October 14, 2019
We were up early, and our driver was waiting for us before 6:30 am. Off we went to Aeroparque Jorge Newbery. Yesterday the traffic had been light because it was Sunday, and today it was light again because it was a national holiday. It used to be called Día de la Raza, the equivalent of Columbus Day, but former president Cristina Fernández had renamed it, and also banished the statue of Columbus to the edge of the river. Our driver was definitely not a Cristina fan.
We had left too early for breakfast at the hotel, so once we were at the airport and had checked in for our flight to Ushuaia we stopped at a coffee bar and got tea and a chocolate chip muffin. Wow, was that muffin ever loaded with chocolate chips!
Going through security was quick, so we were soon at the gate waiting for our flight. Once on board we slept for the first hour or so. Flying over the Andes was spectacular; they were definitely very snowy at this time of year.
In Ushuaia a taxi whisked us from the airport to our hotel, Hotel Austral. It’s a small family-run hotel a few blocks up from the main street. We’d told them we would be a day late, and they had kept the room for us. It felt so nice to finally be back on schedule! Finally it felt like we were on holiday.
It was cloudy out, but not raining, so the first order of business was to get some lunch, which turned out to be two Berliner doughnuts. Down at the waterfront it was 8°C with a cold wind blowing but we had brought warm clothing so we were fine. Nearby there were some ponds with had viewing platforms and boardwalks. Bahía Encerrada was a good place to find birds and we spent a couple of hours watching them. There was a variety of water birds and, besides the ubiquitous Rufous-collared Sparrow, we saw a flock of Black-chinned Siskins which were very hard to photograph.
We stopped for hot chocolate and then went to meet up with our friend Karen, who was staying in a small apartment before the cruise. It was on the main street and it was quite nice. We chatted for quite a while about travel experiences, including our recent experiences in arriving here. Her experience had been worse than ours because she had been trapped in the Buenos Aires airport with thousands of other frustrated travellers.
Neither of us wanted much for dinner, but we found a restaurant with a lot of customers where Rosemary had chicken with mustard sauce and Paul had stuffed trout, which was really good. Back in our room Rosemary spent some time learning how to use her new camera and setting up all of the menus, and it was just about midnight by the time we got to bed.
October 15, 2019
Today was not a rest day, either. We had a two-day birding trip around Tierra del Fuego booked through local bird guide Esteban Daniels. Fortunately we had gotten through all of the delays and arrived in time for the trip. We woke up to the alarm and then repacked our bags and had a quick breakfast.
Esteban’s associate Gastón Bretti picked us up at 7:40 am, we picked up Karen a few minutes later, and then we headed out. It was a beautiful day, with the sun shining on the mountains and the recently fallen snow. We followed the main road out of Ushuaia towards the northern part of the big island of Tierra del Fuego, stopping frequently to look for birds.
Right away we found a White-throated Caracara, a new species for both of our life lists. (We would end the day with five lifers for Paul and eight for Rosemary.) The road led through a snowy valley with lots of winter sports locations and then up to Paso Garibaldi. The view from the pass was spectacular and the scenery was gorgeous.
After a couple of birding stops we stopped in Tolhuin, a small town with vacation homes, for a bathroom stop and coffee. Rosemary went out for a quick walk to take some photos of the town.
Back on the road the scenery was interesting, as we were now in the steppe part of Tierra del Fuego. We arrived in Rio Grande, a big industrial town, and went to our hotel, Posada de los Sauces, to have lunch in their restaurant. Both of us had Chicken Maryland, which was a breaded chicken breast in a white sauce with banana and shoestring potatoes. The banana was incredible.
We saw several good species in the steppe, but our two main targets for the afternoon were Magellanic Plover and Ruddy-headed Goose. To see them we drove out to Estancia Flamenco, which was down 28 kilometers of unpaved road.
Gastón stopped at the ranch to ask permission for us to bird on the property, and then took us to a lake where the plover is often found. We walked to the nearest point on the lakeshore and Karen said “There it is!” Okay, we headed over to the area where the goose is often found. There was an offal pile there covered with Kelp Gulls but Rosemary said “Isn’t that them?” Sure enough a pair of Ruddy-headed Geese was there in the field.
We headed back to Rio Grande, arriving back at the hotel at about 7 pm. We spent a while updating eBird and editing photos, but the internet was very slow so it was a frustrating exercise. Dinner was at 8 pm and we just had a light meal of pasta.
October 16, 2019
After breakfast we loaded up the van and headed off to do some more birding in the Rio Grande area before returning to Ushuaia. Right away we found a Snowy Sheathbill on a beach; it’s a good bird because (like the Magellanic Plover) it’s the only species in its family.
