Ushuaia/The Andes

For the last two days, we have been visiting the lovely town of Ushuaia (pronounced oo-swhy-uh). It is not only the southernmost city in Argentina, but also the southernmost city in the world! 

Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Province, Argentina. (Tierra del Fuego translates to “Land of Fire”. This name was given by by Ferdinand Magellan, who (in 1520) observed fires burning along the coastline. It is assumed that these fires were made by the Yámana (the aboriginal inhabitants). These original inhabitant’s still play a large part in the current culture in Ushuaia. In addition to continuing to honor some of their various traditions, a large portion of their names for locations, animals, etc. are still used too.

Interestingly, the province is close to the Brazilian “Rio Grande River”. (No relation to its North American cousin…)

Ushuaia is a resort town on the Beagle Channel.  population is ~82,000, and we will spend the last of our Argentine Pesos here. We walked to cute little town, which reminded us a lot of Juneau Alaska. Hilly streets loaded with cute shops, nice little taverns, and a ton of restaurants. Crab fishing is big in this area, so we enjoyed some crab.

Frequently referred to as the “end of the world”, Ushuaia is famous for their End of the World Post Office located in the Tierra del Fuego National Park. We had initially booked a ride on the End of the World Steam Train, but had a last-minute glitch with the pickup details, so we had to cancel. Instead, we took a really nice bus tour, with a long stop at the post office.

We enjoyed the tour of the park. Lots of unique trees and beautiful lakes and rivers. We saw lots of critters, including wild horses, Shag and Roland geese, and tried without luck to see a Magellanic (redheaded) Woodpecker. Our favorite part was Lapataia Bay, home of the Post Office.

We had been looking forward to visiting this post office for several years.  It has been around for ~30 years and consists of a smallish corrugated steel building on stilts on the beach at the southernmost tip of the park. The same cranky old postman runs the post office, and is very popular due to his practice of stamping folk’s passports with their unique stamps. We waited in line for ~20 minutes, and got our stamps, as well as stamps on a dozen or so postcards which we mailed from the location. Really fun.

We also had an excellent catamaran tour of the Beagle Channel. Really beautiful islands with lot of critters and a great light house. We were able to get up pretty close and get some good photos. However, I do have to say that these critters smell a lot better on PBS documentaries then they do in person… 
😉

It is getting harder and harder to keep track, but Ushuaia is way up at the top of our list of places to re-visit. So sailing away way sad, but the northern end of the Beagle Chanel was spectacular. The views from the fjords of the Andes Mountains were spectacular. Although I must say that even the captain commented on the unprecedented number of weather changes that we saw throughout the afternoon and evening. (All the way from shorts-weather, to (literally) hurricane force winds, everything in between, and back to shorts-weather again.)

At 4,300 miles long, the Andes Mountains are the largest mountain range in the world. At nearly 23,000 feet, the range’s Aconcagua Peak is also the world’s tallest mountain outside of Asia. (By comparison, the Rocky Mountains are 14,500 feet.)

Located on the Western side of South America, the Andes stretch across several countries, including Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. So, for the next several days, we will meander the Chilean fjords at the base of the Andes as we make our way north.

We are having a lot of fun and every day seems to bring uncountable and unexpected breathtaking scenes.  

Thanks for following us on our adventures. 

– Mike and Karen