The end of the world

We are at the very bottom of Argentina now in a town called Ushuaia, or as the locals say: El Fin del Mundo. Translated: the end of the world. Apparently this is the southern-most city in the world. Tierra del Fuego is a series of islands off at the tip of South America. This area is shared by both Chile and Argentina. The borders between those two countries zigzag through the islands down here. The town of Ushuaia is fairly large and is surrounded by snow covered mountains and an inlet from the ocean. I have seen pictures of Valdez, Alaska before and I think Ushuaia and Valdez look similar. The Straights of Magellan are just offshore and Antarctica is not very far either. This is the place that people come to who are interested in visiting Antarctica because it is the closest city. A boat ride from here takes 4 days to Antarctica.

We spent the day in nearby Tierra del Fuego National Park. The seasons down here are opposite the seasons in the US. Right now it is the end of autumn, approaching winter. The temperature is probably around 40 degrees Fahrenheit.  Apparently most visitors come during the summer months of January and February so the park was empty for us. We went on a 7 mile roundtrip hike up to the top of a mountain called Cerro Guanaco.

The first part of the hike was along a lake. We then spent the next 3 hours climbing up through a forest, into a glacial valley, and then up to the top of one of the mountains on the side of the valley.

The hiking itself wasn’t too difficult. We were able to reach the top in three hours. What made the hiking difficult was the snow on the ground. The trail during the last mile of the trip was covered in a few inches of snow. The views during the hike were amazing. We noticed that there was a storm coming up the valley as we neared the top. As soon as we reached the top, the snow storm reached us. The view from up top was supposed to be fantastic, but the snow storm limited our visibility. We had lunch and waited the storm out for about 20 minutes. The clouds broke enough for us to get a good enough view of the vista. But after sitting in the snow on top of the mountain, we were getting cold so we walked back down to lower ground and warmer temperatures. Overall it was a fantastic hike with amazing scenery.

Tomorrow we are going to hike to a glacier. Later in the week we will be taking a bus to Chile to visit Torres de Paine National Park.

For those of you who are sitting at work looking to kill a few minutes, here is a game for you. You remember the Where’s Waldo comic? Where’s Wu?