If you’ve never heard of Ushuaia you aren’t alone. This small town at the southern tip of Argentina is mostly known to people taking Antartica Expeditions or hikers.
It’s pretty remote. Actually really remote.
We landed in Ushuaia on a National Geographic trip where we boarded a boat, but not one to tackle the Drake Passageway known for 50 foot rollers. Nope, we planned to traverse the Beagle Channel and the Straits of Magellan in Tierra del Fuego Archipelago on the extreme southern tip of South America between Chile and Argentina.
We only spent a few hours in Ushuaia but it felt like a frontier town, a bit like Reykjavik in Iceland or the vague memory I have of Juneau, Alaska twenty years ago. Our time there included a charming picnic lunch in the huge National Park and a warm up hike.
Ushuaia is characterized with patched together buildings and stores stocked with rain gear, sleeping bags and hiking boots. Thanks to our wonderful and exceedingly helpful, Nat Geo guide, I was actually able to get a replacement Nikon for the camera stolen in Buenos Aires and a much needed pair of rain pants. Somehow mine didn’t make it into my suitcase.
Getting a real camera made me happy.
After lunch, a hike and some shopping time, we boarded the Stella Australis along with about 150 other travelers, including another group like ours from Smithsonian Journeys and people from all over the world.
In the dining room I heard Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Chinese and a host of Europe conversations. Loved it.
We traveled with our own expert geographer and all around scholar. David gave regular lectures for our group. He would literary bounce with energy as he lectured. We learned a lot and had a lot of laughs too. It’s great when a speaker includes cartoons and poetry in his talk about pretty serious stuff like climate change. We were captivated.
A big highlight was getting off on Cape Horn. Cape Horn is a rocky headland on Hornos Island, in southern Chile’s Tierra del Fuego archipelago. It’s surrounded by wild seas off the southern tip of South America where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet.
Frankly I didn’t know that I wanted to go there but soon I was swept up in the excitement about walking on the southern most tip of land of South America.
Fortunately the weather cooperated. The ship’s expedition leader announced conditions were such that we could go ashore. Yippee! We donned layers of clothing topped with rain gear and our orange life jackets , climbed into zodiacs and landed on the historic spot.
Our group posed at the monument and we visited the lighthouse where we got certificates of having been there. Upon request we could even have our passports stamped with a special stamp. I did, of course.
This was the beginning of a fun four day adventure on the Australis. Stay tuned for next week’s blog post when I’ll take to you see a glacier, a beautiful absolutely pristine and remote hike and a look at a penguin colony.
The following are photos of Cape Horn provided by Wendy Mackin. I didn’t have my new camera set up at this point so my fellow traveler shared her images. The previous photos on this page were taken with Jack’s Iphone. Thank you Wendy and Jack.
