Having travelled to the most southerly point in the Americas, it feels like you should so something significant to remember it. When I first planned the trip, I was hoping to stand on Cape Horn and see the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans meet as I had done in Africa. The problem with the southern tip of America is that it littered with little islands, so Cape Horn seems to be a bit more of an area than a specific point.
The same applies to the most southerly point, as the Beagle Channel is 200km long it is it along there somewhere. As the channel and surrounding mountain are the border between Argentinian and Chilean territory, there is a general disagreement on most things, so the Ushuaia claims the prize of most southerly point, but Chile has a village on one of the islands with a similar claim, but as it is an island it doesn’t count in my book.
There are lots of tour companies in Ushuaia offering pretty much the same packages, either a cruise or a trip to the Tierra del Fuego national park. It is quite difficult to make sense of it all through Tripadvisor as the companies are all offering different sounding packages but they are the basically the same thing.
The Beagle Channel cruises, this is the channel that separates Argentina from Chile, and giant catamarans ply the waters to 2 destinations. The first is the cruise to the Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse out in the middle of the channel, the most southerly lighthouse in the world, then there are the all day cruises to the penguin colony way down the channel towards the Atlantic, so we chose the one to the lighthouse which was 3 hours.
The Tierra Del Fuego national park trips were dressed up in many different ways, but basically it is minibus trip around the national park with something else. The big attraction if the “Train at the end of the World”, so we chose the 5 hour trip and the train ride. Other options included, canoes, rafts and even a game of golf, but it was still the same national park.
We set off at 9am in a freezing cold wind blowing along the channel that separates Chile from Argentina. The trip was sold out, mostly to Germans doing a South Atlantic cruise, seemed a bit odd to get off a cruise ship and then go back up the same channel in a smaller ship.
After bouncing around in the waves running down the channel, our first stop was a remote island and the last bit of land owned by Argentina, everything south of here is Chilean apparently. The landing was quite a surprise, the huge catamaran just ran up on the beach, and we all marched down the gangplank for the professional photo opportunity.
Apparently, some guy decided to live on this island 100 years ago, and he must have been a very hardy soul, because it was freezing and very exposed even in spring or nearly summer. We concluded he must have either been very unsociable or was kicked out of Ushuaia by the locals.
Then we were back on the boat, with the wind behind us it wasn’t so rough as we ran with the waves. Next stop was a remote rock occupied by a range of seabirds, mainly cormorants and penguins, they made a spectacular sight. If you couldn’t see them, you could certainly smell them as the rock was covered in seabird poop that even the elements couldn’t clean up, we circled the rocks, so everyone got a good view and plenty of photos.
The views along the channel were spectacular, the visibility improved as the day went on and we had a great view of the snow covered mountains on both sides of the channel.
Next stop further up the channel was the most southerly lighthouse in the world. Once again it was a spectacular display of wildlife with the main difference being the sealion colony with occupied the rocky outcrops.
The trip was about 3 hours in total and pretty good value for money as the views are unique. We were very glad we didn’t commit to the 6 hour cruise to see the penguin colony, that must be a very long day in those conditions unless you are desperate to see a penguin colony.
Opinion – must do having come all this way
Here is a video of the highlights
Tierra del Fuego national park.
This is the southern tip of Patagonia, and the tour took in some interesting places, but in general it was very similar to a lot of the other national parks we have visited in Patagonia, lakes and snow topped mountains and border disagreements with Chile.
There are constant reminders of how remote this national park is, at the limit of civilisation and due to the wild conditions, the limit of human habitation. There were indigenous people here for thousands of years surviving in this wild climate, but they didn’t survive the arrival of the Europeans and their viruses.
The start (or end) of the Pan American highway is one of the stops, it is difficult to imagine that this stretches all the way to the tip of Alaka, anyone cycling or driving to this point would probably wonder if it was all worthwhile, as it ends as a rough track, the last sign for the Highway 3 and a little plaque to commemorate your arrival.
To be honest there isn’t a lot else to see, we dropped in to see the last Post Office at the end of the world, but apparently it is now shut. The postmaster is in his eighties and doesn’t turn up for work much, so wouldn’t recommend posting a card to anyone.
The main event is the “Train at the end of the World”. Apparently, this was built by convicts who had been despatched to the penal colony back in the day. It wasn’t entirely clear why they built this railway as it doesn’t seem to go anywhere particularly useful other than the old prison, but it would certainly have kept the convicts busy for a few years.
It is just a small gauge railway that trundles along a river, through some woods, stops off to look at a waterfall, and then tracks around the edges of a peat swamp that they are careful not to disturb and let off methane.
If you have ever been to the Highlands of Scotland, you have seen everything this national park has to offer, in fact, one of the local jokes is that the Brits travelled all this was around the world to find the same weather conditions and scenery that they already had at home.
Opinion – expensive, symbolic but not essential
Here’s the video of our train ride
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