Land of fire

I was certainly in need of my morning coffee when the bus picked me up at 8:40. I'm really of the opinion that alarms should never be set on a real holiday. That said, the lure of a guided tour of Tierra del Fuego was enough to justify the early start.

I was half asleep on the bus as we picked up people at their hotels. By the time we were done there were eleven of us headed in to Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego - the land of fire. It was a very short drive, less than 10km I believe, west of town to the national park.

The tour was designed with a 3 1/2 hour walk along the shores of Bahia Ensenada, followed by lunch and then an hour canoe trip to Bahia Lapataia.

The walk was lovely. Each little cove was equally beautiful and the forest was so pretty with many different kinds of vegetation. I would have taken more pictures but despite checking my battery the night before, it flashed the red "I'm dying" signal about an hour into the walk. Doh! It lied to me last night! At least I got a few shots early on and then I used up what was left at the end.

We experienced every kind of weather on the walk from sun, to gale winds, to rain, to snow. The sky opened up just as we sat down for lunch in a tent at the campground. Red wine, bread and cheese, hot chicken napoleana and brownies! Yum.

They got us into our wellies and rain pants after lunch...just before they told us another tour group cancelled their canoeing because of the winds! Our guides suggested going anyway but from a different launch point that would make it shorter. We all agreed we were game for that option.

It was perfectly safe it was just super cold. The winds were fierce and we paddled twice as far as we needed to as our 'steerers' needed some practice! Once we were cold we were cold and at that point it just became fun (kinda like with the spray snow the other night!)

After the canoe tour they drove us to the end of the road...literally. The end of most southerly road in the world.