel agency for $110 (the Menendez river could be the best option), including transportation, meals and motorboat, not expensive at all. You can still fish 10-pound trout in lake Fagnano. I have seen larger ones caught in the Turbio river, that runs into the lake, but that was a long time ago. You also have the chance of taking a bus to Río Grande, where they still fish 20-pound trout, but most fishing spots are private and they charge astronomical prices to allow you in. But just have a look at the photos in this link.

 

http://www.viarural.com.ar/viarural.com.ar/servicios/turismorural/turismoregionpatagonica/maribety/pesca.htm

http://www.anglerstdf.com.ar/cameron-lodges-fishing-records-1999---2004.htm

Another nice place to go, that I did not visit this time, is the Cerro Castor ski center. It is at an altitude of only 3,500 feet. Incredible, but true. It could be the lowest ski center in the whole world. I have been three times to Ushuaia, and have always found it beautiful. The first time was in 1970, when it was a small village of 3,000 inhabitants. The second time I went, in 1982, the population had doubled. Then the industrial boom set in, with many assembling plants taking advantage of industrial promotion plans. Population increased rapidly to 50,000 inhabitants and now it has settled at 60,000 inhabitants. Ushuaia is a free port but rents are expensive—small shops in shopping centers are costing up to six thousand dollars per month—and unfortunately customers help to pay those high rents. In other words, I would definitely prefer buying imported products at the Iguazu Falls free shop, and not here. Prices will be cheaper than at El Calafate, but in any case you have to walk around and compare prices. I was able to buy Kodak film at $3 each, but before they had requested $5 for the same 36-photo film. I checked out the prices of digital cameras, and the price was similar to what I could find in Cordoba and more expensive than at Iguazú. Eating is not an exception. An "all you cant eat" barbecue costs 28 pesos or $9 (without wine, which is expensive), and a cup of coffee with two croissants costs $3. If you are short of money, let me give you a tip: next to the port, where you will go anyway to take beautiful photos, there is a gasoline station with its cafeteria. There you can have a cup of coffee for 50 cents, and 30 cents for each croissant. And if you prefer cookies, buy a package of "Tía Maruca Pepas". They are tasty, I ate them every other day, and will be enough for 2 or 3 persons. An 8-ounce packet will cost less than a dollar. There you can also buy sandwiches and empanadas, maybe even ham and cheese pastry, for very affordable prices (empanadas cost half a dollar each). If you want a reasonably priced hamburger (I have seen them offered in Ushuaia for more than $5) go to the Cabo de Hornos hotel on the main street, which has a reasonably priced cafeteria, where a hamburger will cost you $3. By the way, the Cabo de Hornos hotel is a one-star hotel that charges lower prices than many others. WHERE TO STAY: The Hotel Las Hayas is the only five-star hotel in Ushuaia and could cost as much as $300 per night. An "in-between" option is the Hotel Albatros (3 stars, very nice) where I stayed the first time I went. It is a lovely hotel in the downtown, while the hotel Las Hayas is half way between Ushuaia and the Martial Glacier (two and a half miles away in each case). If you are looking for one-star hotels, the Mustapic hotel has a beautiful panoramic view and costs $40 per night for a single room, including breakfast, while the hotel Cabo de Hornos costs $50 for one person and slightly more for double occupancy. If you cannot afford those prices, and you are willing to do without cable TV and without a private bathroom, you can find a single room for $20-$25 dollars per night. The Municipal tourist board is on the main street (San Martin) and Juana Fadul, and can give you complete information on hotels, but these are the prices. I stayed at Pensión Velázquez, on Juana Fadul 361 corner Ernesto Campos, and paid $20 for a nice room, but without TV and without private bathroom. This price included breakfast. MUSEUMS: The Museo del Fin del Mundo (End of the World museum) is very small but very interesting. You will see all sorts of embalmed birds, including penguins, a century old store, an old bank office, and historical information and photos. The admission fee is minimal, and it is near the downtown. Ushuaia was originally the Alcatraz of Argentina, since the prison was the first public building constructed there, and the place where the prison functioned has also been converted into a museum. I was only there 3 days and did not have time to visit this museum nor the aquarium (the day I went to visit the aquarium, it was closed). Welcome to the end of the world, Ushuaia, the most beautiful city in Southern Patagonia.

