Ushuaia

Fin del Mundo. The end of the world. The southernmost city in the world. This city goes by many names, but an ocean and mountain paradise would sum it up well.

We arrived after our early morning flight. It was a rude 1:45am awakening in Buenos Aires. Our taxi driver behaved like that crazy weaver on the ring roads, just flying to the airport. We made it unscathed. The airport here was full of people all somewhat sleeping in the terminal. Many early flights were departing, and everyone was trying to get as much sleep as possible, us included.

The flight was uneventful, which is always great. We arrived around 8am, and split a cab with an Antarctic tourist. He told us about his future 12 day cruise. We told him about our travels.

The town immidietly felt like home. Maybe it was the fact that it was 0 out. Maybe it was the snowy mountains with a treeline. Maybe it was the west coast looking rocky hilly archipelago off of the shore. Maybe it was all three. But it immidietly felt comfortable. We stopped in at the tourism office, gathering info on hiking in the area, and then departed for a café.

While being one of the most remote mid sized settlements in the world, Ushuaia is well on the tourist map. This city is where every cruise to Antarctica departs from. As a result, the town’s downtown had a vibe similar to that of Canmore or Banff at home. Lots of tourist shops, tour agencies and restaurants. It also helped there were snowcapped mountains behind the city.

Breakfast was good, but we were tired, so we decided to head to our AirBnB for a quick nap that turned out not so quick.

Carmen was a lovely host for our four nights. We had the second floor mostly to our selves, with the exception of the first night. A duo from Fernie had the other bedroom, so we spent some time talking about home. They were just starting their 8 month journey north. Otherwise, we had the top floor to ourselves. Carmen would check in with us every day, and so would her little mini-poodle Crystal. She had two others too, but they didn’t like the stairs. They were fun dogs, if a bit barky and rambunctious.

We spent the evening getting the lay of the land in the town. The main road had all the little shops we needed. The pier was docked with massive cruise ships, ready for their all inclusive adventures to -30C. Many fishing boats were in the harbour, waiting for their next departure. It just all felt comfortable.

We cooked dinner that night, as we did most nights in town. We created a very good Bolognese pasta that we ran with four times.

For our first full day, we headed west to the Tierra del Fuego national park. This section of the island borders Chile. It is a mountainous region right along the coast, and provides great day hike options for whatever your feeling. We were feeling a summit, but there was too much snow and it was closed. Instead, we opted for the coastal route.

Coastal hikes are always different from the mountains we are used to. Being along the waterfront, there’s no major ups and downs, just a lot of really little ones. The views are different, with the ocean to your left, and a forest to the right. The change of scenery is always welcome.

This trail in particular was really nice. From the shore you could look across the Beagle Channel to the snowcapped Hoste Island’s Dumas peninsula mountains. There were lots of little islands in the channel too. Cormorants liked to take refuge here.

We saw some other wildlife on the hike as well. Some wild horses were having a graze at one beach clearing. There was also a gorgeous red-headed pair of woodpeckers having a good time smashing their beaks against wood. We must have watched them for 20 minutes or so.

The end of the hike was the park visitor centre. It comes with a little info room on the history of the island of Tierra del Fuego and the national park. The area was originally inhabited by the Yaghan people for 7-10,000 years. They lived a nomadic sea life, hunting seals and collecting shellfish for food. Despite the cold, they wore no clothing, instead evolving to have high metabolisms. They also covered themselves in seal oil for waterproofing and warmth.

Their livelihoods were only threated by Europeans in the mid 1800’s, when the British began missionary trips to the region. Thomas Bridges was the main missionary, bringing writing, religion and disease to the region. Today, there are less than 2000 people with some Yaghan ancestry, mostly in the nearby Chilean town of Puerto Williams. None can speak the language anymore, the last native speaker died in 2022. Bridges did create a English-Yaghan dictionary, so the language lives on only in writing.

Ushuaia is a fairly new city by colonial standards, only 150 years old or so. It was greatly expanded in the early to mid 1900s, using the local penal population as forced colonists to build houses. The Argentine government was worried that the British would try and lay claim to the area, as they had done with the Malvina’s (Falkland Islands).

The Malvina’s are an interesting topic in Argentina. Known as The Falkland Islands to the rest of the world, they are under political control of Britain. They were uninhabited before European’s showed up, and the majority of the population on the islands is ethnically British. Falklander’s voted to remain an overseas British territory. But that doesn’t stop Argentina from verbally laying claim to the islands, as their new president Milei did with one of his first actions. Ushuaia was full of Malvina information, maps and visuals. According to Argentina, they are part of the Tierra del Fuego Province.

We have had enough of the land though, so it is time to head to the ocean! We have some water adventures planned ahead of us. We will see you there!