Laguna Emeralda

At 05:30 we arrived at the main bus terminal in Ushuaia. We weren't sure if we still had our hotel reservation because the credit card had declined 😅 But we still tried and the very confused and unwilling receptionist accepted our money so that we could get three hours of sleep 🥲 It could've been a little bit more but we didn't want to miss out on the breakfast 😁
Then we checked out and walked to the new hotel where we're going to stay for the next three nights. At least when we arrived we could already go directly to our room and drop off the luggage. Because next up we needed to get the Argentinian pesos from Western Union. There wasn't a long queue but we saw a sign that they accept rapidpay, a system to pay invoices in cash. We had seen that for a connection flight we needed and booked the flight while waiting and directly paid it after getting the money. Very efficient planning 😅 Also we're set again for the next time... Then we returned back to the hotel to refreshen up and unpack our backpacks.

Next up we went to the tourist information to see what we're going to do today and tomorrow. They helped with some information and we booked the "End of the World" train for tomorrow. At the bus stop we asked for transportation to the Laguna Emeralda and they had a departure at 2pm, so just half an hour later. We grabbed a quick lunch at the gas station next door and then departed to the trailhead of the laguna about 18km away. The height profile looked pretty easy but it was estimated a 4 hour roundtrip for the 9 km. The biggest issue was that the trail consisted of mud for most of the way and we had the 4 seasons changing, from nice, warm sunshine over cloud cover to hail and rain 😵‍💫 But luckily by the time we reached the laguna it was sunny and we had some snacks enjoying the scenery. When we came back to the trailhead we still had more than 2 hours left before the bus would've picked us up. So we decided to split the taxi fare into town with another one waiting there...

Back at the hotel we settled in and relaxed. Julia caught up on some missed sleep in the evening while I went out and explored a bit the town center (basically just one street 😁). At the supermarket I got some snacks for tomorrow's tour and I returned soon afterwards to also catch up on sleep 😴Read more