Thanksgiving at The Land of Fire

So when you've made it to the end of the world, you might as well stop and look around for a bit.  This is how Mark, Anne and HBomb spent their Thanksgiving day, touring Tierra del Fuego national park.  (O'Canada was also present, but since she is Canadian, she does her Thanksgiving in October or something....for her it was just a Thursday)

Our group originally wanted to take the Ushuaia railroad into the national park.  The railroad was built by prisoners sentenced to the prison at Ushuaia.  It went from the town into the forest.  Workers (typically prisoners) rode the train to the woods and then gathered what the town would need, mostly firewood, and then rode the train back to the prison.  The train is back in action as a tourist attraction, but happened to have been closed on the day our group tried to ride it (maybe in observation of Thanksgiving?  Who knows?)

So, instead of that, our group rented a cab and driver and got a private tour of the national park.  The taxi driver knew his way around the park and was surprisingly affordable.  The first stop was at Argentina's southernmost post office (pictured above).  O'Canada decided to determine whether it was actually in service and mailed a postcard from this outpost on Thanksgiving day.  We are happy to report that just 13 days into December, that post card arrived at his specified destination.

O'Canada keep HBomb from escaping

The cab driver took the group to several overlooks and scenic spots, as well as to a few short walks.  Although there are mountains in the distance, this park is pretty close to sea level.  As a result, a lot of the part is lagoon and marsh land.

Beaver dam(age)

The Argentines are having real problems managing the lands in the park and the reason is remarkably simple and kind of stupid: beavers.  Beavers are not native to this part of the world.  The Argentine army corp of engineers thought it would be a good idea to introduce beavers to Tierra del Fuego in the 1950s.  The idea was that the people in Tierra del Fuego would become pelt hunters and the economy would grow.  There were a few snags.  #1: the people of Tierra del Fuego do not like hunting beavers.  #2: the beavers have few or no natural predators or enemies in Tierra del Fuego.  As a result of no predators and little hunting, the beaver populations grew exponentially.  The problem with this is that the beaver dams and damage done to the trees causes entire marsh lands to wilt and die (like in the photo above).

We're going to have to walk from here...

After surveying the damage done by the non-native beavers, our non-native group found the southernmost point of the park and marveled across the channel at the Chilean side (for some reason, the grass seemed greener over there).

The final stop was at a large lake.  HBomb noticed a significant amount of driftwood washing ashore and decided to put a stop to that madness.  He started a one-man driftwood reclamation project by chucking stick after stick into the lake.  We commend him for his tremendous effort and pretty decent follow-through on his throw.

"I can throw the ball over those mountains..."

Penguinos!

Ok, so truth be told, the real reason we wanted to go to Ushuaia was to see the penguins.  And, as it just so happens, in the end of November, they form a colony on a certain privately owned island just down the road from Ushuaia (they form several colonies, actually, but most are in national parks or nature preserves).  Many tour companies will take guests near the penguin island, but only one promises to actually land on the island.  That's the one we wanted.

I'm on a boat!

The day was a long one for Anne, Hbomb, Mark and O'Canada as they started with a 2 hour bus ride, followed by a boat trip out to the island.  Once on the island, they found an unoccupied stretch of beach and landed.  From there, the guides directed them how to approach the penguins, how to get close - but not too close - and how to walk around without crushing any of their underground burrows.

As expected, the penguins were adorable.  Some of them frolicked on the beach, sunning themselves, jumping in the water to go fishing or play around, and then returning to the beach for continued sunbathing.  We were told that that these care-free beach bums were mostly the single males, wandering through this mating season with little to no responsibility and just living it up....I'm sure you know the type.

What are you looking at?

Further inland, the penguin families arranged themselves into little neighborhoods.  Apparently, they come back not only to the same island every year, but to the same little part of the island and do their nesting in close proximity to the same families each year.  These particular penguins, called Magellanic penguins, mate with the same partner year after year.  Typically, the male gets to the nesting grounds first and claims his borrow (typically the same one year after year, but always in the same general area) and then waits around for the female to show up.

Hey, baby, come here often?

The little neighborhoods had a series of borrows in the ground.  The penguins hatch their eggs on the island and then the babies grow, using the borrows and their parents for protection, until they are big enough to go out and fend for themselves.

As opposed to the free-wheeling single male penguins goofing around on the beach, the adult/parent penguins work nearly 24/7 in shifts.  One parent sits on the egg while the other parent goes fishing.  When the egg hatches, they need to have a good store of calories ready for junior.  Then, after breeding season is done, they head back to the waters on the Atlantic side of South America.

