South America Off The Beaten Path Tips by globetrott Top 5 Page for this destination

Fireland: a great museum of whale-bones

Museo Acatushun de Aves y Mamiferos Marinos Australes is the full name of a small museum in Estancia Haberton / Fireland, where you will see a large collection of whale-bones inside and outside of the building. It is a walk of 10-15 minutes to get there by foot from the ship and you normally will have enough time to go there and take a look at least at the whalebones that are displayed OUTside of the building.
Museo Acatushun is where you enter the farm-area, when arriving by car, in a distance of maybe 1500 meters from the main farmbuilding / restaurant of Estancia Haberton.
The entrance to the garden of the farmbuilding is also decorated by a gate made of whale-bones, see it in my last picture !

Website: http://www.acatushun.com/eng-frmain.htm

Fireland: Puerto Haberton

Estancia Haberton & the first white settlers in Fireland
Estancia Haberton was the first settlement of the europeans in Tierra del Fuego / Fireland.
It is still a farm today and includes a great museum of whale-bones, a good restaurant and a lot more ! Haberton is also a great daytrip from Ushuaia: take the boat or drive there by car, in both cases you will almost need a whole day to explore everything there.
A day in Haberton takes you back into the past, as in this place it seems they did not thrown away anything, but kept it for spare-parts or what-ever and so you can still see old washingmachines, a sawmill, various cars, trucks and boats - read more about in my Haberton-page !

Website: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/1ffe4/177169/

Fireland: San Pablo & the wreck of the Desdemona

San Pablo is a really tiny village at the Atlantic Coast of Tierra del Fuego / Fireland. The wreck of Desdemona is more or less the only sight in San Pablo, that is not even a village, but rather a few houses and an old motel, that is not used anymore and most of its windows are broken.
You will see the ships-wreck of the Desdemona already a long time in the distance, but it takes some time,until you will find the best path to get there. In any case you have to walk the last 200 meters on the beach, through the muddy ground, but it was worth it.
See the size of that ship, when you click on my last pic and see my brother with his video-camera in comparison with the ship !
When driving along the dust-road to San Pablo you will see a great and scenic landscape, with several narrow brooks, wild sheep and cows and even some guanakos - and when you are lucky you will not meet them, while they are trying to cross the street and running into your car ! We saw one crossing the road ahead of us and a group of 6 guanakos in the forest next to the street.

Website: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/1ffe4/176e18/

Fireland: Misión Salesiana de Santo Domingo

Misión Salesiana de Santo Domingo is a small village in the north of Rio Grande and it was there, where the first monks from Europe started to build a mission and teach the locals how to improove agriculture.
Nowadays the Misión Salesiana de Santo Domingo is at one side a national monument and at the other hand it is still a well-known school for agriculture and while we were walking around the mission we saw quite a lot of pupils of all ages there, a part of them was riding on horses close to the school and we could hear some others in the classrooms. The founder of the salesianer-monchs, Don Bosco from Torino / Italy, can be seen on top of the school-entrance
Dont miss to take a look inside the small church of the mission, it dates back to the year 1898 and it has an interesting interior. You can enter it freely and without restrictions, you just have to find the right entrance of the long fence that was built around the church.
Museo Monsenor Fagnano is the name of the interesting museum is one of the side-buildings of the mission. You will find a lot of exhibits about the 4 native tribes, who where living in Fireland, when the monks of Don Bosco had arrived. These tribes were water-nomads, travelling from one place to the other and they were dressed only with thin furs all year long. Just think of the icy winds even in summertime here and you might understand, that they were eating only meat and fish and they even had a different ordinary body-temperature of over 38 degrees celsius ( human beeings normally will have 36,8 degrees and everything above 37 is feever and you have to stay in bed with such a temperature) These tribes died shortly after the arrival of the white men, partly because they got diseases they were not used to, partly because the white men were hunting there as well and did not leave enough food for the tribes.
You will see 2 locomovils (my 3rd picture) displayed in the garden of Misión Salesiana de Santo Domingo and when you get to Ushuaia,you will find another locomovil inside the innercourt of the prison-museum.

Argentina: Montes Martial, a glacier in Ushuaia

Montes Martial is a glacier high above the town of Ushuaia, the southernmost town on earth. You can take the bus up there or you drive in your own car, it is a drive of just a few minutes and you will be able to touch snow and take a little walk and of course you will also have an excellent view of the bay of Ushuaia and its surrounding mountains.
There is a great mountain-restaurant as well, we had an excellent vegetable-soup there.

Website: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/1ffe4/17765c/

Argentina: Isla Martillo, a penguin-island

Penguins are the main attraction of Isla Martillo, a small island in the Beaglechannel,
rather close to Puerto Willimas and Haberton.
In case that you would like to walk around Isla Martillo you have to take one of the
organized bustours from Ushuaia, BUT ask there as well, how long you will be allowed to stay
on the island.
I just saw it from some distance, from the catamaran going to Haberton and there also were
not a lot of penguins at this place at the beginning of November. November is their breedingtime and
the chicks will be there from December onwards.
There are 2 possibilities to take a look at Isla Martillo:
1) Take a fulldaytrip to Estancia Haberton by ship from Ushuaia and Isla Martillo is a place, that you
will visit on the way to Haberton. The ships are not leaving daily, but 2-3 times a week and mostly 2
different shipping-companies will start at 09.30am in Ushuaia. You will pass by the lighttower at the end of the world from quite some distance and you will stop at Isla Martillo ,an island with penguins : the catameran is getting close to the beach there, BUT you have no chance to get out, after 10 minutes the ship is leaving again there for Haberton, where you will get a guided tour and will have some extra time to walk on your own or go to the cafe / restaurant of Estancia Haberton.
Before you get to Haberton, you are able to order a 3-course-menu for about 30 ARG $ (=7,50 Euros) onboard.
Calculate some extra 30 minutes to get your ticket and to embark after a time-consuming check-point, when entering the port-area.They will insist of all your handbags, camerabags etc. scanned like at the airport and several ships are leaving all at the same time !
2)Take a bustour by "Pira-Tour" to Isla Martillo and you will be able to even WALK on the penguin-islands , while all of the ships-tours, that advertise this Penguin-island as well will just get close to the island and you are just able to watch the penguins from the distance.
Pira-tours is offering the tours from Ushuaia to Isla Martillo in combination with a tour to Estancia Haberton, a large farm that once was the very first farm of the white settlers in Tierra del Fuego / Fireland.

Website: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/1ffe4/17765b/