"The Land of Fire"

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Tierra del Fuego is one of the most amazing places in the entire world. I said once (actually more than once, but who's counting) that I would love to be able to live in Mendoza, and the same sentiment goes for Tierra del Fuego. It's not that I have any strong attraction to the city of Ushuaia, in fact while it's nice it's just another one of those tourist towns that seem to be scattered around the world, however I am absolutely in love with the beautiful scenery that overwhelmes everything else. We spent the entire morning and early afternoon on Saturday at the National Park of Tierra del Fuego, wandering around in the forest, looking at the lakes and the Beagle Channel. It was amazing to see the difference between the forests that we have back in Oregon and the ones that they have here. There are only three main tree species, able to withstand the cold and the generally difficult growing conditions of poor weather and invasive species that can only cause damage and inhibit growth. There are also species of bushes, such as the Calafate, as well as various types of ground cover (mainly grass). Interestingly enough, it really reminds me of the Northwest here, just with more extremes. Introduced species are also a big problem here, especially certain animal species. For example, the beaver that was introduced for the fur trade that never caught on and now has no natural predators (think nutria), or the rabbit which was introduced and now runs things here. Or, ironically enough, the grey fox that was introduced to control the rabbit population and then proceeded to decimate the indigenous wildlife populations. Also interesting to hear was that of the entire national park (a ridiculously large number of hectares) only 3% is used for recreation purposes. I was glad to hear that so much of the habitat is being preserved. They seem to have very strict rules within the park, including not being able to hunt any of the wildlife, even the introduced species (a mixed blessing).
After the Park we headed back into town for lunch, followed by a tour of the local museums. Most interesting for me was the information that each of the museums had on the original indigenous groups that populated Tierra del Fuego before the 1900's. Even though the museums seemed to be lacking in really concrete details (I'm sorry, I can't help but ask for details about anthro related topics), I was able to find out some general information about each of the four groups. One of the groups, the Yámana, they seem to have a bit more information about. This group was interesting for me, since they lived in the southernmost area of Tierra del Fuego, and didn't use clothing. Instead they spread the fat of the sea lions that they hunted across their bodies to contain the warmth. They spent most of their time hunting sea lions and fishing, as well as collecting mussells and other types of shellfish. The lived in small huts made from the braches of trees and sea lion pelts and moved in a semi-nomadic fashion. Because of this they would simply go to the bathroom within the huts and move on after a month or two, allowing the mess to naturally be cleaned up by the weather. Everything changed after missionaries started to try to teach the indigenous groups to live in more european styles. They began to wear clothing, which did not protect them as well as their tradtional use of animal fat, as well as staying in permanent houses. The problem with these permanent houses was the fact that nobody taught them to change their traditional method of going to the bathroom, which they still did in their houses. This obviously caused problems (more than problems, illnesses), epidemics became common and most of the groups were killed off by European diseases. Other groups, like the Ona, also were largely killed off. Now there are very few indigenous inhabitants in Tierra del Fuego, possibly so few that they could be counted on your fingers. This is one of the saddest aspects of the history of Tierra del Fuego, in my mind.
Today, Sunday, we took a tour of the Beagle Channel and otehrwise just kind of bummed around in the town of Ushuaia (not much to do here on a Sunday). The Beagel Channel was A-mazing! It was absolutely gorgeous to see all of the mountains encompassing the water, and the wildlife was wonderful. We saw a huge number of different types of birds, including two different types of Commorants (they look similar to penguins, a mix between penguins and birds), but there weren't any penguins around since we're getting close to winter now. We also saw a ton of Seals (Second-Furred is what I think they were called) as well as Sea Lions! It was amazing how close the boat was able to get to the animals without scaring them, and I have some fantastic photos! Basically it was just a very calm and quiet day. We leave for the airport in a few minutes, and basically we're going to fly through the night. Tomorrow morning a bunch of us have to go to class at 9 am, a fact which we all think the director of our program is insane for. We won't get back to our city until 4:30 in the morning! I have a feeling that we might just be falling asleep in our classes tomorrow. Ah well though, this trip has been more than worth the loss of sleep.

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