One unique aspect that our group encountered was the fat little guy shown above (that's the photo ABOVE, not the fat guy holding HBomb in the photo BELOW).  The orange markings on his face mark this as a King penguin.  Apparently, he was either on his way to his own nesting neighborhood and stopped off for a rest or had decided that he was looking to start a new nesting ground and was checking out the island of the Magellanic penguins.

Sunrises and Winds in Ushuaia

Photo credit: the early morning awakening O'Canada.

So established as a prison and port town, you might not expect too much from the town of Ushuaia.  However, due to recent policies promoting manufacturing and tourism in the south of Argentina, Ushuaia is actually booming.  Apparently 15 years ago it was an unrecognizable, basically undeveloped little outpost,  and 15 years from now it will be unrecognizable due to its growth.  But right now, it is a cute little city.

Anne, Mark, HBomb and O'Canada rented a little cabin overlooking the Beagle Channel.  The Channel was named after a ship called The Beagle.  Does that sound familiar to anyone?  If it does, the answer is yes, it is in reference to the same one you are thinking of.  That ship and its famous passenger explored down here before going on to it's more famous exploits on the Pacific side of South America.

Our group decided to walk across the down town en route to the prison museum.  Unexpectedly, they ran into a street protest.  We had arrived in Ushuaia just after the presidential elections, so we kind of expected that this might be a political protest.  However, it appears to was just a standard, labor union marching down the streets protest.  Noisy, but peaceful and really not that big of a deal.

One thing that is kind of a big deal in Ushuaia is the winds.

Apparently due to the Andes Mountains.... the winds coming off of the Pacific Ocean... maybe the rotation of the earth.... the cams on these specs.... well, frankly, I don't really know why, but there are really strong winds blowing west to east in Ushuaia.  The winds are so strong, in fact, that they can cause trees to grow in weird ways.  For example:

HBomb and Mark decided to see how strong the winds really were.  I mean, it can't be THAT strong can it?

You get the best grip if you hold on to the eye sockets.

This whole experience reminded Mark of an iconic ad from the 80s.  Anyone remember this?

Tagline: After 500 plays, our high fidelity TAPE still delivers high fidelity.

It basically looks like the trees were the guy in the Maxell ad.  (side note, that was actually an ad for cassette tapes - how old am I?).  Apparently, though, Mark is not the only one who saw the trees and thought of advertising.  Apparently, these "flag trees" are kind of famous as a symbol of Ushuaia and Fin del Mundo and are used to sell everything from wine to beer (ok, so maybe that's not a huge range...)

Prison at the End of the World

After spending a couple of days hiking around glaciers in El Calafate, Anne, HBomb, O'Canada and Mark got on a plane and went to the End of the World.

When they landed, there were in Ushuaia.

Ushuaia bills itself as "Fin del Mundo" - the end of the world.  It is generally recognized as the southern-most city in the world (there is a town of 2000 people or so in Chile that is actually further south, but it, apparently has not gone through the paperwork of being declared a city, so just go with it).  Currently, Ushuaia is a pretty busy city, not only for tourism, but also because it has a big and active port.

Back in the day, however, Ushuaia was a prison town.  Argentina and Chile were fighting over territory in the southernmost part of South America and both tried to stake their claims by establishing settlements.  Argentina decided to create a penal colony in the cold, harsh island at the end of world to house its worst criminals.  Eventually, this evolved into a prison which housed a bunch of really bad guys, as well as a bunch of political prisoners.

Although some of the prisoners were the worst of the worst, they were allowed a significant amount of freedom, including being taken by train to the forest to cut firewood.  The logic was that this place was so cold and isolated, if they ran away, they would freeze to death before making it back to civilization.  Kind of like the strategy of the Klingons with Rura Penthe, in Star Trek VI..... sorry, totally geeked out there for a second.

HBomb appreciates references to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Anyway, the prison is now a museum, partially dedicated to prison history, partially dedicated to art and maritime history... there was something about penguins, an exhibit about the "Southern Lights," I think an old car, an exhibit of pre-historic man... frankly, it was a lot of stuff.

There were a few really interesting aspects.  First, one wing of the prison had been left untouched.  Four had been fixed up, decorated, with placards explaining everything, which was nice.  But the one that was left as is, was cold, damp, kind of dark and generally unpleasant.  It was pretty easy to get a sense of how awful this place must have been.

