Ushuaia Southern Most City In The World

    After sailing all night through the Magellan Strait we got up to mountains with some glaciers on both sides of the ship. The weather was sunny but the air was brisk. No warm weather here. We were not scheduled to be along side until after noon. We did have a tour scheduled.

 

 Breakfast at he International Cafe was very light. The Captain did announce that the pilot was coming aboard but that was followed by the sighting of 2 whales heading in the opposite direction which caused quite a stir among the passengers. The morning Zumba went for almost a full hour followed by the easy line dance class. I sat with the Cara the cruise staff member who did the line dancing. She is from Niagara Falls and had taken dance at some point. I gave her some information on some of the easy dances that we have done over the years as she was looking for new material. She was really interested in “What Does The Fox Say” dance but not for teaching.

Land's End

At Land's End

    We ate lunch in the dinning room since we had some time before we went ashore. The town of Ushuaia has about “60,000” people in it but they must count a lot of people in the outlying areas. It is a typical small town of a cruise ship stop with the tacky shops all selling the same types of things. The real stores were closed because they usually close in the afternoon. They do have some nice jewelry pieces made out of local stone which can only be bought in Argentina. The government does not allow the export of the stone. The shop was closed! We also saw whole lambs cooking in the window of restaurants. The were on racks over wood burning fire pits. By then it was time to get back to the ship for our tour!

National Park

Cooking Lamb

    We took a tour called Drive to the end of the World. It took us into the national park to the place where the Pan Am highway ends at the Beagle Channel. The channel is named after the ship that carried Charles Darwin. This is an area of sub-Antarctica forests. There were snow capped mountains which ducked in and out of the clouds. The guide was very good and we had a good introduction to the people, explorers and problems of this national park. One of the most interesting items is the damage that the beaver has caused. It was introduced to try to spur a fur trade But having no natural predators, has proceeded to destroy the forests with their dam building. Of course they were introduced from Canada!.

    We arrived back at the ship around 7:30 and had just enough time to get changed for diner. One couple did not make it. The photos posted shows the town and the national park.