Adventures with Niko and Kaia: February 2013

A Ship Graveyard -- the Straight of Magellan

It's hard to understate the impact of the Panama Canal on this part of the world. Still today, cafes and restaurants all over the area proudly display grainy, black and white pictures of their bustling 1913 waterfront -- countless ships and sailing vessels all awaiting the shifting tide to continue their voyage to destinations in California and the Far East, or returning to home ports in New York, London, or Hamburg. Practically overnight, in 1914, the trade in this area simply ended. No longer an important hub connecting East and West, the end of the world was once again silent.

This legacy is visible all over Chile if you watch for it, but nowhere feels more lonely and abandoned than San Gregorio. Once the largest sheep station in the world, it became a massive provisioning depot for the endless parade of exhausted seafarers and their battered vessels rounding the horn.

Imagine this beach packed with ships?

Kaia remembers San Gregorio as the place with a really nice cat.
Oh yeah, cool shipwrecks too

After the opening of the Canal in 1914, ship owners watched their sailing rigs slip into obsolescence; many simply ran them aground in these remote --and notoriously treacherous waters -- knowing full well that insurance companies would never come this far to investigate. Ship carcasses still litter the coast.

The Embassador, a former tea ship and last of the tall ships.

A sister ship to the famous Cutty Sark, -- now a museum ship in London.

A late lunch break in the wind shadow of a provisions warehouse.

After exploring the ruins for longer than planed, and with a classic Magellanic wind storm brewing, we needed to find a good place to camp. It felt a little too eerie overnighting in San Gregorio with the wind howling, clanging and whistling through the corrugated metal ghost town. So we, too, moved on.

Further down the coast outside of Punta Arenas we discovered a dense and magical grove of moss covered beech trees, twisted and dwarfed by the cold and relentless cape winds that routinely batter the tip of South America. By sun down, we could hear the 70+ km/h gale just above the tree tops. Below, in the still and quiet forest, we gathered sticks and dry moss and drank hot cocoa. The only thing missing were woodland gnomes.

The storm passed by morning and Kaia was so determined to watch sunrise over the straight that she didn't have time to change out of her PJs.

After breakfast, we were all anxious to get to Punta Arenas, or more specifically, the airport in Punta Arenas to pick up Grampa, just in time for his 76th birthday.

Calafate to Rio Gallegos and the Straight of Magellan

So this is the last leg of the trip before we can't go no-more south. Quite a contrast to the wild and rugged landscapes of the Patagonian Andes, but beautiful and awesome nevertheless. I always imagined it as being dry and windswept...I was right.

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Before leaving Calafate, Niko and Kaia were so enthralled by a mate artists' wares that they both decided to buy a mate with their own allowance. We drew the line with the yerba however, so it's just mint tea for breakfast. Not quite the same I know, but I have a hard enough time keeping up with them not to get them all hopped up on caffeine.

I guess Google translator still needs a little work...

Just one last look back at the Southern Ice fields before heading east to the Atlantic.

360 degrees: Somewhere between Calafate and Rio Gallegos

Straight of Magellan

First glimpses of the Land of Fire--Tierra del Fuego

Our first Magellanic Penguin sightings!!!!!!!!!

Tierra del Fuego and the Earth's most southern city: Ushuaia

I'll admit that, secretly, the only reason I wanted to go to Tierra del Fuego, was because, well, it's just so far south. Pretty boring really. Kind of like eating your food in alphabetical order just because you can: not really the point of why you're doing it in the first place.

I was wrong. Tierra del Fuego turned out to be remote, beautiful, diverse, spectacular and SO unexpected. Some how that element of surprise is a natural tonic for the spirit of adventure.

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Lots of flat tires around here; cars limped into the

Argentine border station. Our Odyssey nearly came to a

premature close here when a rogue Chilean customs agent

decided that foreigners shouldn't be able to own cars in Chile.

Luckily, and at the last second, the agents off-handed

comment was contradicted by another agent, who set the

record straight. Imagine, it's OK, as long as you have all the

correct papers. We willing endured a long face-saving lecture

about the need to put the correct paper on top-- no doubt,

therein lay the problem.

Not much tourism infrastructure here. Once again, Monty proved to be a very comfy alternative to a hotel...
...and with a much better view.

Biggest waves I've ever seen on a lake

07:00: Camp Monty

One of the lonely abandoned sheep stations

Heading south, through Guanaco territory

Thank goodness someone knows where we are!!!

And then, there were mountains...

Ushuaia: "Gateway to Antarctica"

Lunch on the Glacier

Views of the Beagle Channel

Views over the Beagle Passage and Isla Navarino. It was interesting to imagine a
22 year old Charles Darwin floating through this same channel.

End of the Road at Bahia Lapataia.

For fear of sounding to "bookish", I will refrain from any blather about all the surprising things we LEARNED in Tierra del Fuego. But I just have to mention one thing that took me by surprise: The stories of the Selknam, an extinct culture that existed on the island until very recently. If you've ever wondered how different humans could possibly be, check out the link above, and if you're still interested, check out the book End of a World, by a Harvard anthropologist who spent many years interviewing the last survivor and documenting her memories of what was once her culture; Breathtakingly apocalyptic and mind-bending.