Day 14 – Ushuaia – Halfway around the world

This could be any town, anywhere in the world. Any town with a port, surrounded inland by snow-capped mountains. From it’s appearance, the delicious apple strudel served in many restaurants or the many languages you hear as you walk down the street, it could probably even be placed right in the middle of the Swiss Alps. But this town is notorious. It is quite literally “The End of the World.”

We have seen many some great scenery today, and I will share a few more pictures with you as time permits, but for now I can only say that the pictures do not do justice to my current surroundings. The Fuegian landscape (“Fuegian” being the proper adjective to describe things related to Tierra del Fuego) is harsh, steep and quite refreshing after the plains of most of Patagonia. There are some ski areas here, though they won’t be in operation for 2 or 3 months yet.

The history of this city bears mention: It was founded in the mid-1800s, and shortly thereafter, seeking to bolster its claims to this land, Argentina established a penal colony here and sent several of its most hardened prisoners here. In fact, they were forced to build their own jail, with wood cut from the area and transported on a railroad. Yep, you guessed it–the prisoners had to build the railroad and cut down the trees. This first jail had cells to hold 8 prisoners. Pretty anti-climactic, but interesting nonetheless. You can still see this jail today, though it holds a hodgepodge of exhibits, and is officially dubbed the “Maritime and Naval Museum of Ushuaia.” Interestingly enough, an exhibit of 100 works by Salvador Dalí, one of my favorite artists, is currently on display here.

The seafood here is wonderful. King crab is the specialty of the house in nearly every restaurant, and other seafood dishes abound. Wine is plentiful, though a bit more expensive than in other parts of the country, owing to the fact that nearly everything in this alpinesque enclave must be shipped in for residents and travelers alike.

Nearby to this industrial port city we find the Tierra del Fuego National Park, noteworthy for its post office that provides “End of the World” seals for your passport, and for the end of Argentina’s National Route No. 3. This road runs for 3,063 km from Buenos Aires to here. As a sign of the no-love-lost relationship with neighboring Chile, however, the official statistics do not include nearly 250 km of this road that cross into Chilean territory. The park also boasts the world's southernmost post office, from which a select few of my friends will be receiving postcards ;-) This apparently is not the world's smallest post office, all appearances aside, as one member of our group said there was a smaller one somewhere in Australia, I believe.


This southernmost city in the world is full of “southernmosts,” many titles no doubt bestowed for the purpose of clever marketing and to attract tourists: The southernmost golf course. The southernmost rugby tournament. And of course, the southernmost Irish pub. I don’t mean to sound cynical here–just the opposite, in fact. Standing in the city closest to Antarctica gives one a bit of perspective. I am nearly halfway around the world from my home, halfway in the vertical, north-south sense, that is. The world now seems just a little bit smaller to me, and at the same time bigger, with many more “-most” places to see and things to do.

Ciao,
- Bob