The park is part of the Tierra del Fuego region. The name Tierra del Fuego comes from the Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan who was the first European to come to this area. He saw the many fires (fuego in Spanish) of the Yaghan natives, which were visible from the sea.

The park itself is 63,000 hectares and belongs to both Argentina and Chile. It became a national park in 1960.

I met a girl, Ainhoa from Madrid but living in Canada, on the bus from Ushuaia to the park. We chatted and found out that we were both intending to do the same hikes so we decided to hike together.

Initially we went to the very end of route 3 which goes all the way from Alaska to the park.

We then did a small hike around Lapataia lake through a beech forest. The lake was really calm and you could see the reflections of the mountains and sky in the lake.

We then hiked up to the visitor centre past Laguna Negro which is a peat bog and also passed Laguna Verde.

At the visitor centre we stopped for a coffee and a sandwich before setting out on the Hito trail. This trail was a great hike through the forest around the perimeter of Laguna Acigami, to the border between Argentina and Chile. On the way we met another girl, Yana from New York but living in Santiago, who I met yesterday on the penguin trip.

It was around a 4km hike to the border and when we got to the border there was just a little sign.

You could actually pick up the sign and we did think of moving it a bit further up or down the path but thought it was probably best not to!

It was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to take a little rest in the sunshine on the shore of the lake before heading back to the visitor centre. On the trek back we heard a woodpecker but we couldn’t actually see it.

During the hike we saw a couple of chimangos, which are from the falcon family, and what looked like a wild goose.

We also saw a herd of wild mustang on the drive back out of the park.

As we were leaving the weather started to get windier and colder.

When I got back home, the couple I was staying with (Laura and Dani) had some friends over so we all sat around chatting and I tried some mate tea. It’s really bitter but I actually quite liked it.

A little later the girl staying in the apartment came home. She had just been on a 10 day trip to Antartica and the photos were amazing – another trip to add to my list.

Laura and Dani have a gorgeous dog, Morita, who is really friendly and so well-behaved.