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¡Ay qué temprano, todos!
I woke up on the plane after maybe two and a half hours of sleep, soaring over the snow-capped peaks of the Fuegian Andes and heading for the end of the world… again! My destination today is Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world and a major jumping off point for trips to Antarctica!
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Ushuaia is nestled at the foot of the Martial Mountains and the sharp, craggy Monte Olivia at the east end of town. It’s a relatively new city, founded in 1884, the year that also gave us the first Oxford English Dictionary, standard time zones, the first long-distance telephone call, first glider flight, first flaked breakfast cereal, first roller coaster, first Down Jones stock average, and first photographic film! It was also the year Alaska became a US territory, the year France gifted the Statue of Liberty to the US, and the year that European powers organized their colonization of Africa!
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For me at least, Ushuaia was going to be my home for the days surrounding my cruise. My AirBNB host, Carlos, picked me up at the airport and took me on a quick tour of the city, showing off the casino, the old territorial governor’s house, and of course, the best places to taste Ushuaia’s signature centolla (king crab)! Carlos helped me settle in to the lovely guest room overlooking the city from a hill before telling me about a change of plans.
We were originally supposed to visit Tierra del Fuego National Park today, but the weather service predicted rain. So instead, Carlos dropped me off in the hills nearby to tour the Martial Glacier!
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A lot of guide books say you should skip the Martial Glacier because there are better glaciers to see in Antarctica, but I say humbug! It was a steep hike, for sure, but the storm clouds were really cool over the peaks, and the view of the Beagle Channel was spectacular! Even the moss was worth a closer look!
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I was very glad that Carlos recommended that I come up here, because as I turned to look down the trail, the city of Ushuaia was being swamped with rain! Meanwhile, up at the glacier, it wasn’t terribly cold, but it was very windy. This stretch of Tierra del Fuego is known for its constant, strong winds, but I hear that’s nothing compared to the winds lying in wait at sea!
My camera batteries died pretty quickly in the cold, so I caught a taxi back to Calle Las Orquídeas and shared some tasty sandwiches with Carlos and his wife, Vilma! They were really easy to talk to, and they were really helpful at correcting my Spanish mistakes. After lunch was over, I was off once again to explore the city!
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One of Ushuaia’s main museums is the Maritime Museum, built into an old prison complex! See, Ushuaia used to house one Argentina’s most secure prisons, so far away from civilization that anyone who escaped would have nowhere to go! Nowadays, this old prison gives a really comprehensive overview of the natural and human history of Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, and Antarctica!
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Tierra del Fuego means “Land of Fire,” and it was named by Ferdinand Magellan when he passed by here in 1520 aboard the Trinidad and saw the bonfires of the native Yaghan people on the shore! This area has been a super important marker in maritime history, as many ships had to round the Horn 150 miles south of here in order to get to the west coast of North America or Asia! Charles Darwin also passed through here with Robert Fitzroy in 1832 aboard the ship Beagle, from which this Channel takes its name!
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As a former prison, the Maritime Museum has taken full advantage of its original structure! Each cell has been converted into an exhibit, some on the prison itself, and others on the exploration ships, the systematic destruction of the Yaghan/Yámana, and the fossil record of Antarctica! I saw a lot of parallels between the history of Ushuaia and the history of California, probably because both were settled by missionaries!
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One wing of the prison has been kept in its original condition from 1910, with its dirt floors and eroded walls, even the original bathroom! It was kept cold down there, and it was pretty eerie imagining life here inside the prison, especially with the wind howling outside! Without many options for escape, most prisoners were forced into building the new town and harvesting lumber from the surrounding forests!
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To finish out the day, I headed down to the waterfront to see the famous ATR tugboat, the Saint Christopher! Originally named the HMS Justice when it was built in 1943, the little boat was loaned to the British Navy during World War II, then sold to the Argentinean company Salvamar after the war to be used for rescues in the Beagle Channel! In 1953, Salvamar went bankrupt trying to rescue the German passenger ship Monte Cervantes, and the Saint Christopher, already expensive to maintain, was beached in the harbor, where it is now a well preserved historical monument in maritime history!
The clouds rolled in and ate up the sunset, so I didn’t stay here too long. I wandered the city looking for food, because I was ravenous, but since it was Sunday, a lot of restaurants were closed! So I ended up eating Argentinean Chinese food at the Bamboo Restaurant buffet, which turned out to be pretty darn tasty!
After dinner, I wandered back up the hill to Calle Las Orquídeas, where Carlos and Vilma were watching the Argentinean presidential debate on TV. I had already had it up to here with politics, since the US election has been going on for six months already, so Vilma suggested I go take a shower, a really long one. All the water here comes from the glaciers in the mountains, so she assured me that there were no drought restrictions here! After a long day of wandering around, that was the best thing in the world!
Stay warm!
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