Fin del Mundo

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Here we are at the ends of the Earth (well almost) and the beginning of our trip through Patagonia. Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world. It is where people embark for Antarctica. It was rainy when we arrived. And it definitely felt at the opposite end of the world from hot and sticky Buenos Aires. No more shorts for us - it is now jacket weather. Considering it is mid-December, being in cold weather makes it feel more like the holidays. It’s hard to believe it is springtime here, only a week until the summer solstice.

It is so foggy it is hard to get a real feel for our new environment, but the Beagle Channel (named for Darwin’s ship) is a beautiful sight and the air feels so clean. We find our hotel and we lucked out with a nice homey one and with nice heaters too! With a rainy afternoon before us, we headed to the town’s museums. The Yamana museum is pretty fabulous with nice dioramas. The Yamana and Ona people were the native people that lived in this area before the Europeans arrived. It is amazing to learn that they wore pretty much nothing and could still tolerate the climate here. We also visited the Museo del Fin del Mundo which has fabulous displays of the birds of the area. The boys couldn’t resist taking pictures of their favorites.

We lucked out with a sunny day on our second day here and took advantage of the good weather to ride the aerosilla (chairlift) to the trailhead to the Martial Glacier. The display about the glacier said that it will be pretty much gone in about 20 years. After a chair lift ride that the boys really enjoyed (they can’t wait to ski if nothing else just to ride the chairlifts) we hiked up to the glacier. It was so unimpressive, it was really hard to tell where the glacier was and where it is just snow. But the views of the Beagle Channel were quite impressive.

In the afternoon we took a boat ride out into the channel to see the sights. The landscape looks so undisturbed to our eye - no obvious logging and re-growth, no roads, no buildings, that you really get the feeling you are somewhere not a lot of people venture and at the ends of the world. We see the lighthouse, sea lions, cormorants, and Penguins. The penguins are great!! What a great trip. Lots of ships here were heading to Antarctica and we meet many people coming and going from there, but Antarctica will have to be another trip for us.

The sun sets at about 11 pm and we were told it comes up about 4 am, but we haven’t been awake early enough to catch the sunrise. It is weird to walk home from the internet café at 11:00pm and have it just be twilight.

We woke up to fog and drizzle on our last day here and headed to Tierra del Fuego National Park for some hiking. It’s a nice, quiet park and feels far away from the town of Ushuaia. We found some easy trails and had some nice views along the water and through some bogs. The forest in the park is made of beech trees, one of which is evergreen and has tiny, tough leaves. Ben said he liked seeing all the nature best. But Theresa thought all the boys most enjoyed skipping stones in Rio Ovando.

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Comments

[susan george]

wow!
Hi all, so great to see such photos, a pristine area and enjoy your commentary. Now are those giant penguins in town a result of global warming?