THE MARTIAL GLACIER: I had walked towards the Martial Glacier during my second trip to Ushuaia (1982) but at that time there was no chairlift, so I only walked part of the trail. Now, it is far easier. You have the option of walking up to the glacier, about five miles each way, or taking a taxi to the base, going up on the chair lift, and then walking for another hour or so.  After ten minutes you are already bordering the glacier. I chose this last alternative. The taxi drive only cost $4 each way. There is no need to leave the taxi waiting. Once you have come back down, ask the chairlift office to call a taxi, and the taxi will arrive in a matter of minutes. This time I went twice. The first day it was raining and I preferred to not get soaked on the chairlift and to not risk my camcorder and photo camera. So I just took some photos of the nearby stream, next to which there is a tearoom, and ran back to the taxi. The second time I went, the weather had improved, and although there was a menace of rain, I took the risk. Then the sun started to shine, so I went up on the chairlift, walked about half an hour up the mountainside bordering the stream and then the glacier, took some beautiful photos, and returned to the base just on time. It started to rain when I was getting into the taxi.  There are different paths to go up towards the glacier, but I preferred to take the one that borders the stream, since it seemed safer, and also because it was a nice landscape for filming and taking photos. But even though I did not walk on the ice, I slipped twice and fell on my camcorder. Although I had taken about ten photo films with me, I left most of them with my bag at the cafeteria to keep my hands free for using both the photo camera and the camcorder. I miscalculated the number of photos I was going to take and only took 3 films with me on the chairlift. Don’t make the same mistake. Take at least 5 films, you may need them. There is a cafeteria at the base of the chairlift, more expensive than in Ushuaia, but still affordable. On the top there is a rustic tearoom, where one small glass of Coca Cola costs five pesos ($1.75). I looked at the price list and just walked away.  After walking up the stream for about ten minutes, you start to walk by the first pieces of ice. There is a notice warning you to not walk over the glacier. The reason is simple: the stream runs UNDER the ice, and if the ice is thin where you are walking, the ice could collapse and you could get soaked with frozen water and maybe even get cut with some sharp ice. This glacier may not be huge (the Perito Moreno glacier at El Calafate is far larger) but it has incredible beauty, since it covers the slopes of the mountain. It is one of the newest glaciers in Argentina and it is gradually getting smaller. Some experts say that within 50 years the Martial Glacier will no longer exist. Mountains are low in this area (the highest mountains are 5,000 feet tall) so with warmer weather that seems to be the fate of the glacier. I enjoyed seeing the stream disappear under the ice and appear again 100 or 200 feet further down, then disappear again. The trip up and down on the chairlift is enjoyable, since a good part of the time you are traveling above the beautiful stream that comes down from the glacier. On the way back to Ushuaia you pass in front of the most luxurious hotel in Ushuaia—Las Hayas, 5 stars—and then have a beautiful panoramic view of Ushuaia with the Beagle channel and its surrounding area. This tour, and the tour to lago Roca are probably the most beautiful ones you can take in Ushuaia. And this one is not expensive at all. Don’t miss it.

I stayed many years ago inside this National Park, and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the hostel where I stayed, Alakush, was burnt down and never reconstructed. It was next to the bridge of the Lapataia river, where the largest trout fished half a century ago weighed 17 kilos (38 pounds). I tried fishing in the river, it has beautiful pools, but I was unsuccessful. I also participated in a fishing competition in Lake Roca. It was a rainy day (better for fishing) but I caught nothing. Other fishermen came back with two pound trout. In other words, it is not a fishing paradise, but you will probably fish medium trout. The scenery is very pleasant and, next to lake Roca, there is one of the best campgrounds I have seen in Argentina. There is excellent protection against strong winds, the trees are tall and the forest is very nice. It is very near the shore of the lake, where you will see many wild rabbits running around. They are considered here to be a plague but as they are inside the National Park you are not allowed to hunt them. The distance between Ushuaia and Lake Roca is 20 miles. It is inside the National Park, so you will have to pay an admission fee, though it's not as high as in Iguazú or Bariloche; it is about $6. Transportation to the park is not expensive, $8 for the round trip in a traffic van with return open, so you may come back when you wish, at any time and any day. There is a good food store at the campground, a nice cafeteria, and they even offer kayak tours on Lake Roca. Sanitary services at this campground are excellent. Traffic vans leave from the gasoline station next to the port. You can even walk from Lake Roca to Bahia Lapataia (2 or 3 miles away) and come back on the traffic van from there. If you do, you will enjoy walking along the beautiful Lapataia River and Laguna Verde (Green lagoon). You can also fish robalos (sea bass) in the sea at the bay. There is a train that covers the same route as the traffic vans, but it does not leave from the downtown, and is expensive. The name of the train is "Tren del Fin del Mundo" (End of the World Train) and it has a museum at the central station. It all depends on how much you want to spend. To have a look at it, click on this link, and then on the British flag. http://www.trendelfindelmundo.com.ar/ The whole scenery is very pleasant, either on the traffic van or on the train. Green meadows, forests, Lake Roca, River Lapataia, the green lagoon and then a panoramic view of the Beagle channel, with the chance of fishing rainbow trout or sea bass. It is one of the most beautiful spots near Ushuaia. I have not been to the Cerro Castor ski center, as I went in summer, but want to give you at least the links so that you can decide if you wish to go. Traffic vans do not go there during the Summer season, and it is 25 miles away from the downtown. It is the newest ski center in Argentina. Mountains there are only 3500 feet high, but weather is so cold all the year round, that snow lasts during the whole ski season. Here you have information on this ski center which has 19 runs, and where Nordic ski is practiced. Snow rackets are also used. http://www.interpatagonia.com/castor/index_i.html

