This is the longest day of daylight from 6:32 a.m. to 9:01
p.m. The ship didn’t arrive in Ushuaia, Argentina until 9:30 a.m., so tours
were not leaving until after 10. Ushuaia
is located on Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, on the Beagle Channel. It is 3,300 kilometers south of Buenos Aires
by road. We were up for breakfast in the dining room and even managed a 3 mile
walk and photos on Deck 11, before walking off the ship in Ushuaia for our
10:45 excursion of the Ushuaia area. There
were two smaller passenger ships in port.
Both were less than half the size of our ship and travel to Antarctica
as part of their itinerary. Ushuaia is
the most southern city in the world. It
took the title from Punta Arenas, Chile when the penal colony was established
in1902. There is a naval base further south which one day may take the
title. The population is 70,000. Since 1972, it is a tax free zone which has
attracted companies to build factories, mainly for electronics. The average age
is the mid-twenties since young people from the surrounding countries come to
Ushuaia for the good wages at the factories of about $2,000 US per month. There are three ranges of mountains near Ushuaia
with glacial valleys separating the ranges.
We visited two of the valleys, one full of peat moss bogs, travelling
through the Garibaldi pass and past Mount Olivia to Encondido Lake and
Fanyano(?) Lake where the bus stopped for pictures. Fanyano Lake is a long lake that runs parallel
to the Beagle Channel and is on the fault line of the South American plate and its
southern neighboring plate which includes Antartica. The lower mountains are covered in brush and
beech trees. We saw beaver dams from the
Canadian beavers which were introduced in the late 1940s. There are also Canadian
foxes which were introduced to combat the overpopulation of pet rabbits that
became wild. We passed through a tunnel
created near a ski resort. The top of
the tunnel was part of a ski run. We
stopped for lunch at Los Contorres restaurant, about 20 minutes from Ushuaia. Earlier in the morning, we saw lamb being
roasted around a large wood fire and
lamb was served for lunch with potato, salad and plentiful Malbec wine. We continued our tour back to Ushuaia to the
old prison that has been converted to a museum.
We left the tour and spent 90 minutes viewing paintings by prisoners and
learning about the history of the prison and the area. We walked back to the ship, the distance was
less than one kilometer. Before we
entered the dock area, we took photos of the End of the World memorial. We were
back on board just after 5 and fell into the regular routine of dancing before
and after dinner and going the 9:15 show.
Tonight it was the classical guitarist, Cesarios, who was preceded by
the aerial artist Sebastian. The next
two days are at sea with tomorrow morning the passage around Cape Horn
Friday, February 17, 2012
We were up early before breakfast at the pool deck cafeteria,
managed to get a picture of a sunrise and a rainbow as well as a 10 minute
walk. After breakfast we got our stickers for the excursion picked up by 8 then
waited in the theatre for our number to be called to take the tender to the
Punta Arenas pier for our 9 a.m. bus tour. Punta Arenas is located on the
Strait of Magellan. We travelled 150 km return, part of it on 100 km on gravel
and dirt roads, to the site of the ill-fated Spanish colony, King Philip,
founded in the early 1600s and renamed Fort Famine three years later when an
English explorer, Cavendish rescued the only survivor of 519 settlers. The
ironic thing is that they starved even though the ocean at their beach had an
abundant supply of King Crabs which they thought were malevolent spiders. It
was built along the Strait of Magellan that Ferdinand Magellan believed, in
1520, separated South America from Antarctica. The Spanish crown wanted to
establish a presence in the area to control shipping. Later in 1643, two Dutch explorers discovered
Cape Horn and the islands around it and the sea that separated South America
from Antarctica by 600 miles. Next we
were off on to a replica of Fort Bulnes which was originally built in 1843. After its unsuitability for settlement was apparent,
it was gradually moved over 40 km to the
present site of Punta Arenas by 1848.
The settlement struggled economically until the introduction of sheep
from the Falkland Islands in 1876. One of the native plants is the fuchsia
bush, whose small red flowers dotted the landscape during our tour. Lastly, we visited the former home of a
wealthy resident of Punta Arenas turned hotel, where additions were added as
children were born. It had at seven
bedrooms with bathrooms. We viewed a video of the Punta Arenas history and then
had the national drink, Pisco, crackers and cheese and watched a pair of
Chilean dancers present three native dances. Then we returned to the town
square of Punta Arenas, where we took pictures and browsed through a craft
market then walked the few blocks to the pier to get the tender back to the
ship. We had time to walk, on deck 11,
for 30 minutes, before a rain shower appeared.
Tonight was a formal evening and the photographers had their defusing
umbrellas and cameras set up on all the main staircases, by the elevators to
photograph people in their formal wear. Before
and after dinner we danced, then, went to the show of Argentine Tango dancers
and other tap, drum and rope acts. The
day ended after 11 p.m.
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