Tierra del Fuego National Park

Twice I have been to the southernmost city on Earth—Ushuaia in the State of Tierra del Fuego. The first time was in 2006, when I broke my shoulder on the high curb when crossing Magallanes at Rivadavia. The second time was when I visited with Martine in 2011.

Actually, there is one populated town south of Ushuaia, but it is maintained by Chile mostly as a naval base and has a much smaller population.

On Rivadavia in Ushuaia Looking North

Ushuaia pretty march marks the southern end of the Andes, which are only a couple thousand feet (610 meters) in altitude, though they are still covered in snow. It can get mighty cold at that latitude, which is only about 600 miles (966 kilometers) across the Drake Channel from Antarctica.

I wouldn’t mind going back to Tierra del Fuego and maybe seeing Punta Arenas and Puerto Williams in Chile. By the way, Puerto Williams is the only town south of Ushuaia—just across the Beagle Channel.

What is there to do in Ushuaia? There are several impressive museums, one of which was formerly a prison. There is Estancia Harberton, which settled by the Bridges family and is written about at length in E. Lucas Bridges’s The Uttermost Part of the Earth, a travel classic. Then there are the Magellanic Penguins on nearby Isla Pajaros; and there is Tierra del Fuego National Park, which ends at the border with Chile.