Cruising the Beagle Channel.

Today I got up early, packed my things and with the normal flailing of the arms and confused looks that accompany a conversation between two people who don´t share a common language, talked the hotel manager into storing my luggage for the day. It was a point of worry, okay. Let´s leave it at that.

So, with all of that done, I headed down to the pier to book a cruise on the Beagle Channel. As I mentioned, they had two cruises, one visited a penguin colony and the other sea lions. I got stuck with sea lions.

I needed to do my cruise in the morning and the penguin ones left in the afternoon. In any event though, it was pretty cool. We pulled out of the port and headed first to an island filled with rock cormorants. Apparently, they´re similar to penguins, with the major difference being that they can fly. Lucky them.

After that, we cruised over to the Isla de Lobos, where the sea lions were. It was cool. These things are absolutely huge. We also got to see some seals that were there as well. We hung around there for a while and then went over to an island with a lighthouse on it. After the sea lions, it wasn´t very exciting.

In all, the cruise filled up about three hours, which meant I then had to fill an additional seven hours in Ushuaia. This was going to be a problem.

I walked around for a bit and poked my head into a few of the many shops on the main street here. I didn´t buy anything though, except for a few postcards for a certain someone who had better be extremely nice to me from now on.

From there, I headed down to the Museo Maritimo de Ushuaia and the Carcel de Ushuaia y Presidio Militar. That would be a museum on the naval history of the area and the infamous prison that sits just east of downtown. The Maritime Museum is actually inside the former prison...go figure.

Both were pretty cool. The Museo Maritimo had tons of incredibly detailed replicas of the ships the early explorers used in discovering the area. It was neat. They also had a lot of information on Argentina´s exploration and research of Antarctica, which by the way, is less than 700 miles from here. Roughly the distance between Atlanta and, say, Cleveland.

After that, I walked through the old prison. One funny thing on a plaque pointed out that there really weren´t any fences to keep the prisoners in. Apparently the attitude of the government was, when you´re at the end of the earth, you´re not going anywhere soon. They only had one real escape attempt and that came with outside help. He wasn´t gone long.

So, that pretty much concludes my time down here in Ushuaia. Overall, it´s been all right, but if I had left this morning, I don´t think it would have mattered. Besides, there´s a good chance I´ll be back here again.

Why? Well, there´s only one kind of cruise I want to go on, an Antarctic cruise, and guess where they leave from.

Talk to you all tomorrow from Buenos Aires.