It’s the “End of the World” as We Know It…

We arrived at Ushuaia, which is a coastal city in an archipelago called Tierra Del Fuego off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan — known by many as the “end of the world”.  The famous Cape Horn is the southernmost point.  We are now 2,480 miles from the South Pole.

This city was founded as a penal colony and the tour we are on today takes us on a narrow gauge train that was used to transport prisoners.  There continue to be squabbles between Chile and Argentina over the rights to this area and the prison was established to assist in the settlement of it by Argentina much like the British did in Australia.  We are now officially in Argentina.

Margaret had another day of recovery, deciding to stay back on the ship and get rest as she continues to recover from her bout with bronchitis and the effects of the antibiotics.  So, I headed out by myself on the “End of the World Train” a tour that leaves at 2:00 pm and is scheduled to return at 7:30 pm.

After a 15 minute bus ride to the train station we arrived at the train station which was very well done.  There were a number of pictures of the history of the railway, a nice store and coffee counter and two old steam engine trains with smallish red cars.  We lined up, entered the platform and boarded the train.

The train went VERY slowly through meadows that contained a meandering river that was pretty but less than spectacular.  After about 15 minutes, we stopped at a “station” and walked around looking at the meadow and river before continuing on.  At the end of the 7 mile ride we got off the train, walked a couple blocks and boarded a bus for the ride to a large catamaran-style boat that would take us on a trip to the “End of the World” and then back to the port.  This was an impressive “cat” with three levels, flat panel displays located throughout and a nice food service area where they charged $4 for coffee and hot chocolate.

I sat with a very nice couple, Cindy and John and spent some time learning about John’s new Nikon D5000 camera.  John is a very “with it” kind of guy and we had discussions about Macs vs PC’s, the iPad and Kindle, etc.  I learned later that he was the CEO of a high tech company in Silicon Valley for 20 years and worked for IBM for a long time before that.  Cindy was more Mac friendly so, of course, the two of us won the Mac vs. PC discussion.  Ha ha.

For a view of the area we are in click on this link: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Chile.estrechodemagallanes.png

The catamaran started out in the Beagle Channel, which is the channel that cuts from the Pacific in the West to the Atlantic in the East.  It is so named because the HMS Beagle made a couple trips here, first with Robert FitzRoy and later by the famous Charles Darwin.  Next we headed to the East were we made several stops including a comorant sanctuary (comorant’s are sort of a cross between a penguin and a pelican — see the photo below), a sea lion island and the “End of the World” lighthouse.  We were able to get very close which was pretty cool.  We then sped up and headed back to the port.  The entire boat trip took about 2 1/2 hours and was quite comfortable.

As scheduled, we arrived at the dock where the Mariner was tied up at 7:30 pm.  I went back to the room where I found Margaret reading in bed.  She was feeling better but not good enough to go out.  After ordering our dinner from the Compass Rose dinner menu we were treated to in-room service by Tapin, our butler, who gave us very formal treatment!  Margaret had a filet and I had veal 3 ways plus the lobster that would have come with Margaret’s dinner.  Quite nice!

Ushuaia Picture Gallery: http://travelwithdm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-America/Ushuaia-Feb-6-2010/25168551_KSgjNP#!i=2064200945&k=Gh9vztM

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