End of the World

Here I am in Ushuaia, Argentina situated on the Beagle Channel. Yesterday afternoon the ship stood off Cape Horn for about an hour. The ship turned around several times in order that people get a good view of the ¨bottom of the world¨. Today we went to Tierra del Fuego Natl. Park. Most of the trees are beech; a decidious variety and a non-decidious one. We can see the treeline only a couple of thousand feet up the mountain. Don´t know why it´s so low here, maybe the cold. It´s summer here so the flowers are blooming but it´s chilly and a bit windy. The soil appears to be very light-colored and full of clay and chaulk. Not very healthy soil for plants but then the plants grow quite low and the trees aren´t over 50 ft. tall. The houses in the area are of a Bavarian-type construction. Lots of wood and stone with peaked tin roofs. Quite picturesque. The Park begins at KM 30754--that´s a little over 2000 miles from Buenos Aires. And by the Pan-American highway it´s 18,000 km to Alaska. I think it would be a great adventure to drive from here to Buenos Aires--might take a month, but what a wonderful and adverture-filled month it could be.

Up in the Park the breeze is cold and reminds me of the cold wind in Glacier Park. There are lupine blooming everywhere here in colors I´ve never seen before--pink, blue, yellow, purple, red and a sort of apricot color. They are very tall at about 3.5-4 feet.

That seems to be the last of the notes I took today. I like this part of the world. It has a wild and untamed feel yet Ushuaia has all the modern conveniences. The Pacific meets the Atlantic out there in the channel and this seems like such a special place in the world. I¨d like to spend more time here--but I say that about every place I go. It seems I need to visit every place twice; once to check it out and another time to really see everything in which I´m interested.

By the way, sunset is at 10:05 PM--can you believe it!!!