30 Jan Ushuaia

Monday 30 January  Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire)

Up at 5.30 as always, after a very cooold night. I slept in the weatherproof jacket inside the sleeping bag. All packed and ready to go and . .  Bob wouldn’t start!!

Gone are the tshirts of 2 days ago, replaced by every item of clothing and blanket/sleeping bag we can get our hands on

Freezing but smiling still

After going through the 'donated items' suitcase for extra layers, Koen got all dressed up in this bright poncho

Several hours fiddling with fuel lines and eventually we were off. Hour or so to first border post then back into Argentina. Sam managed to get them to put both stamps into tight corners, saving precious passport pages. The last page filled up with 3 carelessly placed stamps. Better still, we got HOT CHIPS and ketchup. Colin promised to beep when we came to the airfield from which the Argentines launched most of their airstrikes against the Brits in 1982, including the ones which caught the Welsh Guards on ships without air cover and also sank the Atlantic Conveyer.

The airfield turned out to be a widened part of the road we were driving on. Another made up lunch from a supermarket in Rio Grande and then a couple of hours to Ushuaia -  the southernmost city in the world. We are now 55 degrees south and have come 20 degrees since leaving Buenos Aires only 3 days ago.

The vegetation changed abruptly to some sort of scraggly pine forests – usually very close together so that little light penetrates – must be like the Black Forest? These were all wild forests not plantations. The mountains came closer, scattered with snow, then finally the port and the Beagle Channel, named after Darwin’s boat.

Lake

Bob - living on the edge

Coming into town - yay

Lots of alpine type houses

Seen these old busses everywhere

 A busy evening at the hostel, repacking for cold weather (zero degrees forecast for the next 3 nights) and planning our hiking and cruising activities while we are here.

We set out to try one of the lamb roastery places but ended up instead at the Argie equivalent of a steakhouse for the domestic market. This was riiiight at the end of the main street. There was a small conventional seating area round the back but we sat with the locals at a bar counter facing the cooking griddle behind.

 There was a big hotplate on the right where the chef was cooking burgers to order. HUGE monsters with absolutely everything. Ham, cheese, broken fried egg, salad, the works. On the extreme left was a stack of partly cooked meat quietly grilling away over dimly glowing coals. Black blood sausages, beef sausage, spreadeagled chickens and great joints of steak. J ordered a burger and chips, which was a monstrous great feast. I went for a "milk steak" on the waiter's recommendation. He took me to a diagram of a cow and showed me a section round about where I understand fillet to come from.

The chef asked how I wanted it done (in Spanish) and was smart enough to recognise "medium" in reply. He took one of the slabs of steak and considered it for a moment then drew a large knife through it near the middle. He put one chunk back on the grill and then sliced about a 2" thick slab off the other and popped it on a plate.The remainder also went back on the grill. He handed me the plate and that was it! No buggering around with chips or salads. This was steak Argentine style.

The meat was faintly pink in the middle and released clear juice. It had a slight "skin" around the outside which had sealed in the juice and then the inside part simply fell apart on the fork. We realised afterwards just how heavily salted everything on the grill was - minimum of about a teaspoon either side. No obvious seasoning other than that. It was cut unlike any steak I had ever seen before. More or less a 2" square cross section and about 8" long. Not huge but very generous by any measure (small change from $10 Australian). It almost "flaked" and had a delicious juicy taste. Perfect with a couple of Argentine lagers.

It was literally freezing outside but facing the grill we were toasty warm and the waiter and chef took time to give us Spanish lessons. It was a really pleasant couple of hours sampling a very authentic Argentine experience. We realised later that they don't open for dinner at all until 8.30pm! The chef said he had a 12 hour day around a 3 hour lunch break, about 8 hours off and then 6 hours on again. it was almost 11pm when we emerged but it was still twilight.

Apart from the salt, we noticed that the chef was knuckling some of the other 1" steaks that came raw from the back kitchen onto the hotplate to shape them, then wiped his hands on a cloth and put salad onto the burgers. Hmmmm. Oh well . . . he has probably been doing it that way for years and hardly any of his clients would have complained about fatal doses of salmonella