Day 10

December 30^th 2007

The southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia’s setting is spectacular. We arrived into port at around 2pm, greeted by a view of brightly colored houses set against a backdrop of vast jagged mountains and a port dotted with small Argentinean navy craft. Opposite are peaks of Isla De Navarino, and between flows the stunning green Beagle Channel. Even though this is the furthest reaches of man, the town seems quite well established with no real management in the way houses have sprawled across the hillside. This is also the only place on the planet where one can ski down slopes with full view of the ocean. Ushuaia is also the gateway to Antarctica, with 90% of traffic leaving for Antarctica making this city its point of origin.

Our plan today was to navigate the Beagle Channel en-route to a sea lion and cormorant colony. We boarded a catamaran from the same port we had docked at and once in the middle of the Beagle Channel, realized how choppy and rough the waters can be. There were 5-10 waves on this particular day and photographing off the front of the catamaran hull resulted in getting soaked repeatedly. It was quite gratifying as long as you held on tight. Neha decided to capture videos from inside instead; probably a wise decision. Our catamaran took us to the small islands southeast of Ushuaia, passing next to the sea lion colony at the at Isla de los Lobos, Isla de los Pajaros and the lighthouse at Les Eclaireurs; the last lighthouse before the next one at Antarctica’s St. George Island a 1000 kilometers away.

The sea lions at Los Lobos were about a dozen or so in number coexisting with fellow cormorants (sea birds) and seemed to appreciate our arrival, instantly putting on a display of various poses for all of us that were click-happy with our cameras. I was surprised at how big sea lions were in real life and that they came in all different shades…….of brown. There was one special sea lion at Los Pajaros that hooted, clapped and waddled at our arrival. It then proceeded to parade around and literally walked all over the other sea lions (who weren’t too happy) before jumping into the water to show off its swimming skills before returning back to its rocky resting grounds, climbing the slimy and jagged 10-15 foot slope with much more ease than any human could, despite their tactile limitations.

We then proceeded to Argentina’s remotest national park. Tierra Del Fuego is a literal translation from Land of Fire, so named due to the large fires that the Patagonians built to keep themselves warm in the harsh climates of this region. This is about a 63000 hectare park, manned by only 9 park officers, and most of the park is closed to humans for conservation purposes. The one place that we were able to explore was close to the mountain Cerro Guanaco, of which Argentina owns most of besides the peak, which is claimed by Chile. The park is actually very close to the Chilean border and this was made even more evident when we camped at Lago Roca (Lake Roca) only to find that the same lake about a kilometer up the road was called Lago Fagnano. Apparently there was a very diplomatic accord signed between Chile and Argentina back in the day that divided up parts of Tierra Del Fuego and thus the river that ran through the park was named by either side accordingly. We saw several different kinds of fauna at the national park including Magellanic woodpeckers, lots of geese, torrent ducks and something I found hard to believe; a million rabbits, everywhere! All along our path, there were rabbit holes, like houses packed together in some heavily populated areas of Calcutta. It was unbelievable. Apparently the Spanish brought rabbits with them as an alternative source of food, after which the white “rodents” flourished like rabbits do and now the landscape is filled with their presence. Another amazing site was fields of rotting trees. Another alternative source of food, beavers were brought in from Canada by immigrants who then conveniently dismissed their meat. The badgers did what badgers do – multiplied and built grand dams everywhere they could to protect themselves from predators. I am still trying to figure out how these beavers, which can grow up to 100 pounds in size, can uproot trees multiple times their size and weight and lay them across river beds to flood land behind them. This flooding is what causes the still intact trees to rot. Neha was also able to locate a special type of fungus that looked like mini-pumpkins (no bigger than a coin), called Indian’s Bread, as they were utilized by the Patagonians as a food source. I bit into one when she wasn’t looking and found out that they were surprisingly tangy, although I don’t think it was a wise idea to do that – I’m still alive aren’t I?

On the way back to our ship, there were several rainbows that popped up here and there including one that looked like it was ending at the ship itself. I tried convincing Neha to go looking for that pot of gold when we got back, but she wouldn’t have any of it. We were also informed on the way back that a ship had met its tragic end on its way to Antarctica the day before after colliding with an iceberg. There hadn’t been any word of survivors and a number of rescue boats had gone out from Ushuaia for search and rescue operations. There apparently had been a relatively large oil spill as well due to the collision and eventual sinking. I don’t understand how modern vessels with their high tech navigational instrumentation can still manage to collide with icebergs in this day and age. Either way, I hope all is well with those on board the vessel.

Rough seas marked our exit out of Ushuaia that night and it was quite funny to watch the elderly on the ship trying to keep their balance.

The end of the world wasn’t what I had expected it to be. I had expected more remoteness and less civilization, but I guess there is too many of us to expect anything like that in this day and age.