Ushuaia Redux

Michael:

Well, here we are back in beautiful (rolling my eyes) Ushuaia, Argentina the southernmost city in the world.  It’s hard to believe we were here only two weeks ago.  It was summer then, but today it was more like winter – cold, drizzly and windy; even the leaves were beginning to change to fall colors.

I thought I was taking the same tour as Beverly did two weeks ago but it turned out that mine went to the “End of the World Prison,”  now an interesting museum.  In January 1896, the first group of 14 convicts arrived in Ushuaia.  These were repeat offenders, and the idea was to colonize the area using convicts to do all the hard labor, and it worked well!  By 1920 the jail had five pavilions and could house up to 600 of the worst prisoners that Argentina had.  I had hoped to run across the son of a bitch that stole Beverly’s necklace!  Anyway, the prison had 30 different work areas and these were used to essentially build the town. 

They started by constructing the railroad, which Beverly described earlier.  They needed this to harvest the lumber that would provide both the fuel and raw materials for the rest of the mission.  The prison was closed in 1947 and is now a museum and a naval base.  Interestingly, part of the original prison is now one of the most unusual art galleries I have ever seen.

Beverly:

Woo hoo, back in Ushuaia.  I have finally learned how to spell and pronounce it.  The best thing about being here is being tied to the dock.  We had a rocky night last night, nothing bad, just the kind you have to hold on to something when you get up in the middle of the night to go potty.  Again, my built-in alarm clock was on time; at 7:30am the bow thrusters came to life for our 8am arrival here.  We dressed warm as the summer weather was more like winter, with dark clouds threatening rain, strong winds, and cold temperatures in the high 40s.

Michael’s tour was the same one I took last time we were here, except…. If you remember I went on a train ride, went to look at a lake, and then saw a folkloric show where they served the best empanadas I have ever eaten.  So I told Michael he did not have to worry about lunch as he would get the yummy empanadas at the show.  Little did I know that they changed the tour to skip the show and include the prison instead.  Drat, I would like to have seen that instead of the folk show, although the empanadas were almost worth it. 

We are at the end of the world or fin del mundo in Spanish.  Antarctica is only 700 miles away, and as reported previously, this is a provisioning point for expeditions going to the white continent.  This god forsaken place is remote and has extremely miserable weather.  At least in the Falkland Islands they use greenhouses to grow some of their vegetables; here they do not do that because it is too expensive.  Everything has to be brought in as they don’t grow or make anything (except there is one cell phone factory), so the cost of living here is quite steep.

Today, I saw birds and sea lions in the comfort of an enclosed catamaran.  Didn’t have to count heads -- if you came on the boat, hopefully the same amount got off.  The waters in this part of the world are very cold, so a man overboard would probably not survive too long.  We saw cormorants, birds that look like penguins but are actually related to the pelican.  They can dive almost 300 feet deep to fish, but when on land have to flap their wings to dry off because they are not waterproof.  They also use guano as cement to keep their nests from falling off the rocky cliffs.  Oooh, the smell. In addition to other birds, we also saw a big bull sea lion who was surrounded by his harem and the kids.  He was sitting on the top most rock barking.  The scenery was quite stunning even with the rain and low clouds.  Along the bay, there are a few rocky/sandy beaches that the natives used to land their canoes.  The trees are deformed from the winds and mostly denuded from the cattle that eat the leaves in the winter when the ground is frozen and covered with snow.  These trees do not grow back.

I learned from my last trip here that I do not want to walk around with my gear and camera.  It impedes the shopping process.  So I returned to the ship to drop everything off, just taking the necessary items such as a cell phone, umbrella, and walkie talkie.  The walkie talkie was a waste of time because the battery was too low to transmit.  The umbrella was unnecessary as it did not rain.  The cell phone was a waste of time because I finally got free wifi and NOBODY ANSWERED THEIR PHONE!  So I walked the main street looking to buy a souvenir and an empanada for lunch.  The souvenir was a fleece jacket that has the end of the world on it; I couldn’t find any empanadas L  Looking in the clothes shops it is funny to see summer clothes and stylish shoes.  Do they really wear that stuff here?

Tomorrow we round Cape Horn—again!!!  Let’s hope the sea gods are kind to us, but it doesn’t look good.