Our day began sailing down the magnificent Beagle Channel. This narrow passage lies south of Tierra del Fuego and north of the islands that surround Cape Horn. It was named for the ship that first mapped it, the HMS Beagle, the ship that carried Charles Darwin on its second voyage. The Beagle Channel is probably the most beautiful waterway in the world. On both side of the dark blue water you are surrounded by tall black granite mountains sheathed in ice and snow.
It was unforgivingly cold standing on the bow watching the procession of glaciers, but it was so beautiful I could barely move.
About an hour after seeing our last glacier, we caught sight of the Argentine city of Ushuaia. This name is not an easy one for Americans to pronounce, but it sort of sounds like “ooh SWHY uh.” There is definitely not a “sh” sound in it, and to say “yoo shwhy uh” makes South American eyes roll. Argentines are very insistent that Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world. They admit the Puerto Williams, in Chile, is somewhat further south, but dismiss it as a mere “town” lacking a cathedral and the other necessities for being a proper city.
From the boat we could see a relatively compact settlement with a fair number of tall buildings in its center and a dramatic backdrop of mountains, some still capped with snow, behind it.
From my window I could see an old municipal museum. But what caught my eye was the slogan painted on the wall in front of it proclaiming Ushuaia to be the capital of “Las Malvinas,” the Argentine word for the the Falkland Islands. The bitterness over Argentina’s defeat in the 1982 war has never subsided.
John and I separated today. Well, not permanently, but just for the afternoon. I wanted to do a more adventurous activity for the day with hiking and canoeing in the National Park. John wisely figured that his foot was not up to any kind of hike, so he signed up for a boat and bus tour of the park. So, gentle readers, you get to hear about two different afternoons.
My tour was called a little before John’s and after I disembarked I was directed to a small van. There were 10 of us there, plus the guide and the driver. Our guide introduced herself as “Marin” and explained that while she considered Ushuaia her home now, she was originally from France. I noticed she was pregnant. We all went around and introduced ourselves. There were five people of the bus from México, and five from the United States. The Mexicans were all in their thirties and they seemed quite well-educated and were very well-dressed and groomed. All three women were quite attractive, and one of the men was movie star handsome. The Americans, whom I came to know a little better, were a mixed bunch. Besides me there was Chris, a middle-aged guy from Atlanta, and a family from Chicago, Debra, her daughter Alicia, who apparently just graduated from college, and her son Chris who appeared to be in college right now. I liked all of them.
We drove from the town into the National Park until we came to a small lake.
It had become increasingly cloudy during the morning, and right at the point we were changing into our canoeing clothing, it started to rain. I began to think I had made a dreadful mistake. I idly snapped pictures of some birds to keep myself from sinking too deeply into regret.
In time we were all set up and ready to go. As there were ten of us, plus our guide, we split into two boats. Marin was the captain of what she called “Team USA” and the handsome Santiago was captain of “Team México.” By this time it was raining hard, but I decided to just make the best of it.
I turned out that the Americans worked together pretty well as a group. The two Chrises are in the front of the boat, Alicia is in front of me, and Debby is next to her.
Some of the Mexican girls were so attractive that they could not resist putting the oars down and taking selfies no matter how much Santiago chided them.
We paddled for about 90 minutes, on and off. The route, we basically figured out, took us from the glacier-fed lake where we had started into the Beagle Channel. As we came towards the end of our route, we had a special visitor.
While I had my phone out, I also snapped this atmospheric picture. I may use it as an inspiration for an exercise on monochromatic color with my class.
By the time our leisurely trip down the river had ended so had the rain. The boats disembarked on the shore
and we all started to put our stuff away. Marin, in the blue, was helping Team México to to empty some of the water out of their boat.
Before I took everything off, I had Chris from Atlanta snap a picture of me.
Once all our boots and pants and life jackets were off, Marin put us in the van and we went off to a less congested spot on along the channel.
We had a fairly small hike down a well-marked trail through the woods. I would have preferred something longer and more vigorous, but I guess the time was rather limited.
We saw a couple interesting things along the way. One was this brave soul who appeared to be planning a swim in the waters of the Beagle Channel. Although it is summer here, I doubt that the water ever gets much warmer than 40.
Marin also stopped to pound out what she called the “Winter Bark” tree. Apparently there is a good deal of vitamin C in the bark of this tree and it was chewed to help prevent scurvy among sailors and settlers. I think I’ll stick with orange juice myself.
We had a little lunch after our hike and then we were on the bus, back to town. I asked to be dropped off in the town itself to look around a bit. There was not all that much of interest to see, frankly. There were lots of souvenir shops and restaurants including several American chains such as this familiar brand.
John later described Ushuaia to me as looking like a “rough part of Switzerland.” That seems pretty accurate.
Around six o’clock I went back towards the boat to meet him. But more on that later.
Meanwhile, John, after some problems, finally met up with his group. This tour was more of a classic cruise ship excursion with lots of people piled into big buses. I am sure he would rather have done something more like what I did, but he has to be careful with that broken foot.
After a bus ride, they were all placed on a “catamaran,” which seems to be what people in this part of the world call anything smaller than an aircraft carrier.
They went out into the Beagle Channel where they saw sea lions
and lots of bird life, particularly around this iconic lighthouse.
My tour ended before John’s did, so we had vaguely made plans to meet in town and perhaps even have dinner. Unfortunately, as he does not really have a working phone, we could not call each other and say, “Hey, I’m here by the entry to the pier.” So I waited around for about 40 minutes walking back and forth between the street and the pier, but we never able to meet up with him. Meanwhile, John, feeling the same frustration, just went into town. He snapped some more picture of the city including the cathedral.
The interior apparently was even less inspiring. While this looked like a ski resort, it was apparently some kind of municipal building.
Meanwhile, back on the pier, I saw my friend with the teddy bear.
I finally gave up and went back to the boat. The ship was scheduled to leave at 7:30, and when John had not yet appeared in the cabin by that time, I went down to guest services to see if he had check onboard yet. They assured me he had. I felt much better!
In the evening, we watched as Ushuaia disappeared from the stern.
About a couple hours later we briefly pulled into the waters of Puerto Williams. I have to agree with the Argentines here: it’s not much of a settlement.
Tomorrow, we go by Cape Horn itself!