Modern lifts, skiing and snowboarding school, and all the services that complement the infrastructure and Ushuaia‘s scenery, convert Castor Mount into a very attractive ski center. A taxi to this ski resort and back, plus two hours waiting time, could cost you $50. Or you can send the taxi back, stay as long as you like, and call for a taxi once you are through. The taxi will probably take about 45 minutes to arrive. In this case, you will probably pay $25  each way. These prices are per taxi, not per person..There is a chairlift at Cerro Castor, that should cost $10 per person. It is not inside the national park, so there is no admission fee apart from the cost of the chairlilft. Enjoy your stay in Ushuaia. I know you will.

You have at least four options for navigating the Beagle Channel. 1) A luxury four day cruise to Punta Arenas, watching glaciers and many unforgettable places. Unfortunately, it is not cheap. Here you have the link at rates, you can always return on a bus: www.australis.com/EN/index.php; 2) The "basic" Beagle Channel tour (2 hours of navigation for some 30 dollars per person); 3) The "basic" tour plus trekking, for some 35 dollars per person; 4) "Penguin Island" for 60 dollars. There is no port fee, nor any national park fee involved in these tours. I took the third option, the basic tour plus trekking and really enjoyed it. All these tours depart from the port of Ushuaia, where you should arrive about half an hour before departure time for boarding passes and documentation. Navigating in front of Ushuaia is always a pleasure. We start off seeing the city in the beautiful scenery of the Andes covered with snow in the background. We then visit a lighthouse in the Beagle Channel (LES ECLAIREURS) where we will see seals and birds, then the Birds island, and after this we will disembark on an island and walk about an hour and a half. The guide will explain (in Spanish) the typical vegetation of the Beagle Channel, and we will reach a panoramic viewpoint from where we will have a 360 degree view of the Beagle Channel. Although I prefer navigating the lakes in Bariloche, this tour is a must if you want to have the complete picture. A snack will be served on board (mate, tea or coffee and cookies).

Other places you can visit in Ushuaia: I have already spoken of the Martial Glacier, of lake Roca, so let me continue giving you the whole picture: Cascadas del Río Pipo. A small stream with some waterfalls. A very pleasant place to visit near Ushuaia. Lake Fagnano. The best trout fishing in Argentina after rivers Grande and Menéndez. I fished a very nice trout from the coast some years ago. But if you go trolling you stand a chance of fishing a six to ten pound trout… If you would like to stay there overnight, there is a 3 or 4 star hotel there (Hostería Lago Fagnano) with similar prices to those of Ushuaia, next to where the Turbio river runs into lake Fagnano. I fished a very nice 20-inch salmon in that river mouth many years ago, from the coast. Lake Escondido. On the way to lake Fagnano. Traffic vans go to both lakes at a cost of some 17 dollars for the round trip. Or you can buy a fishing expedition for some 110 dollars, including fishing gear, meal and transportation.

Museo del Fin del Mundo (End of the World Musuem): A very small museum you can visit in about one hour, with very interesting things to see, like embalmed birds, black and white photos of the Ona Indians, elements the Indians used, uniforms of the local prison, that was the Alcatraz of Argentina, a National Bank cashier’s office, a century old convenience store, the hull of a shipwreck… Give it a try. I was not able to go to the Acquarium (when I went it was closed) but have been told that it is very interesting. And the building where the prison existed has also been converted into a Museum. At the Aeroclub Ushuasia (airplane club) you can take a tour to fly above the Andes, that are 3 miles away from the city and that are only 3,500 to 5,000 feet tall, but that are covered with snow all the year round. Welcome to the end of the world… the city of Ushuaia.