It was three days by ship from Buenos Aries to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego.
A lake in the Tierra del Fuego National Park. The mountains are in Chile. The border is about a third of the way across the lake.
This is a web picture of Ushuaia, Argentina, [we lost our shot of the town] which calls itself "the end of the world" and "the southernmost city in the world." Of course Chile says IT has the southernmost city in the world, too.
It's a town that looks better from a distance. The government created a lot of good jobs to entice people to move to Tierra del Fuego, but nobody thought to plan for any housing. As a result the town, especially to the left of this picture is extremely chaotic and less than scenic. There's an outdoor hockey rink. The town was founded as a mission to the local natives, the Yamana, and later became the site of a prison. The prisoners mostly seem to have been used to cut down trees, and the stumps are still visible seventy years after the prison closed. That is due to the cold climate and the lack of insects--things rot very slowly here. There are also no native reptiles nor amphibians. Our guide told us the when people from TdF got to other places they tend to be terrified by bugs crawling on them, and wild animals.
It's a town that looks better from a distance. The government created a lot of good jobs to entice people to move to Tierra del Fuego, but nobody thought to plan for any housing. As a result the town, especially to the left of this picture is extremely chaotic and less than scenic. There's an outdoor hockey rink. The town was founded as a mission to the local natives, the Yamana, and later became the site of a prison. The prisoners mostly seem to have been used to cut down trees, and the stumps are still visible seventy years after the prison closed. That is due to the cold climate and the lack of insects--things rot very slowly here. There are also no native reptiles nor amphibians. Our guide told us the when people from TdF got to other places they tend to be terrified by bugs crawling on them, and wild animals.
This could be Newfoundland! We saw our first glaciers here where the Andes run down into the ocean. In the national park we went to the end of highway three, which is the road that goes all the way through South and North America. More on the ecology: the largest native animal is the red fox. Someone--not an Australian, you can be sure--thought it would be a good idea to introduce rabbits as a food source for the foxes. The foxes had no interest in the rabbits, so grey foxes had to be imported to keep the rabbits down. Also, someone--definitely not a Canadian--thought it would be a good idea to start a beaver fur industry. That didn't work out, either, and now beavers are a pestilence.
Mount Condor, in Chile. Both countries have border police outposts in the area, but the Chilean one isn't even accessible by road. Somehow I don't think the cops really have much to do. The guide said they get together a lot to watch movies.
This woman kept photobombing me.
A beach on the Beagle Channel. The Atlantic is to the left. To the right of the tourists on the beach is a haven for mussels.
Back in Ushuaia, in front of the heavily spray painted post office where an armed cop keeps an eye on the customers. You can have your picture made with someone dressed as a prisoner or a penguin. It's like most any small town with lots of shops downtown. Most if not all the undivided streets we saw in South America are one way.
A penguin playing the fool in a little plaza near the harbour where there are busts of local notables.
The plaques on the wall commemorate a variety of things. Oh, and more spray paint.
The plaques on the wall commemorate a variety of things. Oh, and more spray paint.
A monument to the native Yamana people. There is only one elderly person left who speaks the language. The Yamana were nomads who did not believe in shelter or clothing and went about naked in a very harsh climate. They kept warm by covering themselves with sea lion fat. Darwin thought they were very civilised compared to the natives next door in Patagonia.