Tierra del Fuego

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Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego; its name sounded so mysterious in my impressionable teens that I took to dreaming I would some day visit this “Land of Fires”, where the first peoples kept themselves warm, 56 degrees south of the equator, by continuously burning the softwood from their forests, producing flames in the night that held the early European explorers, Magellan, Drake and others spellbound, on their trvels around the southern tip of South America.

And now here I was, Penelope in tow, flying out of the tree-ringed Buenos Aires airport, cityscape dancing on the southern sky line, Atlantic shimmering to the east, en route to this far away island, at the end of the settled world, some three thousand kilometres further south.

Four hours later we were hovering over a moonscape view that invoked the feeling of an otherworld; think of relief maps from long gone geography courses, the ones that show irregular concentrics, depicting the shapes and heights of the contour; then, colour them in, down spectrum, in faded greys, browns, jades, creams and greens; strew some boulders around, insert a bog of two into the terrain and bevel in a low rise ledge as a stepping stone down to the gravelled shore. Pensively, we absorbed this scene in subdued silence, awaiting an erie event; but, instead, we arrived through dense and unmoving clouds, in the town of Ushuasia, where Los Andes come down to earth, before disappearing under the Antartic to reappear in Antartica some six hundred miles away.

Awaiting us at the airport, name sign in hand, Maria-Christina, our hostess for the Ushuaia segment, ready to steer us though winds from the Antarctic, urging her young assistant to translate her rapid-fire Spanish introduction to the highlights of Ushuaia (cemetary - is full, sports grounds - play fotbol, cambio for money, ice-cream parlour for yummy, restaurants for evening), onward we plunged through the crowded San Martin main street, totally devoid of traffic lights or stop signs, turning sharply, swiftly to the left, gunning the engine up four exhilaratingly steep blocks, one more left turn and we arrive at a brilliant green house, lupins in bloom, overlooking Canal Beagle.

Tierra del Fugeo; land of my boyhood dreams, where the sun sets on the end of the world.

Vernon

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