The Tip of South America
To understand what we were doing in Ushuaia, Argentina, you need a geography lesson. Ushuaia is 6,850 miles due south from Bangor, Maine. It claims to be closer to the south pole than any other city in the world. Before the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, the only way for a ship to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific was to "round the horn", i.e., go around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America.
Many gold rush fortune seekers took passage to Panama, risked yellow fever crossing the isthmus, and then caught another ship north. But for bulk cargo such as wool from Australia, tea from China or manufactured goods from New England, shipping round the horn was the only way. In 1869 the transcontinental railroad opened, but the volume it could handle was limited.
The tumultuous seas of the Drake Passage led mariners to seek other routes through the area. The Straits of Magellan, further north, and the Beagle Channel (on which Ushuaia lies) are usually calmer waters, but unpredictable williwaw winds roaring down the mountain slopes can render these very narrow passages treacherous. In the 19th century many ships were lost in this area, and it was not uncommon to spend a month waiting for favorable weather for the east-to-west passage. However, we got there on a commercial flight from Buenos Aires.
The City of Ushuaia
Ushuaia got its start as a penal colony. Escape from Terra del Fuego was impossible, so the Argentine government sent the worst criminals here. Australia, Devil's Island and Alcatraz have a similar history. The prisoners cut wood in the neighboring forests and built a narrow gauge railway to bring it into town.
Today it is a city of around 64,000 inhabitants whose major business is tourism. It is a thriving ski resort in the winter, and hosts backpackers, campers, kayakers and other outdoor sports in the summer. It has also become a cruise port both for large ships rounding the horn and for smaller Antarctic expeditions such as ours.
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Our hotel was a new resort on the outskirts of town. The
road leading to it gave testimony to the long winter weather;
there was no point to paving it. The view from our window included large, colorful Lupine which were used for landscaping the hotel. |
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On the other side the hotel overlooked the Beagle Channel. |
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We visited the Tierra del Fuego National Park where the railway built by the convicts is now run as a tourist attraction. The isolation of the area has led to an ecology with very few species filling the available niches. |
But the image of Ushuaia that is dearest to us is the sparkle of early morning as we returned to civilization at the end of our journey.