We have made it to Ushuaia! It is billed as ‘The Southernmost city in the world,’ although there is a small naval town, Puerto Williams, a bit farther south–across the Beagle Channel in Chile.
I only found out recently that Tierra del Fuego is an island. We crossed the Strait of Magellan from Punta Arenas to Porvenir, a two-and-a-half hour ferry crossing. We had to hang around in Punta Arenas a day longer since we had arrived in time for the Monday ferry, which does not exist at this time of year. We used our free day to go and visit the Zona Franca–the free-trade zone. This was a big disappointment as an American, but if you are coming from Argentina, where there are sky-high taxes on electronics and many other imported goods, there are deals. Even still, Punta Arenas is a lovely town.
The ferry was a nice ride. We’d tried to purchase tickets ahead of time and were told that it was sold out, but to come at 8 am anyway to try and get on. We were lucky, I guess, because we did manage to get on and others were left behind to either wait the next day or to drive an hour-and-a-half north to the next ferry terminal. I’d read that sometimes you can see dolphins during the crossing, and I hopefully took a window seat in one of the lounges and was not disappointed, watching dolphins leap clear out of the water just after leaving Punta Arenas. It got surprisingly choppy in the middle and when we arrived on the island, I felt a bit seasick.
From Porvenir, we made it quickly to the Chile-Argentina border of San Sebastián, where we had a tie for our second-easiest border crossing ever (the other being the Patagonian crossing through Don Guillermo on my birthday last week).
We had planned to spend the night in San Sebastián, but seeing as there was nothing there at all, we continued on until we reached Tierra del Fuego’s largest city, Río Grande (some 67,000 people). We happened to arrive on April 1, the day before the commemoration of the Falklands War, which began on April 2, 1982. Día de Las Malvinas is an especially big deal in Río Grande because it is a naval base. As we walked to the ceremonies downtown, I said to Juan that it seemed weird to commemorate a war that you both started and then lost, but Juan said that it is basically Veterans’ Day, since this was Argentina’s only war.
Tierra del Fuego was pretty boring until we reached Río Grande and then afterwards as well. The most exciting thing we saw in two days of driving was…FLAMINGOS! They keep appearing in the most unexpected places.
Then, suddenly, the landscape changed dramatically, with trees and mountains and water.
It was worth coming to the end of the world after all! Here in Ushuaia, we are lucky enough to be hosted by two good friends of Juan’s sister Adriana, Mónica and Martín, both world-class travelers themselves. It has been great fun sharing meals with them and hearing stories from all of their own experiences.
It is a strange thing to arrive in Ushuaia after a year and a half of naming it as our destination. But even though we’ve reached the end of the road, we’ve still got lots of traveling ahead of us. From here, we’re heading back north!
jbuhler