My Days on the Beagle (Channel, that Is) - Part II

---

Day 3 (Ushuaia)

Knock on wood, the weather seems to be working in my favor during my stay in Tierra del Fuego. First there was the blue sky during my tour of the Beagle Channel, and now today a morning of overcast but dry, tranquil conditions - perfect for a hike.

I took a mini-bus to the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, just 12 km to the west of Ushuaia (the park actually abuts the Chilean border of Isla Grande - watch where you are walking!). This was my first opportunity to get a taste of what the land looked like when Darwin visited and, more importantly, when the Yámana lived here. And what a land it is!

I followed the Senda Costera trail that hugged the shores of Ensenada and Lapataia Bays, just off the channel proper. Across the water, jagged mountains rose above thick forest. The path itself wound through a tangle of cool-climate rainforest, trees dripping with moss, as well as through stands of evergreen beech. Except for the occasional other hiker or two, I felt like I had the end of the world to myself. The weather, as I said, was remarkably still. The only sounds were those of the birds. It was more peaceful than I can describe.

That is, until just as I reached the end of the trail, at the park visitor’s center, when gusting winds brought the first lashing of afternoon rains (mixed with a few snowflakes!). My timing couldn’t have been better! As long as the famously capricious Fuegian weather works within my schedule, I can’t complain!

One thing I tried to look out for on my hike were mounds that once served as dry-ish camping sites for the Yámana, but either my eyes were not discerning enough or these middens had been reabsorbed into the boggy landscape. Although Darwin was not thrilled by what he saw as the base, “savage” ways of the local population, the more I find out about the Yámana, the more I am impressed. When I first read about them in elementary school (yes, I was a nerd even then), all I knew was that they were a group of people who lived in this cold, wet island with essentially no clothes. How could they possible live like that? How could they survive? I was fascinated. It turns out that they had found a rather ingenious way to adapt to the harsh climate here: rather than wear clothes that would be perpetually damp, they instead rubbed themselves in seal fat. The fat served to keep them both warm AND dry - a sort of invisible wet suit. Only when the missionaries came and insisted that the Yámana put on European style clothing did they begin to sicken and die. Between the new illnesses, like measles, and the wet apparel foisted upon them, they had little chance of surviving. The Yámana and their culture were essentially extinguished by the early days of the twentieth-century, though some descendents still live in Chilean Tierra del Fuego.

To finish off my day in the National Park, I made a foray into the area where the Lapataia River flows into the bay, right next to Chile. But the winds and rain drove me back to the comforts of La Casa. Darwin would have probably done the same.

---