HBomb, of course, caught the vibe first.  He decided that this prison was terrible and threw a temper tantrum in a cell of a political prisoner.  So that wasn't good.

Like any good parent, Mark took the Bomber to the "scared straight" exhibit (at least we think that it what it was - kind of weird regardless).  HBomb was not trying to hear that noise, though.

I'm out of here....

Once he realized what was going on, he made a break for it.  Thankfully, Anne chased him down, and O'Canada made sure he did not escape again...

At a Glacial Pace

Land approach to the glacier

So Anne and Mark have made it across the River to Uruguay a couple of times and have made it around Buenos Aires, but they still haven't really explored the rest of Argentina.  Over the Thanksgiving week, they finally changed that.  First on the agenda was a trip to El Calafate (that is Spanish for "the Calafate").


El Calafate is a fairly small town in the southern part of Argentina, near the Andes and the Chilean border and it probably most well known for being the place to stay when you are exploring the Andean glaciers.

Anne, Mark and their friend from the Great White North, Erin O'Canada, decided to check out the Perito Moreno glacier, partially located in Los Glacieres Parque Nacional.  You may remember Erin O'Canada as a fan of Rick Steves and chicken parika with dumplings, but not a fan of Hungarian booze.

The Perito Moreno glacier is one of 48 glaciers in the southern Patagonian ice field.  The glacier starts somewhere up in the mountains and is constantly pushing downward.  Eventually, the glacier reaches lago Argentino (which is where we met up with it).  Along the way, the glacier carves up whatever is in its path, creating the topography of this part of the world in the process.  Moving from the mountains down to the lake over hundreds of years, parts of the glacier freeze, melt and refreeze, creating parts of the glacier that are moving at different rates, which creates ruptures (like the two dark blue streaks in the above photo), breaks, caverns, crevices, and probably some other stuff.

The splash is the result of part of the glacier breaking off and falling into the lake.

During their visit, Anne, Mark and O'Canada saw and heard the ice breaking.  When these breaks occur, the ice just falls into the lake and floats away.

So we have a melting, freezing, and cracking glacier.  What should we do?  Climb on it, of course.

The tracks of previous trekkers.

In recent years, climbing on the glacier has gained in popularity.  The trekking (which, as far as Mark could tell, is just a fancy word for "hiking," which is, in turn, just a fancy word for "walking uphill") does not really harm the glacier because the parts of the glacier that you can hike on are going to break off and melt within a few months regardless.

So, is it difficult to hike on a glacier?  Not really, but you do need certain equipment.  First, gloves.  And not because your hands will freeze, but because your hands will bleed.  The ice on the glacier has been moving from the mountains to the lake for between 400 and 500 years.  Over this time it has frozen and melted many times, which apparently, eventually leads to the ice freezing in a shape that is basically just a razor.  Just walking with your hands at your sides or putting out a hand to catch yourself if you slip could lead to serious lacerations.  The tour company had a bunch of gloves and would not let anyone go without them.

The other requirement: Crampons.  (*editor's note, pants, shirts and a jacket were probably also required, but this was not actually stated out loud).  Crampons look like a medieval torture device, made of steel with spikes protruding in multiple directions.  In actuality, you could probably use them for torture, but they are more commonly just strapped to the bottom of hiking boots of people who are hiking in the snow and ice.

Crampons.

Yep, somebody's job is being the "Crampon guy."

Crampons are not particularly difficult to use, but they take a little getting used to.  You have to set your foot down flat, not heel-toe or toe-heel.  You also have to "wide track" it.  You don't want to clip your own leg with the crampon from the other leg and bleed out on the glacier (that would be embarrassing).  But otherwise, no big deal.

So, after getting (our feet) strapped in, the hike was on.  The guides took us through some crevices.  They pointed out the pit falls (literal and figurative) of this type of hiking/trekking/uphill walking.

Wearing too many layers is a pitfall (figurative)

This pitfall is a pitfall (literal).

They explained why the ice turns blue (sorry, wasn't paying attention).  They constantly yelled at some Israeli kids in Mark's group to quit taking selfies and look where they were walking.  All in all, a pretty active tour guide gig.

At the end of the trek, the guides produced a couple of bottles of truly questionable whiskey and a table full of glasses.  They then chipped some ice from the glacier and poured some whiskey over it and the hiking group had a toast.  It was the odd combination of ice that had fallen as snow at about the same time that Magellen first sailed to this part of the world in 1520 paired with whiskey that had been distilled at about the same time that Royals won the World Series in early November.

Cheers!

Sea approach to the glacier.