Ushaia, Tierra del Fuego

Bienvenidos al fin del mundo!

¡Hola! I am here in Ushaia in Tierra del Fuego the southernmost town of the world and the gate to Antarctica. It is also called el fin del mundo (the end of the world). Actually I wanted to leave after two days, but now I am still here after five days. I just couldn´t resist the stunning beauty of this wild country (and the bus schedules).

Let me show you around town: As you can see in the upper picture, Ushaia is located right at the Beagle Channel (the sailor's better option to Cape Horn) and is surrounded by glaciers, fjords, wild mountains, swamps, and of course the sea. That makes Ushaia a popular spot for cruises, icebreakers, and ...

... Antarctica expeditions. If you magnify the pic below you see the so-called Antarctica office, where you have to pass if you want to go the icy continent.

There´s also a lively Gaucho culture here, as you can see in the picture below where little Gauchas and Gauchos are dancing in the harbour.


So Ushaia is a great place to hang out, but that is not the reason why I am here. Although you can spend endless time just starring at the beautiful nature, ...


... I rather enjoy it myself and hike and climb up the stunningly beautiful mountains of Ushaia and its surrounding valleys!


Luckily, there are 20 hours of daylight. So even if you leave for a late climb at 8pm (as in the upper picture) you can still make it up to a near summit and halfway down in daylight ;)


On the approach to the mountains you mostly have to pass dense forests and sticky swamps, but isn't that exactly what you imagine when you think of Tierra del Fuego?


The locals say that in Ushaia you can have all four seaons in one day, and it's true. Hot sun followed by icy Antarctica winds, snowfalls, rain, and thunderstorm ... and hot sun again. the only thing that remains constant is strong wind blowing from the West.


Normally, I get up early and take a bus, a cab, or a collectivo out of town to some remote valley. After hours of hiking on and off the track, I usually arrive at some glacier. Now isn't that a beautiful scenery?



The glaciers here do not obey the same rules as the mountain climber is used from the northern hemisphere. Besides the confusing fact that you can find them on the South faces of the mountains, they also go down to 500m above sea level (and sometimes even lower). Moreover, there are no thousand meters of elevation between the tree line and the glacier as in the Northern hemisphere, but you can find the glaciers almost touching the dense rain forests. A truly fascinating region!


The green pile of something in the picture above is no moss-covered rock, but a plant that grows in layers which build up a thermal insulation for the roots -- life adapted to the extreme conditions here. In the picture below, you can see me five minutes later in front of some beaver dams. Now note the difference in the weather!


But back to what I am doing here. I look for easy rock ridges and gravel gullies leading up to the summit in between the glaciers. And then I simply climb them :) In the picture below you see me having a great time while climbing to the summit and shouting against the wind.

The only drawback is that I mostly have a six hour return hike to Ushaia. Once I make it to some street or dirt track, I try to hitchhike and usually get picked up quickly by the friendly locals. This way I also improve my Castellano while hiking through the mountains.

I also went on a sailing trip through the Beagle Channel!

Due to severe weather conditions we didn't make it to Cape Horn... No seriously, that was never planned ;)

The picture below shows the port of Ushaia which we just left heading for some islands in the rough Beagle Channel.

Our goal were some islands bustling with Comorans, sea lions, penguins etc. We also landed on Argentina's southernmost island and hiked around looking for remnants of the Yamanas. The Yamanas are the natives of the Beagle Channel and lived in this rough climate for 7000 years, completely naked! Can you believe that? They were extinct by diseases that the Europeans brought here 150 years ago. It was fascinating to hear about their survival techniques... naked in the Beagle Channel !?! Can you imagine a naked human hunting sea lions in the next picture?

I also spent 24 hours in the nearby national park hiking along a fjord and through swamps.

And guess what I found somewhere off the track? Yes, boulders and walls to climb on ... of course! But the fascinating thing about that was that I found tick marks and remnants of chalk and shoe rubber on the rocks! So somebody was already bouldering here before me... in the middle of nowhere. The climbing revolution is taking over the planet ;)

Before I left on my trip to South America, I had the challenge to pack my backpack with everything I need for cities, glaciers, rocks, sea, and desert ... a tent, a matress, a sleeping bag, guidebooks and maps ... and enough food for overnight trips. So see what I am carrying around:

Well, it's okay for dayhikes along the fjords, but I have to figure out something for the mountains... Anyways, I have a truly great time here at the end of civilisation. Tomorrow I will leave for Chile and the Torres del Paine national park. This will be really awesome if I am not to unlucky with the weather. I am looking forward to that!

But let me conclude this post with two great pictures which symbolize Tierra del Fuego for me:

Sticky swamps, dense rain forests, glaciers, and wild mountains together with the antarctic sea and its wildlife!

Now don't you also want to come to el fin del mundo?

Nos vemos!

Florian