At a latitude of 54 degrees south, the city of Ushuaia is commonly referred to as the “southernmost city in the world”. Situated on the southern end of Tierra del Fuego, this city is indeed far from civilization. In fact, this Argentinian city is three times closer to Antarctica than the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. It’s no wonder why locals call it “Fin del Mundo”, or the “End of the World.”
Ushuaia is now a fairly bustling city of 70,000 thanks to the cruise ships and antarctic expedition ships that dock in its port on a regular basis during the summers. This wasn’t always the case, however, as the city got its start as a penal colony due to its remote location. Being sent to Ushuaia was essentially a life sentence for criminals in 1800’s Argentina. However, these convicts eventually turned the penal colony into a productive city as they harvested the bounty of the southern ocean from their port in Ushuaia.
While it is certainly not terribly warm at the end of the world, the days were actually surprisingly pleasant. The sun was shining most days I was there and my hike to the Martial Glacier near town was wonderful. It was a little odd seeing a glacier so close to town, and in the middle of summer, but there it was, sitting on the side of a mountain on the outskirts of Ushuaia.
I also took the opportunity to take a boat ride out into the Beagle Channel which forms the southern boundary of Tierra del Fuego. The channel was named after the HMS Beagle, the ship that carried Captain FitzRoy and his crew around the tip of South America (and around the rest of the world). On that ship was the naturalist Charles Darwin, who collected plant and animal specimens from every corner of the globe and eventually published his findings and evolutionary theory in the Origin of Species. It was neat to think that I was travelling along the same channel that only a couple centuries earlier had carried one of history’s greatest scientists, looking at the same sea lion, penguin, and cormorant colonies that surely also caught his attentive eye.
To round out my stay at the end of the world, I made a visit to Tierra del Fuego National Park. I spent a day hiking along the coastline of the park, enjoying the sunshine and beautiful views, and occassionally fighting the notorious winds that occur in the “furious 50’s”, the name given to these stormy southern latitudes. The trail wound through forests of trees that seamed to be in perpetual motion due to the winds, along rocky shorelines with views of the Beagle channel, and along sheltered bays, one of which was the perfect spot for a picnic lunch. The trail eventually emerged from the forest and joined the end of the road. The literal end of the road, for there is no road on earth that runs further south than Route 3 in Argentina. The spot is famous around the world for people who enjoy long road trips. In fact, while I was there, I met a couple from Canada who had ridden their motorcycle all the way from Montreal, Canada along the Pan-American highway. Four months and some very sore butts later, they had reached the tip of South America. It was a fitting end to my time at the end of the world!
