DAY 32, February 15. Ushuaia, Argentina

DAY 32 Wednesday February 15. Ushuaia, Argentina

After sailing through the Straits of Magellan we left Chile behind and landed in the southernmost town in the whole of the Americas, Ushuaia, Argentina.

Ushuaia calls itself “The End of the World.” Being the last port of call on our southern journey in the Americas, it makes me stop and think. I have to say I haven’t seen anything I would call exotic on this trip so far. I’d be willing to bet that you could buy Chinese-made souvenirs at every stop along the way. People here look like folks you will see in any city near a coastline or in the Southwest. Dressed the same—t-shirts and baseball caps, team uniforms. Sure, they dressed in national costumes on special occasions, but don’t people do that in the US? In terms of cars and trucks, I see Subarus, Toyotas, Nissan, some Chevys and Fords, some Mercedes—like in the US. Oh, I saw some Chinese makes in Manta, but you had to really look to see any difference. There is local music, but that doesn’t sound exotic either. Even the Andean stuff, panpipes and pentatonic tunes. There is a group out in the street on the Sixth Avenue in Manhattan that has been playing it every day for years. Our guide in Ushuaia played his K-pop with English lyrics during our 4×4 excursion. He didn’t like the local music. I guess it clashed with his pierced lips and ears. 

Downtown Ushuaia itself looks like it would easily fit along the northern Pacific coast. Say a few miles north of Seattle. The stores sell the same stuff, too. North Face, and of course Patagonia. Is this what people around the world call American hegemony? To their credit, I didn’t see any Starbucks, though there was a Hard Rock Cafe.

We enjoyed that 4×4 excursion. Six of us piled into the passenger compartment bolted onto the back of a flatbed Toyota. I think the padded roll bars were probably there to impress us more than anything else, but we were taken down a seriously steep, rocky trail and forded a couple of little creeks. We were told that this was what the remains of the first road in Tierra del Fuego. At the bottom was a truly beautiful lake. 

The last stop on the excursion was to a refuge for sled dogs, which they used for dogsled races. I don’t think these were rescue dogs, so I don’t know why it called itself a refuge. They fed us a hearty beef stew. Really tasty (This is Argentina after all.) Our hosts were maybe more surprised than we were that it was snowing. After all, it’s the middle of summer here! I did a quick measure of the accumulation: half of my index finger! And to think New York City has had no snow at all so far this year.

Tomorrow, Drake’s Passage.