the queen travels: Tierra del Fuego and the end of the world

Ushuaia, Argentina, is the furthest city to the south, located on an island at the southern tip of Argentina, and at the end of the Andes Mountain Range. The island is also shared with Chile. Yep, I could see Chile from where I was standing.

Cape Horn, another accomplishment. I didn't know we got a certificate. Yahoo.

I looked to see if we would sail over the edge of the earth. Not today. However, howling headwinds, mountainous seas and rocky coastlines have spelled the end to many a ship’s voyage with its bright-eyed sailors looking for treasure, land or whatever explorers were hoping to find.

What appears to be a perfect setting, and is now. I wonder if it was when it was a penal colony?

It’s beautiful here, and Ushuaia is a picturesque town of about 80,000, quadrupling in size during the 70s and 80s, but it seems much smaller. The surrounding mountains, with green at the base, then rock and snow-capped tips, remind me of home. So does the temperature, 54 degrees at 10 a.m. That’s a nice summer day in Anchorage. This is their fall, as they are transitioning from summer to winter, the opposite of our seasons. In the winter our guide said they receive about 30 meters of snow. Not being arithmetically sharp, we’re not sure but figured that might be about 90 feet. Is that true? The roofs are all slanted and are covered with aluminum, so maybe.

The explorer Magellan in 1520 called it Tierra del Fuego because he saw flames rising from the darkened islands. The flames came from the early Indians who settled here as they didn’t wear many clothes and were always gathered around fires to keep warm. Because of that for more than three hundred years that name struck fear into the hearts of mariners.

These are the types of huts the Indians occupied.

Ushuaia is a former penal colony and served as the gateway to the area. The worst criminals and political criminals were sent here and when the prison was closed in 1947 was home to more than 700 prisoners, twice the capacity intended.

A replica of the prison uniform is available if you want to purchase one.

As vast, remote, mountainous and harsh as the land seems except for the current city, I would think not many prisoners would have wanted to try to make their way to some other place. Prisoners put in a lot of hard work cutting down trees for heating, building infrastructure and doing repairs on things like the sewage systems and docks; however, in those days but it would probably have been better than trying to escape.

Summer and winter the prisoners cut trees. The height of the stump can give you a clue as to whether it was winter with a lot of snow or summer when the stumps were cut close to the ground.

The prisoners worked every day, no matter the weather. There was a train of sorts that took them to the forest to cut trees. We rode a narrow-gauge train that traces the route the original one did. The train is called The End of the World Train, and is located in the Tierra del Fuego National Park.

The railroad beckoned.

All aboard.

There were three colors of steam engines ... red, green and black.

From the train we continued by bus to Ensenada Bay. There were a couple of things that were interesting. One was an outhouse, apparently the furthest south one … I took the opportunity to leave my mark there.

It looks like a small communication building ... but it's the outhouse.

The second was the furthest south post office. It had a line of people waiting to send a postcard with that postmark on it.

$2 to post a card here, or free in town.

The bay was beautiful, in fact, breathtaking, with rocks and sand, and views that are spectacular. From here you look out on the Beagle Channel, named for a ship that carried Charles Darwin.

Beautiful mountains are everywhere you look.

The Beagle Channel leads in and out of the harbor, and the mountains plummet to their icy waters. I searched again for Beagles. None were to be found although I saw a Beagle buoy, a seldom-seen sight. I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo of it.