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Published: January 27th 2013
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Tierra del fuego where the andes finally meet the sea has become known as el fin del mundo only Antartica lies beyond some 100o kms away. The end of the world and everywhere you see it from the last train to be ridden to the last beer to be drunk a lesson in marketing!!! It is made up of a main island and several smaller ones divided between Argentina and chile and is separated from the rest of South America by the straits of magellan. It is so named because when ferdinand Magellan discovered it in 1520 he saw a series of fires along the coastline as the indigenous indians tried to warn their fellow peoples of the dangers to come , and how right they were.
We flew to the city of Ushuaia gateway to Antarctica and looking out across the wonderful Beagle Chanel with the Andes cradling it from the rear, is the southern most city in the world. It reminded us of a skiing town out of season slightly rundown but with an aire of something about to happen. It is arranged like other cities in a grid system However , turning right or left
to get where I wanted to go seemed a bit of a map reading issue. I think I had this problema in Perth – eeek!!
We had splendid views of the city as we came into land and the weather continued to surprise us with unusually high temperatures. Ushuaia was founded as a penal colony as the government of the time (1885) wanted to populate the area, they even shipped in women to help with the process!!! . Lou and I visited the Ushuaia museum which is housed in the old prison and told the story of how the prison functioned to try and grow the town. It also contained the naval history of the area over 500 years, together with the story of the local indigenous Yamana people whose tribal destination was one of disease starvation and death brought to them by the Europeans of the 19
th and early 20
th century. We came away rather bleary eyed and full of knowledge which promptly flew away again!! WE ate in a fab restaurant on our first night way up in the foothills with spectacular views across the channel. And had an equally splendid meal the next evening of local
fish and crab to engage and delight the palate Al left us the following morning to embark on his sailing round the Horn adventure, I do hope he will be ok it will be a major sail and he is very excited , we don’t expect to hear from him but you never know!!
Lou and I had a very interesting tour of the nearby Park Nacional Tierra Del Fuego, the following morning. It is a beautiful place of 266 square miles to protect the lenga nire and coibue forests ( species of ash), It has glaciated lakes and valleys and a magnificent pristine coastline with bays and enchanting islands. We visited the end of the world train station, the railway itself just 7 km long - yes well it had to be done - was originally built by the prisoners to move food and wood about. We then were able to walk and sample a little of the parks beauty. We really didn’t have enough time to do more of the latter which was a shame, as we spotted a number of off piste trails which looked inviting. We did see a huge woodpecker doing a grand job
of felling a rather large tree. He was so high up that my shots of him were rather dark but we heard him very well!!
Just an observation so far , we really haven’t seen or heard many Brits either in Buenos Aires, Calafete or here, there are lots of other Europeans , Argentinians and American tourists we seem to be in the decline- oh dear!!!
I will end here as the next part of this adventure is at sea for four days !! so see you in the zodiac boats though not for a while as I am not sure what the communications will be like.
Keep warm
xxxxx
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