Welcome to Patagonia, the End of the Earth!
January 31-February1, 2019, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina — Until I signed up for this adventure, I’d never heard of Ushuaia, the jumping off point for expeditions to the South Pole. That’s because I’d only ever met one person who’s been to Antarctica. I’m about as near now as I’ll ever be: it’s only 600 miles across the Drake Passage to the Antarctic Peninsula. (This image is what I see on my TV when I select ‘ship tracker.’ Once in a while I need confirmation of ‘Where am I?’ I sometimes ask people, ‘Do you know what day it is?’ And they frequently say, ‘Uh, I think it’s...’)
Besides being a clothing brand, what and where is Patagonia? Uncle Wiki says: ‘Patagonia ... is a sparsely populated region at the southern end of South America, shared by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes mountains and the deserts, pampas and grasslands to the east. Patagonia is one of the few regions with coasts on three oceans, with the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Southern Ocean to the south.’
Being at the tip end of Route 3, aka the Pan-American Highway, I was 1,913 miles south of Buenos Aires and — 11,090 miles southwest of Alaska.
Due to weather in the Falklands, we left there a day ahead of schedule and arrived in Ushuaia a day early, which gave me a free afternoon for a leisurely amble around the pier, the port and the town (population 80,000). Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world.
Despite all the ships that come and go to the South Pole, plus cruisers like us, there is only one pier in town and it holds 6 large ships max. I think these butternut squash, potatoes, onions and garlic were headed for the large fishing boat (judging by its smell) ahead of us. Back by the Sun, they were loading on crates of live, fresh-caught King Crab, and cases of Gnarly Head Pinot Grigio, which my friend Jack is very fond of.
Having visited David’s brother Tim in Alaska several times both in Fairbanks and Juneau, I saw a lot of similarity between here and there. Very much an outpost, with a frontier look and feel. If Space is the Final Frontier, then Ushuaia is the Penultimate Frontier.
View from the old airport and one of the old planes that used to fly to Antarctica. Yes, people do sail in these latitudes. Hope they all wear survival suits when they’re on the water. Remind me to tell you a story about that sometime...
This may be a rustic place, but Ushuaians must dress up once in a while. There are a lot of buildings made of logs...
... or metal sheeting.
The Natural Foods store is across from the old Catholic church.
There were a couple of ‘galleria’ style malls in town with small café / fast food restaurants... this one is literally a ‘food truck.’
Of course there’s a Hard Rock Cafe!
And any number of bars. A passenger said this was a good one, but I don’t know his criteria...
Apartments above the sidewalk-level BancoPatagonia.
This was as close as I got... Penguin Peeping was hugely popular, but I opted out and settled for these guys.
About Ushuaia...
‘Ush’ means West and ‘uaia’ means Way. It’s a Yamana word. They were the original inhabitants but only one native is still alive, living on the Chilean side of the island. Or so we were told. It is yet another tribe of native people who were killed off by European diseases such as measles.
Tierra del Fuego is located south of the Straits of Magellan, where the Andes meet the Beagle Channel. The island is roughly half in Chile and half in Argentina. Ushuaia, in the Argentinian half, is the capital. The Beagle Channel was discovered in 1826; Darwin arrived in 1830, aboard the Beagle.
Founded by British missionaries in 1870, Ushuaia was taken over by Argentina in 1884; they built a penal colony here for serious offenders and political prisoners. (With Argentina’s political history, I’m sure there was no shortage of political prisoners.) The inmates built the prison, built the End of the World Railway, built most of the city’s buildings and, in their spare time, were transported up into the surrounding mountains to cut timber for building and fuel. Opened in 1902, the prison finally closed in 1947 — at one point the 380 cells were occupied by over 800 prisoners. The building was taken over by the Argentine Navy, which is stationed there today. Find the prisoners in this photo:
The population burgeoned in the 1980s when electronics firms started up here. Parts ship into port from China and are assembled into microwave ovens, TVs, cell phones, tablets, computers, air conditioners, etc. Tourism is also important to their economy — those of us visiting for a day or two, and those embarking on Antarctic expeditions from here.
Housing is expensive, albeit simple.
One of my faithful readers asked me to explain why Uruguay is so successful and Argentina is in such miserable shape. Rereading my lecture notes, I came across this: Argentina has been in the hands of the military on and off for decades, and their ‘populist’ governments not only developed bad policies, they were totally corrupt. The lecturer summed it up: Argentina was ‘a museum of egomaniacs.’
More to come about Tierra del Fuego — and the Horn. #
