To the end of the world!

Ushuaia is billed as the southernmost city in the world, and that’s where we are heading.  El fin del mondo.  But first we have to get there.  By bus.  It takes a day and half.  The end of the world is a long, long way away.

It’s a funny thing about Argentina – and indeed the small bit of Chile that we visit. Apart from the Andes, which are very steep and dramatic, much of the land is almost completely flat. We seem to have flown over thousands of miles of flatness and now we are driving through hundreds more miles of flatness – and it’s not very interesting.  The land is beigey-grey.  The plants are beigey-grey.  The sheep are beigey-grey.  But the guanacos are browny-grey. We don’t see many guanacos. Thank God for Kindles and iPads.

 Our epic journey involves two buses, an overnight stop in Punta Arenas where we find a very jolly fish restaurant – La Luna – a third bus which eventually takes us on a boat across the “mystical”, hmmm, Strait of Magellan to the island of Tierra del Fuego and then across the border back into Argentina and onto Rio Grande, which boasts the biggest brown trout in the world.  But we don’t stop there.  We board a mini-bus which, two hours later, disgorges us on the seafront in Ushuaia in a square dedicated to Las Malvinas.  We are just 484 miles from the Falkland Islands and Argentina’s claim is clear. Las Malvinas are included in the Province of Tierra del Fuego, and the UK has illegally occupied the islands since 1833. But no-one seems to hold this against us.

This isn’t the only contentious border in these parts. Chile/Argentina is clearly divided by the Andes peaks right down the country, then suddenly a slip of the hand and the border blips out to the east, Chile does a quick land grab for the final few miles of mainland and half of Tierra del Fuego as well as all the little islands scattered down the west coast.  The two countries still squabble over several of these islands and they had to get the Pope to sort it out a few years ago.  He sided with Chile, but I doubt that it’s sorted for ever.  You can’t reach the Argentine section of Tierra del Fuego by road unless you go through Chile.  Which could be why it’s the most relaxed border we encounter.  No checks for illegal fruit here. Everyone on the bus gives their passports to the bus conductor, who takes them in to be cloned – sorry, stamped - at both border controls and we’re through.  

And then there’s Antarctica.  Silly me.  I thought it was protected by international treaty and no-one owned it.  Try telling that to Argentina. With Antarctica only being 600 or so miles away they naturally claim a slice of it, and once again include Argentine Antarctic Territory in the Province of Tierra del Fuego.

So what is it like, this city at the end of the world?  I often find that places I have pictured in my mind based on their romantic name are nothing like the expectation.  The town itself is an eclectic mix – part naval base, part cruise liner port (mainly heading to Antarctica) and because of that, part tacky tourist town; there is not one, but three casinos here.  But the steepness of the streets tumbling down to the sea rival those of San Francisco, and some of the buildings are brightly coloured and attractive, though just as many are ugly concrete.  My real problem is that it doesn’t feel like the end of the world.  I look out to sea and can see land. We are actually looking over the Beagle Channel and there are several islands between here and Cape Horn and open sea.  That’s where the drama is to be had.  Where the Pacific meets the Atlantic and the cruise liners brave waves 20m high to cross Drake’s Passage to Antarctica.

Here in Ushuaia it is high summer; it is a little chilly, but all is calm.  And there are lupins. And a rugby club. And a golf course, with 8 holes.  Who’d have thought of that?