Tierra del Fuego, Argentina - January 2008

I think this translates to 'you're a bloody long way south'!

One of the reasons that I started my blog was that I was sick of losing old photos of various trips Sam and I have done over the years. Old photos tended to fade away or just disappear into some mysterious black hole, and my early digital stuff was scattered around on numerous CD’s that may or may not be labelled, or on some files on some old device that no longer boots up. Along with the many early trips to the Kimberly, Cape York, Kakadu, Nitmiluk, Tasmania, New Zealand I’ve also lost most my photos from our trip to Argentina and Antarctica. Now I do seem to have a few photos that I’ve been able to scrounge up from Buenos Aires and Tierra del Fuego and I’ve already knocked out a post about El Calafate, but I’ve got donuts from Ushuaia and half of Antarctica. Anyway, enough of my problems that was really just a long winded preamble to explain this anaemic post about Tierra del Fuego.

Tierra del Fuego

Sam and I visited Tierra del Fuego after getting off the ship from Antarctica. Tierra del Fuego roughly translates to Land of Fire which I think goes back to when the Spanish sailed up the Beagle Passage and noticed the fires from the indigenous Yamana people along the shore. I’d always had fire and ice at the back of my head, thinking that it was something to do with ice covered mountains and volcanoes but no, it’s more like your Bay of Fires set up down in Tasmania.

That's the Beagle Channel behind me.

Like Patagonia there is a bit of a cowboy culture down in Tierra del Fuego, I'm thinking some of the park used to be Estancias.

I’m not 100% sure whether he named it, but it was some bloke called Magellan who discovered Tierra del Fuego back in 1520. Discovered is an interesting term isn’t it that I’m sure the local indigenous might have something to say about, a bit like a certain Captain Cook back in Australia. Apparently this Magellan bloke was a bit of a gun navigator in his day (before I’m inundated with Portuguese and Spanish hate mail, I do really know that Magellen was a legendary explorer).

Bahia Ensenada is a bay in the Beagle Channel.

Tierra del Fuego is the southernmost point in the world that you can drive to, so of course we motored on down, any further south and you’ll be dodging Penguins in Antarctica. We were lucky on the day we visited as while the day was a bit overcast it was also fairly dry which made it a little more pleasant on the couple of short walks that we did. Apart from the snow covered mountains and a few views out to the foreboding ocean, (you might of heard of Cape Horn, well that’s not far from here) my lasting memory of Tierra del Fuego was the Lenga Forests. Lenga Trees are a bit like our Fagus in Tasmania, in that come Autumn the leaves go a golden brown colour which must be an impressive sight down here.

North American Beavers have spread into Tierra del Fuego and are doing a lot of damage unfortunately.

Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego is an Argentine Province but I’m sure we went to a spot today where across the rushing river was a Chilean army out-post, but maybe that is my fertile Feral imagination playing tricks on me? Unfortunately after only a few hours in this unique spot it was time to head back to Ushuia and our flight back up to Buenos Aires. Now in the years since we visited this beautiful part of the world I’ve come to realise that the trekking in Tierra del Fuego is only really limited by your imagination (and your ability and wallet!) so you never know, one day I might be lucky enough to once again visit.

Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego

The Dirt.
We took a short bus tour out from Ushuaia down to Tierra del Fuego on this trip, the main tourist spots aren't that far out of town along what was a fairly rough dirt road. There are plenty of places in Ushuaia to organise a trip out here (or even a last minute trip to Antarctica). Like I mentioned earlier, if you don't mind walking then Tierra del Fuego has endless possibilities, something that hopefully I'll re-visit at some stage if I don't run out of years! Dientes de Navarino on Navarino Island looks to be the one I'd go for - anyone interested?

Relevant Posts.
Torres del Paine Journal, 2012.
El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina, 2008.
Base Antarctica Gabriel Gonzales Videla, Antarctica, 2008.

The big, popular National Parks in Argentina had similar facilities to the equivalent ones back in Australia.

The lower slopes of the mountains are covered in Lenga Trees, it must be quite a sight in Autumn I'm thinking.