Monday February 17th, 2025 Ushuaia, Argentina
Updated: Feb 19
Having successfully navigated the eastern portion of the Beagle Channel, this morning Queen Victoria is docked in the small port town of Ushuaia (pronounced: Ush-why-a). Isn’t it amazing that in 1832 Charles Darwin came up this very channel in a ship called the Beagle – what are the chances? Ushuaia is not on the very tip of the South American continent, that would be Cape Horn, but it’s pretty damn close - and is in fact the world’s southernmost city. We are about 680 miles from the Antarctic peninsula.
Ushuaia is located in the province of Tierra Del Fuego or land of fire – early Spanish explorers named the land because of the large number of indigenous people’s bonfires they could see on the shores. With its very remote location and extreme weather conditions, Ushuaia was established as a penal colony in 1896. The prison population thus became forced colonists and spent much of their time building the town with timber from the forest around the prison. They also built a railway to the settlement, now a tourist attraction known as the End of the World Train, the southernmost railway in the world. More recently the population has grown due to the very low tax incentives offered to anyone who wants to live in Ushuaia.
Today we went on a ship’s excursion, taking a bus to “the end of the world”. From the ship I could see the small town of Ushuaia stretched out along the Beagle Channel; the two main streets near the port were filled with shops and businesses and further out was more residential – it had a quaint, seaside feel to it in a very windswept kind of way. Almost all of the buildings were wood-built, with a very liberal use of corrugated iron sheeting. The captain had warned us that the temperature on arrival would be around 30F, so we’d looked out all of our warm-weather clothing and boots, but walking down the gangway it did not feel very cold – certainly warmer than when we were in London at the beginning of this trip. Heading west, it took the bus only about 5 minutes to be on the outskirts of town and we began to see the scenery; heavily wooded with massive, snow topped mountains in the near distance. It was cool day with a threatening overcast sky, but we’d heard there had been snow and very heavy rain yesterday, so we felt fortunate.
Things were going well until the guy seated in front of us decided he was a bit cold and asked the guide to turn up the heat in the bus and whoomph – all of the windows instantly steamed up, no one could see anything. The mental daggers flying into the seat in front of us would have been instantly lethal if they were real. No amount of fiddling with the busses air blower system could alleviate the situation; I felt bad (well only very slightly) for the guide who would say “and now on the left we can see the amazing peat bogs” – and many on the bus would say “no we can’t”. It seems that none of the busses in this area have air conditioning, which would have helped – it’s simply never warm enough to need it. Soon we paid the entry fee to enter Tierra Del Fuego National Park and, shortly after, arrived at our first stop.
Hemmed in by low wooded hills on its shores and the huge snow-capped Andes mountains behind, Lago Roca was very peaceful and serene. The waters were flat-calm, with only a slight ripple caused by the light breeze and stretched off into the distance. I thought this would be an amazing place to visit in the summer, then I realized that this was the summer. The shores were rocky and strewn with lots of small pieces of gnarled whitewashed driftwood. We walked along the shore, just soaking up the atmosphere, shooting off a million photos, breathing in the super pure air – it was quite a place.
Thankfully with everyone off the bus and all the doors opened while we visited the lake, the windows had cleared, and as we set off the complainant was told to don a jacket and hat as the heat was not going to be turned back on. Just a short drive brought us to the park Alakush visitor center – the building had a slight Alpine style with a small lookout tower and nice deck at the front. Inside were proper bathrooms, a gift shop, nature display and large coffee shop. We bought post cards in anticipation of perhaps visiting the world’s most southerly post office, we’d heard that pre-buying the card might save time. The view from the front deck across a small extension of Lago Roca was amazing, a pointy peaked mountain dominated off to the right, there was a small island in the waterway, and I even caught sight of a couple of beautiful black necked swans.
Our journey continued along a narrow gravel track which turned out to be an official national highway, Route 3. We crossed rickety old wooden bridges with a few broken boards, I held my breath and said a short prayer. Following the river that flowed out of Lago Roca the views were superb, grassy valleys spilt dense woodlands, low cliffs occasionally lined the riverbanks – it was idyllic. The bus reached the end of the road, quite literally – the terminus of a 12000 mile almost continuous highway from Alaska all the way to the southern tip of South America. A large sign marked the end of Route 3, and everyone lined up for the obligatory photo. Elevated walkways continued from the end of the road and led to a viewing platform with spectacular views out to the Beagle Channel.
Heading east, back towards Ushuaia, we made our final stop at the world’s most southerly post office located right on the shore of the Beagle Channel. Our guide gave us a warning that the post office was owned and operated by a rather cranky old man who opened the office whenever he felt like it, which was not very often – she said it had not been open in weeks. The building was rather unique; it was constructed on an elevated platform over the beach and out into the bay, with a wood interior and corrugated iron cladding – more like a fishing shack than a post office. Just inside the door we found a wood burning stove which offered a nice warm welcome.
The small space was jammed with tourists lining up to get their post cards stamped and sent. I headed for a side table to write our cards while Sandra grabbed us a place in line. This strategy worked well as I had just finished writing when Sandra was second in line to be served. We watched as the customer in front of us, it happened to be the guy from the bus who had complained about the cold, was being served. The old man was muttering to himself as he examined the cards and then in a whirring flurry proceeded to stamp them with his ink stamper. Satisfied that the cards were suitably anointed for posting to Germany he turned to the customer and informed him that the cost would be 46 USD for 3 cards, the guy was quite taken aback and proceeded to question the postmaster – he couldn’t believe the cost and began to try and argue. At this point, with a great deal of swagger, the postmaster through the customers cards to the ground and told him to “get out”. I approached the counter with a certain degree of trepidation and a slight sweat on my brow. We wanted to send two cards to the US and only had 20 USD in cash, no credit cards were accepted. The same flurry of stamping occurred and then we were informed that it would be 18 USD, phew! We were glad we’d bought the cards at the visitor center; the German customer had bought his in the post office – hence the higher price.
Back in Ushuaia we decided to stay in the town for a little while instead of going straight back to the ship. The rain that had held off all morning decided to make an appearance, though it was quite light. The town really does have just a couple of commercial streets, and we walked up a steep bank to the higher of the two where we found a restaurant called Tante Sara which seemed to be mainly packed with locals – always a good sign. We really enjoyed the food and the coffee was excellent. After lunch we walked up and down the main street, it was mainly tourist shops – they even have a Hard Rock Café. Lots of carved stone trinkets and jewelry and, strangely, chocolate castles seemed to be a thing. We bought a couple of t-shirts and headed back to the ship.
Around 5:30PM Queen Victoria slipped her lines, edged away from the dock, and headed east back down the Beagle Channel the way we had arrived this morning – towards Cape Horn. I was surprised to see us heading in this direction as I had assumed that, since the Beagle Channel extends all the way to the Pacific Ocean, we would continue going west along the channel – but apparently, we are going to go a little further south after we exit the channel in order to round the horn and head west. As we were leaving Ushuaia the captain announced that, due to very high predicted winds, he would not be able to safely run a tender operation at our next port of call, Punta Arenas – and so this stop has been cancelled.
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