Ushuaia
When I arrived in Ushuaia, somebody told me how a boat to Antarctica had just been cancelled and how all of the passengers were sent home. It wasn’t my ship that had been cancelled, but when I heard this, I felt nothing. I figured that if this happened it would be alright. I would just go back to Calafate and do some mountaineering. This is just to say how much I did not anticipate what lay ahead of me. It had been 7 years since I first researched trips to Antarctica, yet I had no real reason to go, I didn’t know what to expect at all. I just wanted to go because it’s there. I had no idea how deeply Antarctica would touch me.
Antarctica was the 7th continent for me, and incidentally the 50th country. A “milestone” of sorts. Although traveling will always be my greatest passion, I must also admit that it spoilt me a bit. I do appreciate every beautiful landscape I see, but it is also rare for me to come across a landscape that I haven’t seen before in some other form. Antarctica was different, it was otherworldly, like stepping into a parallel universe that so few people even know exists.
But let’s not step ahead of ourselves, first Ushuaia. Ushuaia is the Southernmost city in the world. It’s quite incredible when you think about it, it’s literally at the end of the world. I didn’t know what to think when I arrived. There is something rough, yet rebellious and bright about Ushuaia. It was a gray day when I arrived, and the buildings were equally rugged and gray. Construction in the middle of the city coated everything in an additional layer of dust. Empty bottles from sailors or the local drunkards were lying along the streets. In some ways, it looked like a triste city that everyone else had given up on. Yet, Ushuaia had another more rebellious artsy side to it. The city was full of graffiti and other art displays, some were funny, others were real in a way that makes you pause. There would be the bright yellow building, next to the portrait of a man who seemingly just escaped a war zone. It was all quite puzzling to me.
But most of all, at least for tourists, Ushuaia is the city of hopes and dreams. It’s the gateway to Antarctica, the 7th continent. No traveller takes “going to Antarctica” lightly. It’s a big decision to make, mostly because it is so disproportionately expensive to anywhere else you might want to go. So people end up in Antarctica when they have been everywhere else, or when they made a leap of faith, handed over their credit cards and trusted it would all be worth it. That’s what I did. So here I was, standing at the shore among the statues of all the great explorers who embarked for the unknown, staring out into the ocean and thinking to myself “I made it”.
The excitement among people fulfilling their dream was like an undercurrent in the city, yet it felt palpable and visible in the eyes of both tourists and locals. When walking by the shore, locals often asked me if I wanted them to take a picture of me, as if they somehow knew that one day I might want to remember this moment. It was weird, that had never happened to me before. There was also a sweet guy at the reception of the hotel I was staying at, who didn’t want to believe me I was going to Antarctica. He was so excited for me. The morning of embarkation, I wanted to see the national park Tierra del Fuego, the biggest local attraction. The guy almost didn’t want to book my bus ticket to the park, because he was worried I might miss my boat. After he did reluctantly give me a ticket, he insisted on bringing me to the bus station and made sure the driver knew I had to be back by 3pm. It was sweet. That guy had never been to Antarctica himself, but somehow he knew what such a trip means to people.
The national park, Tierra del Fuego, is named land of fire, because autumn colors make it turn bright red. When I was there, it was mostly green and wet. It was definitely pretty, but nothing to rave about. The park was also empty. I didn’t encounter any other tourists, so it was a peaceful place to just collect your thoughts. It was me, a couple of birds and a badly marked trail. It was raining at times, but somehow the grayness of it seemed fitting for being at the “end of the world”. This said, I could imagine how this place and other hikes around the city could look totally different if it had been a different time of the year.
As I was getting back from my park excursion, I could slowly feel the excitement taking a hold of me. Till then, I had been pretty chilled and grounded about it. But I was, indeed, truly going to Antarctica. To read more about that journey, go here.
For more Ushuaia pictures, go here.
