Two points to visit on National Route 3 on the way to Ushuaia: Carbajal Viewpoint and Tierra Mayor Valley.

Besides being a perfect place to enjoy long walks in the mountains or short rides in the city, Ushuaia's surroundings also offer space for good drives. Due to its location on the map, this city is entered and exited by the same route if you arrive by land, so even before entering the city you can enjoy beautiful landscapes. The scenic stretch of National Route 3 offers a lot of photographic corners that are worth seeing. And if you arrived in the city by plane like me, you definitely can't miss a visit to this route.

Ushuaia is a city located inside Tierra del Fuego Island and the fastest way to get there is by plane. However, if once there your intention is to visit the mountains to the north, you must take National Route 3. This route is very popular for the most famous trekking of all, the one to the Esmeralda Lagoon, 18 km away from the city, but on the way you can also see interesting landscapes just by getting out of the car for a while.

During my stay in Ushuaia I had the opportunity to make many new friends through Couchsurfing. Most of them were local people who were eager to walk around a bit with tourists and show them around. In the first few days I met Saul, who told me about how beautiful this route is. He was the one who offered me a personalized tour to get to know these places better. Our first stop was at Mirador del Valle Carbajal, 14 km from the city. In this place there is a space prepared to receive visitors, with informative signs and space to rest, in addition to the view of the mountains.

The next stop on our drive was about 6 km further on. In the middle, we passed the parking lot to go to Laguna Esmeralda and it was full of cars, as usual. But we kept going until we reached another less crowded point on the route, called Valle de Tierra Mayor. This place was a large field with peat and mountains in the background, plus a restaurant and service center.

This valley was completely clear in the spring, but in the winter is when it is covered with snow and functions as a cross-country ski slope. In the meantime, it is just a valley where you can walk freely, as long as the peat allows you to do so. In case you don't know, peat is decomposing organic material that has been produced where there used to be glaciers millions of years ago. These soils are wet and appear spongy, so you should walk carefully on them if you don't want to get your feet wet.

Visiting these valleys is a quiet option if you want to see a little more of Ushuaia's landscapes without having to walk so far. At the time of our afternoon visit, the restaurant was closed but we still took the opportunity to walk around a bit, while my new Couchsurfing friend told me what it was like to live in Ushuaia permanently and I told him all about the journey I had made to get there. I like the experience of meeting people through this traveler's app, because you can always have interesting moments like these.

What I liked about this walk was that we were able to do it on the half afternoon I had free on a Saturday after work. Getting 20 kilometers away from the city doesn't take that long and allows you to see beautiful places like these. Even though it was in the middle of spring, it was still very cold and the weather was quite changeable, but that's all part of visiting Ushuaia. Meeting a new friend and sharing a walk together was a good anecdote during the trip: I was glad to have visited these beautiful places without having to walk for hours and hours.

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