We puttered around various locations trying to distinguish Baird’s Sandpiper from White-rumped Sandpiper—very hard to do unless you get a good look at the rump. We ended up at an ordinary-looking piece of open land south of the river. After we drove around it for a while we found several Least Seedsnipes nearly hidden in the grass. But the most interesting sight of all was the Two-banded Plover with three very tiny chicks which Rosemary spotted!
Unfortunately this area was in the path of a housing development, so future birders may have to look elsewhere for seedsnipes.
The temperature today was much colder than yesterday, so anytime we could be in the van was welcome. We stopped at a gas station to get empanadas for lunch, and then as we drove south we left the clouds behind and it became much warmer in the sunshine.
We stopped at Garibaldi Pass lookout again, where Karen spotted a condor flying high above, and then continued back to Ushuaia. The weather was picture perfect and people were out on the streets in shorts and tank tops.
We checked into Hotel Los Naranjos, our hotel for the next three nights. Our room was very nice with a view overlooking the water. The traffic noise was quite loud but the views made up for that. We were both hungry so rather than waiting for Argentina dinner time we headed out to the Tante Sara restaurant, which we knew would be open. Paul had a club sandwich and Rosemary had a hamburger; both were quite good.
October 17, 2019
For the last two days it had just been the three of us in the van with our guide, Gastón. But today there was a bigger van with Gastón, eleven passengers, and a driver. The van picked us up and away we went.
We were supposed to be going to the Garibaldi Pass area to look for mountain birds, but due to the snow level it was decided to go to the Martial ski area, just above Ushuaia. However when we arrived at the ski area we saw that the snow was still low down and also very icy. Some of us tried walking up the trail but it was soon clear that the snow was too icy to be safe. So we birded the parking lot instead. There were a few birds there but no chance for seeing alpine species.
The rest of the morning was spent birding around Ushuaia. We stopped at the dump, which is an eBird hotspot; there were lots of gulls and caracaras there, which were to be expected, and also a couple of Black-chested Buzzard-Eagles. It was quite a spectacle and didn’t really smell too bad.
After lunch (sandwich and alfajor) we went for a short walk near a residential area west of the city. It had been rainy this morning but now the weather had improved and the sun was even shining for a while. Gastón called in a Magellanic Woodpecker, a very large bird and very photogenic. He tried for a pygmy owl as well but wasn’t successful.
Before heading back to the town we stopped by Bahia Encerrada, the lagoons we had visited on our own when we first arrived. There weren’t as many birds there today, though.
We joined Karen for dinner at her hotel, the Fueguino Hotel, tonight. It was a nice dinner; Rosemary and Karen had lamb stew and Paul had trout. This restaurant was more expensive than anywhere else we had eaten in Ushuaia, but their food was very good.
Today we got an e-mail from Rockjumper: our cruise plans have changed! Instead of boarding the ship on the 19th, we’ll be flying to Buenos Aires very early on the morning of the 19th and boarding the ship there instead. That’s because the ship was delayed by a problem on board and we would otherwise have to stay a couple more days in Ushuaia.
October 18, 2019
Another day trip today, this time to Tierra del Fuego National Park. Our guide was Gastón again, but this time in a larger bus with 15 passengers.
On the way to the park we passed through several new housing areas, some which were social housing. The park is at the end of Route 3, the Pan-American Highway, and our first stop was at the visitor center. We did a couple of one-hour walks in the area, on trails which were quite wet and muddy.
On the first walk Gastón tried to call in a pygmy owl, but no luck in that area. So we headed back to the visitor centre for a brief break; we checked out the gift shop but didn’t see anything we wanted to buy. On the second walk Gastón tried again for the pygmy owl, but again no luck. But then we heard a Magellanic Woodpecker tapping, so Gastón used some broken-off branches to drum on a log. That brought the woodpeckers—there was a pair—closer and we were able to seem them searching for grubs really well.
After returning to the bus for our bag lunch we went down the road to the very end, at Lapataia. There was an “End of the Highway” sign there, and we recognized from the last time we were in Tierra del Fuego, way back in 2003. We had come on a day trip to the park and had our photo taken then, so we had our photo taken today for comparison.
One of the objectives for today’s trip was the Flightless Steamer-Duck, and there were about 20 of them in the bay, really easy to see. By now it was after 3 pm so we headed back to the bus to return to Ushuaia. On the way back we noticed that the bus in front of us had stopped on the road, so we pulled in behind it. Lucky we did because there was an Austral Pygmy-Owl! Yeah, a good bird to find.
Back in Ushuaia we were dropped off first so we headed up to our room. There was a meeting at 7:15 pm to find out more details about tomorrow, so we met up with Karen for an early dinner at Tante Sara. After the meal we went down to the Hotel Albatross, where the meeting was to be held. Once we found the right room there the meeting basically told us what we already knew, just filling in a few details about the reasons for the delay.
The bus would be picking us up at 2:30 am tomorrow morning, so by 9 pm we were in bed and shortly fell asleep.
West Coast Hikers Around The World 