Ushuaia (pronounced [u'swaia]) is the capital of the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego, and by agreement the world's second-southernmost city (see discussion below). It is located on the southern coast of the island of Tierra del Fuego in a wide bay, guarded on the north by the Martial mountain range and on the south by the Beagle Channel. Its population in 1999 was estimated at 57,300
It is the only municipality of the Department of Ushuaia, which has an area of 9,390 km² (3,625 sq mi).
The city was originally named by early British colonists after the name that the native Yámana people had for the area. Much of the early history of the city and its hinterland is described in great detail in Lucas Bridges’s book Uttermost Part of the Earth (1948). For most of the first half of the 20th century, the city was centered around a prison for serious criminals. The Argentine government set up this prison following the example of the British with Australia or the French with Devil's Island: escape from a prison on Tierra del Fuego was similarly impossible. The prisoners thus became forced colonists and spent much of their time cutting wood in the forest around the prison and building the town. They also built a railway to the settlement, now a tourist attraction known as the End of the World Train (Tren del Fin del Mundo), the southernmost railway in the world. Ushuaia is surrounded by Magellanic subpolar forests; on the hills around the town we can find indigenous trees of the area: Drimys winteri (Winter's bark), Maytenus magellanica (hard log mayten) and several species of Nothofagus that give to the landscape a magnificent greenness.
Source: Wikipedia
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Reviews & Tips
From Buenos Aires I flew to to Ushuaia, at the bottom of the island of Tierra del Fuego, which is between the Straights of Magellan and the meeting of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It's a really small town and not at all impressive, nor is the 1 runway plus shack "airport," but the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego is quite cool.
Friday I went to the park with a German and a Canadian I met at the hostel, and we got the 1/2 price Argentinian entrance fee because we kept our mouths shut while the bus driver paid and asked for the tickets. We got to some sort of dirt road and walked about 5 km to the end of RN-3, where there's a sign that reads something to the effect of END OF THE WORLD. YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF RN-3. BUENOS AIRES 3,033 km ALASKA 17,981km. Some silly pictures were taken. End-of-the-world jokes were made. End-of-the-world jokes were beaten into the ground. We eventually got sick of said end-of-the-world jokes.
The next day I walked around town, took a bunch of pictures, and saw the sun rise over the Beagle Channel, which was really nice but kind of creepy in a way,because the mountains encircle the city, and because of the contrast between them and the sun, and because it takes the sun a lot longer down there to rise than it does as you go further north towards winter (correct my physics if I am wrong, but that seems to be the case), there was basically a black space with a jagged top, and the sun made this eerie orange glow over it, while above it the sky was still fairly dark. I think I have a picture of this—it's sort of hard to explain properly.
The original plan was to go to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, and then make my way up to Bariloche. But, that's not how it wound up because naturally this country is way more enormous that I thought, and the roads in southern Patagonia, well, suck. To reach the glacier at El Calafate would have been minimum 15hrs by bus, and then another 30+ hrs by bus from there to Bariloche, not including the layover time. Of course I could have flown to Bariloche, but that would have also involved an overnight stop in El Calafate and almost 1,000 pesos. Or, I could fly to Bariloche via Buenos Aires. So I just took a plane back to Buenos Aires and took the bus, which I think was probably the best thing to do given that what I've heard about Calafate is that the glacier is pretty cool but the town is a dump and it's probably not worth all that effort of getting there and away to see it.
ReplyPosted about 1 year ago
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