Visit to the Bottom of the World at Ushuaia

Hi Guys,

Ushuaia Argentina 1February 2011

(Latitude: 57 40'South Longitude: 67 31’'West)

(Time -2 hrs GMT)

Our next port of call is Punta Arenas just north of Cape Horn and Ushuaia,

We woke up this morning to cooler temperatures (9C or 54F) at an early hour as we are to leave the ship at 7:30 am, we leave Ushuaia at 2:30 in the afternoon. Breakfast was hasty at 6:30 and we are in the theatre at 7:15 waiting for our stickers for the coach. The town is neatly laid out nestled in the surrounding mountains of the Andes range. It has the oldie worldie look of New Hampshire or Vermont, many roads are not tarred and there are loads of dogs around. We are told that heating is provided by natural gas but each roof seems to sport 5 or 6 chimneys.

Apparently, the temperatures are not too bad where 9C is typical for a summer’s day but in the winter, the temperatures barely get below freezing (-5C). Some lakes freeze but not all. The trees are short and stocky with multiple trunks. I saw both evergreen and deciduous. There were a lot of lupines, flocks, pansies and ornamental cabbages. We wound around the unpaved roads passed many islands and lakes and there was snow on the mountains. We dressed for the Antarctic but we were pleasantly surprised by the mild weather although overcast, occasional spritz of rain and very little wind. We were later told that they have to give up using the golf course when the wind reaches over 100 kph. Susan and I know the feeling when playing at Greenways.

We came to a body of water which was the Beagle channel, there was a small shack selling tourist mementos, Susan asked for 4 stamped postcards and the bill was US$16. It appears that the locals have us by the cahones. Beautiful scenery but without the sun everything looks very flat. We journey on to “Journeys end” the last place in Argentina looking out to the South Pole 2,300 miles away, a little closer to the South Poles than we see from South Africa.

We return to town and stop at the local pub for a ham sandwich and a beer, very nice, but for the two of us another US$40. We get talking to a retired Texan who is leaving on a ship to the Antarctic for two weeks, weather permitting. I have brought my computer and visit the local internet café and in 30 minutes and $3  I complete more work that I can on the ship in 3 times that time and $20. We meander back to the ship which is just across the road from the town and remember that Ushuaia was an old penal colony which is now closed but they still have 6’ x 9’ oubliettes to see that housed 3 and 4 prisoners 2,000 miles away from Buenos Aires.

Roy Returning to ship Ushuaia

Round the Horn, blowing a gale

Ushuaia from the Aurora

Susan at the "End of the World!!"

The name Ushuaia comes from the Yamana Indian language meaning “ bay penetrating westward”. It is one of the hopping off points for ships and planes to reach the Antarctic. Now, to describe where this most southerly Argentinean city is located maybe difficult; Chile curves around under the tip of Argentina at this point to claim the most southerly outpost, at a settlement called Puerto Williams.

Ushuaia (located 55* South) is as far south of the equator as Carlisle, Hudson Bay and Copenhagen are to the north. As for our Scandinavian friends, Haugesund in Norway at 59.5* N and Tibro in Sweden (58.3*N) is further away from the equator than the “End of the World” in Argentina, however, good friends can live anywhere.

Below and to the west of Ushuaia there is a pebble dash of islands that string out from the Pacific Ocean to Cape Horn. Tierra del Fuego is a province on the Atlantic seaboard  which Ushuaia is the capital city with 45,000 people.

To round Cape Horn, the ship traveled south with Tierra del Fuego to the west. The ship then turned south west along Drakes Passage towards Cape Horn. We rounded the horn (a large rock at the end of the continent) then turned north west along the Beagle channel to reach Ushuaia through a string of islands. We will visit Punta Arenas then leave through the Magellen Passage into the Chileno Sea and into the Pacific Ocean.

Darwin left his mark down here with his visit to the Falklands and various landmarks bearing his name and the ship in which he sailed in 1830s, the Beagle. He also did quite a thesis on the Patagonian Indians who were found in this area. They were hunter gatherers they were quite comfortable running around quite naked in these cooler temperatures. Of the 3,000 discovered, they were extinct in 50 years due to European diseases.