Day 6 – The Beagle Channel

The Beagle Channel, along with the Strait of Magellan and Drake Passage,  is one of the three navigable routes between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean in South America. The canal is 240 km long and 5 km wide at its narrowest point.

Today we take a trip of 1.5 hours on the channel.

If I open the curtains do this morning ... I see snow. In the Patagonian winter, you may well expect it to snow but now in the spring? It is not normal at all. The last snow usually falls in August, possibly early September. But their winter proved abnormally warm with little snow, resulting in a now erratic spring with aberrant snow showers.

That looks promising for our trip. Fortunately, it is a catamaran where you can sit inside and outside.

A trip on the Beagle Channel, of course, deserves a motion sickness pill, but also extra clothing for the biting wind. Armed with hats, scarves, fleece, windbreaker and underneath layers of thermal clothing, T-shirts, sweaters etc., we go on the boat.

The boat ride takes us to different places. From the water, we get a view of Ushuaia, albeit under a cloudy sky. In the distance we see some blue sky and the sun trying to break through the clouds. The first stop we make is at Bahai Brown, where  the Yaghan (indigenous people) stayed. They lived in canoes and sometimes came ashore to find a temporary shelter in huts. Snow surprises us here.

We stop at a smaller island where there are seals and on another one cormorants.

Meanwhile, the sky breaks  more and more open. The blue sky wins it from the clouds.

Back on land, we have some time for lunch in a bar. At 2 pm we are ready to visit the National Park Tierra del Fuego, located west of Ushuaia. By bus we drive 20 minutes to a small train station. Here we take the train 'El tren del fin del mundo ". The train was used  at the time to transport the prisoners to their workplace in the woods. While waiting for the departure of the train, it begins to snow heavily. But as always, the gods are with us. When the train departs at 3 pm, the sun is coming through. With this train, we are riding the final 7 km to  the park. The train fell into disuse after the closing of the prison but was restored several years ago and is now a tourist attraction. The ride is now more comfortable than then.

We now have real compartments, a big difference from the past when the prisoners were transported on wooden benches in open air, which were mounted behind the locomotive. We make a quick stop at a small waterfall. We also see the damage inflicted by beavers. Whole pieces of wood have died.

The Park was established in 1960. It covers approximately 630 km2. Only a part of the park is accessible to tourists. There are forests, lakes, mountains and glaciers in the park.

We take a little walk. Not the planned walk because the road is not passable and closed due to the bad weather. Along the way we get to see a number of birds including geese and ibises.

Life is beautiful at the end of the world.