Patagonia Pt. 3 - Journey to the 'End of the World' - Ushuaia & Puerto Williams

From Torres Del Paine we made our way further south yet again, across the Magallane Straits into Tierre Del Fuego (Land of Fire), heading for the Argentine city of Ushuaia - the southernmost city of the world. The whole area is owned in part by Argentina and in part by Chile and offers all the landscapes one could want to see... glaciers, lush woodland and a dramatic coastline. As we rounded the mountain range that sits to the northern edge of the city, the Bay of Ushuaia came into view just as the sun was setting over the city. Through the scattered cloud the sunset acted as a spotlight over the Bay of Ushuaia & the Beagle Channel, announcing a landmark stage of the trip for us. From staring at a map on the wall in our front room at home thinking what a bloody long way away Ushuaia was to actually pulling into town, felt like quite an achievement.


Ushuaia makes quite a big deal of it’s ‘Fin Del Mundo’ (End of the world) status, & whilst there is no denying the remoteness of the place - it is actually a remarkably well equipped & modern city. Ushuaia was originally established as a penal colony and so we took a tour around the old prison that was built by the convicts themselves and opened in 1902. The prison was intended for repeat offenders and serious criminals but among the convicts was supposedly the infamous Tango crooner, Carlos Gardel. One area of the prison is now used to house a museum on the history of the prison and Ushuaia as well as a couple of art galleries but it has largly been left unrestored. The prison used to hold 600 prisoners, 800 in its peak but was only designed to house 380 in single cells. It closed in 1947.

While in Ushuaia we took a sail boat out across the Beagle Channel to a Sea-Lion & Cormorant colony - very nice but seriously cold sitting out on the deck of the boat with the cold Antarctic wind blowing in. The original natives from Tierre Del Fuego (the Yamana), apparently used to walk around naked the entire time, just covering themselves in sea lion fat to be a little more water resistant - that sort of cold weather attire evens puts your average Geordie to shame!




We took a hike around the Tierre Del Fuego National Park, created in 1960, of which only a very small part is open to the public along the shoreline and few small hikes wihtin the park. It stretches 60 km north of the Beagle channel along the Chilean border.

We only realised the full extent of the ill feeling between Argentina & Chile over Patagonian territory disputes when we tried to organise a boat 60kms across the Beagle Channel to the Chilean town of Puerto Williams -which ended up taking us several days. We eventually managed to pay a boat an extortionate amount of money along with 4 other people to take the journey - Argentina clearly aiming amaking as difficult as possible for tourists to get across there.

Puerto Williams is essentially a Chilean Naval Base town, is further south than Ushuaia & actually should lay claim to the ’Fin Del Mundo’ title, as it is the southernmost inhabited town in the world - it just doesn’t go on about it. It certainly has a more remote feel about it than Ushuaia as horses & cows freely roam around the town finding food in any property they stumble into, plenty of wrecked boats line its shores & the towns 2000 inhabitants regularly run out of basic supplies - being entirely dependent on a once weekly cargo ship that arrives from the Chilean city of Punta Arenas (the nearest Chilean city) after a 38 hour journey, loaded with the towns needs for another week.

It was for this cargo ship that we had made the trip over to Puerto Williams, as along with 10 others we each paid about £100 to board the ship for it’s return leg from Puerto Williams to Punta Arenas, along the Beagle Channel & up through the Magallane Straits.





This was a total no frills journey, the ship only had 4 beds, all of which were occupied - so we spent the 38 hours in a basic chair. Having already done our fair share of long distance journeys, we decided to go armed with a few bottles of wine to increase our chances of getting some sleep - also helping to increase our popularity with the rest of our fellow shipmates! Along the Beagle Channel we sailed past 4 or 5 glaciers, coming down off the Darwin mountain range, straight down into the channel, had Albatross & Dolphins travelling alongside us & once again experienced every variation of weather imaginable. Whilst 38 hours in a basic chair on a no frills cargo ship is not something we are looking to repeat in any particular hurry, it was a great adventure & quite a fitting finale to an incredible 5 weeks in Patagonia.