Sorry I Missed A Day - We Were At The End Of The World

Yesterday we had no service...no internet, no cellular, nothing.  The reason?  We were at the end of the world in Ushuaia (pronounced OO-schwii-ya), the southernmost city in the world.  Funny - there's a small town in Chile that's working hard to become a city so THEY can claim the title.  But so far...

Ushuaia spills out of the mountains and into the sea.  The city itself is hard working and ready for tourists...and its backdrop is jawdropping.

From our vantage point (first stop on our 4X tour).  Center left - that white rectangle is our ship)

Oops!  Don't look across the channel...that's Chile.

The Andes is the longest mountain range in the world, and at the bottom, it takes a sharp turn.  The mountains run west to east in Ushuaia...so this pic is facing south.  Like, due south.  Like just over the horizon is the shelf of Antarctica.  We were on the 54th parallel South.  Cool note...Joe and I have also been on the 54th parallel North (Unalaska Island in the Aleutians).  What is it with the U names?

Anyhoo, we took a 4X tour that took us to the north part of Tierra del Fuego.  

Off we go.  The mountain on the left is Mount Olivia, the tallest mountain in town.  On the right is what they call the Five Brothers.  If you can zoom in, you can see five separate peak on one mountain.

Off-roading a bit

The ground was really soft due to recent rains (we were lucky to have a brilliant day), so the Hummers had to carefully pick their way through on the best path.  At one point all the drivers were out scouting the route...only one of them got stuck.

So, Canada introduced beavers to Tierra del Fuego in 1946 thinking there might be a good fur trade market...they were wrong.  Instead, the beavers found paradise: no predators, abundant fresh water, and tons of trees that were perfect for dam and lodge building.  Today there are more beavers than people here.  And they are massively destructive.  They actually changed the course of the river.

Trees look like this everywhere...totally gnawed off by the beavers.

You can see a small lodge center left (looks like a green hill).  On the right the edge of the dam; and fa back left the other side of the lagoon they formed.  All the surrounding trees have died because of too much water.  It looks like a tornado swept through here...and this is a small dam/lagoon!

We got out of our trucks and took a short hike through the forest.  Absolutely lovely.  Best thing about taking a hike here?  No snakes.  No poisonous spiders, no bears, no wolves.  Besides beavers, mostly foxes, rabbits, and birds.  Nice!

This is an orchid.  It's about the size of a quarter. And they're everywhere.

Our view from the top.  This is the White Dome.

Looking the other direction...the weather changes really fast.  At one point it started to rain, but before I could get out our rain ponchos the shower had passed.  

Glacier Valley

The White Dome again.

We worked our way back down the hill and then headed to a local weigh station and sled dog kennel for a quick bite and a beer.  Because the ground was so saturated and muddy, we couldn't go see the dogs - we couldn't get to the kennel!  

On the way back to town I got a good shot of the mountains.

After the tour, we stopped in town for a real lunch and a beer, and then did some shopping.  Back on board and off we sailed through the Beagle Channel.

At 7am Saturday morning, the Cruise Director announced over the intercom that if anyone was interested, we were coming around Cape Horn.  Fortunately, our cabin is on the right side of the ship to see it.  

Not much more that a couple of rocks, but cool as hell that we got to see it.

We've been at sea today, heading to Punta Arenas.  Tomorrow we'll have a city tour and about five hours to shop, eat, and drink!