We docked during the night, so I woke in the morning and saw this.
Pronounced “oo-shwhy-ya”, this is our first port in Argentina. This is another port that cruises to the Antarctic launch from. We had several sharing our pier.
I signed up for a S.A.L.T. sponsored excursion. There was a bit of a drive to get to the farm that we were visiting, and we had to cross the local hills. We stopped on the return trip to take more pictures. If I lived here, I’d never get any work done as I would be looking at the landscape all the time.
We drove over an hour on dirt/gravel roads. For a moment I thought we were kidnapped for body parts. But then we saw a channel and identified mussel farms in the shallows. We passed many crab shacks and other beat-down metal buildings. And then found this oasis.
First, we had a tour of the farm. Starting with dead trees? Seems Argentina imported a couple dozen beavers year ago, with the intent of starting a fur industry. But now there are thousands. When beavers make a dam, the rising water drowns all the trees in the basin.
The farm grows all kinds of flowers and fruit. There were dozens of strawberry green houses. I just missed getting a cool picture of a bee on raspberries.
I don’t know why I was drawn to this single blueberry.
Within the green house strawberries need 2 liters of water per day via drip pipes installed within the black plastic wrapping. After five years of growing strawberries, the ground has to be refreshed with other product.
Inside the cafe it was nice and cozy. It would not be out of place at any roadside stop. Being so far from town they installed dozens of solar panels on the roof and surrounding grounds.
They laid out a fantastic buffet for us: giant strawberries, strawberry juice to drink, seafood empanadas and stew. I didn’t know king crab lived in the far South America waters. I was popping king crab legs like french fries.
I loved how they served the king crab legs in a wine glass. The empanadas has a flaky, croissant crust that I had not tasted before.
The tour and food were great. I’m not sure it was worth the dirt road trip to get here and back, but that’s in the past now. Tonight, we will cross our southern-most point and make our way to the Falkland Islands.
Note: internet real crappy right now. I had to wait for late evening to try to load images, even when I saved them to 200 KB, which is one-third what I could upload three weeks ago. It should get better from now on.