Tierra del Fuego - Where the Beauty Never Stops

We have arrived to the part of the trip that I have been most looking forward to: Tierra del Fuego. In the morning, we toured Tierra del Fuego National Park, which contains some absolutely beautiful scenery. 

Our tour guide's name for Tierra del Fuego was Nadia. She was named after Nadia Comaneci, the Romanian gymnast. 

Nadia

A humorous story before I get to the narrative: The tour started, as they all do, with Nadia checking to see if our listening devices, called Quiet Voxes, were working. While I could hear Nadia through the Quiet Vox, I also began hearing some music. The lady in the seat directly in front of me raised her hand and mentioned to Nadia that the music was too loud. Nadia looked confused, as she didn't hear any music. She came to the back of the bus to see what the lady and all of us in the immediate vicinity were talking about regarding this mysterious music. When she got to our seats, she shook her head as she began to hear the music also. Nadia looked around to see if there were some speakers on the bus that might need to be turned off. We all were looking around, trying to figure out why only those of us in the rear of the bus could hear this music. Then the lady in front of me, who was the first to complain and who complained the loudest, pulled her phone out of her purse and the music immediately got louder. It was coming from her phone! The lady had apparently inadvertently hit a button on her phone and something or other began playing. And in true elderly fashion, she said "I don't know how to turn it off." Our young tour guide, Nadia, came to the rescue and with one push of a button that took about two seconds, turned off the music. Mystery solved.

The tour of Tierra del Fuego National Park consisted mostly of photo stops, as the beauty of this park is magnificent. We drove west from the city of Ushuaia where the National Park is located. 

Yes! I made it to Tierra del Fuego!

Once we were in the park, we drove along and witnessed awesome views of the towering Andes mountains that form a gorgeous backdrop to the unbelievable scenery - breathtakingly beautiful! 

Along the way, Nadia gave us some history of the area, along with some information on the natural setting. Tierra del Fuego consists of a variety of environments, including forests, lakes, mountains, bays, and more. Nadia explained to us what the difference is between a forest and a jungle. Apparently a jungle has a great diversity of species of trees, whereas a forest has fewer species. Tierra del Fuego is classified as a forest, as it only has 3 species of trees. There was a very strange type of fungus growing on the trees. This fungus looked like large orange berries. And the leaves of the tree are unique in that the fronds on the individual leaves are symmetrical.

Our first stop was at Lago Acigami (Lake Acigami), which, like most lakes in the park is a glacial lake. Part of the lake is in Argentina while part of it is in Chile. We took many photos of this amazingly beautiful landscape. 

We also saw some wildlife, particular geese. The most prominent goose in Tierra del Fuego is the Upland Goose (also known as the Magellan goose) and they always travel in pairs (male and female). Nadia said that it has been reported that when one of the members of the pair dies, the other one is sad and looks to be in mourning. Also, there are no amphibians in Tierra del Fuego, so no toads, lizards, or snakes of any kind. 

We stopped at Alakush, which is the Tierra del Fuego Visitor's Center. There we were treated to refreshments and coffee, tea, wine, and/or beer. 

We also had an opportunity to browse a gift shop and spend some American dollars, which are always welcome here. As I had reported earlier, when we were in Argentina (Buenos Aires and Puerto Madryn) the exchange rate with the Argentine peso was $363 to $1. Things change so quickly, that now the exchange rate is $800 to $1. A dramatic change in just a few days.

After leaving Alakush, we drove through the park and then stopped at a sight to view more beauty. Honestly, the beauty never stops. We walked along a boardwalk that took us to overviews of another lake with more amazing scenery. 

After this chance to walk a bit, stretch our legs, and take more photos, we returned to the bus. We noticed where our bus was parked that there were signs for our highway that we were traveling on, and it was Highway 3, the same highway we learned about in Puerto Madryn that runs from Alaska to the very tip of South America. This highway is called the Pan American highway, and runs from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina for a total of 19,000 miles. So here we were near the very end of the road. Literally. 

Nadia told us that in times past, the government of Argentina brought beavers down from Canada in order to participate in the lucrative fur trade. However, they did not anticipate that there are no known predators in this area, and so the beaver population is out of control. It is legal (and in fact, encouraged) to hunt beavers, and it is not necessary to have a license to do so. 

Our last photo stop of the day was at a bay to see more water, beach, mountain gorgeous scenery. Also located at this stop was a Ushuaia Post Office, billed as the world's southernmost post office.

The unique thing that was added to this stop as opposed to earlier stops was a bit of snow. That's right - snow. The snow was coming down fast and furious as pellets and would sting if it hit you in the face. Keep in mind that here it is late spring, almost summer. It would be equivalent to snow near the end of June in the northern hemisphere. Needless to say, it was very cold, so we snapped our photos and then returned to the nice, warm bus.

On our tour, we learned many things about the nature of the area, but we also learned a little bit about the indigenous peoples. The people are called Yaganes (also called Yamanas) and obviously know how to live off of the land. One unique thing about them is that they wear little to no clothing, whether summer or winter, apparently indifference to cold. They built lots of fires, presumably for warmth but also for cooking and other uses, and the many fires could be seen from offshore. This led Magellan, who had noticed these fires from his ship, to name the area Tierra del Fuego, which means Land of Fire. Darwin, who explored this area, noted that the Yaganes were very curious people, very interested in everything that he was doing. 

After this last, snowy stop, our bus returned to the cruise ship, where we were again treated to beautiful scenery on the drive back. I said it before, but I'll say it again: the beauty never stops!