Ushuaia, Argentina – the city at the end of the world

After traveling through the Beagle channel (see photo above), following the same route as Charles Darwin's ship, the Beagle, we finally arrived at our first Argentinian port of call – Ushuaia.

There is a lot of rivalry between Chile and Argentina about who has the southernmost city in the world. Technically, Chile has a few people living on Puerto Williams (an island south of here). But with only 2400 people, it is more of a settlement rather than a city. Therefore, Ushuaia rightly deserves it's title of city at the end of the world.

As you can see, many ships pass through this busy port. It is the starting place for a lot of boats that are travelling to Antarctica. There was another big cruise ship at the dock, but most of the vessels heading south were small. That is because the powers that be are trying to preserve the region. By Antarctic law, no boat carrying more than 500 people is allowed to land on Antarctica. They can sail through the waters (although they are thinking of banning this after 2011), but they can't dock there.

Ushuaia is kind of like a frontier town (the way Alaska probably was back in the 1960s). Over 80% of the people here are under 30 and most of them only come here to make a few bucks and then return home to northern Argentina. Because of it's isolation, this area was once used as a penal colony for the country's worst offenders. One day, the guards were sleeping on the job and the prisoners took over the place and burned the town to the ground! Nowadays, the prison is a popular museum and tourist attraction (like Alcatraz).

One of the reasons that Chile and Argentina are fighting for the end of the world title is so that they can use it to promote tourism. I boarded a tour bus and headed off to visit the post office at the end of the world.

Then we headed off to see the end of the Pan American highway. After 17,000 kilometers, the highway (which started in Alaska) ended in the Tierra del Fuego national park.

I'm sure that on a nice summer day the park looks lovely. However, on this particular summer day, it was pouring rain. The only people more disappointed than us were the campers in the park who were huddled in their leaking tents!

This is the last place in the world where I would expect to find naked people. I always figured that cold weather is what motivated people to invent clothing. But the native people of the region, the Yamana, didn't wear clothes. You would think that in this neck of the woods they would be covered from head to toe in fur, but instead they ran around smeared in seal grease and body paint.

Our tour guide said that the temperature in winter only goes down to 5C or 6C and that summers generally hover around the 20C to 25C range. Since it doesn't get really cold (like minus 10C below), the seal grease kept them warm. I guess it did because I remember that when swimmers try to cross Lake Ontario, they usually grease themselves up before getting into the cold water.