Roland
and I just returned from a South American cruise around the Horn. The title of
this post is misleading, however, since the end of the earth would be the South
Pole, or maybe there is no such thing as an end when dealing with a globe. We
didn’t get near the South Pole, anyway, since we didn’t go to Antarctica.
We
did, however, go literally around the Horn, which is how most people refer to
Isla Hornos. As you can see from the photo of the ship tracker at the head of
this post, the captain circled it with our ship. The next two photos show the
mountain at the southern tip of the island, which is on the Drake Passage where
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet, and a close-up (through my camera’s zoom
lens) of the lighthouse. The people in the photo are from a different Viking
ship on a more challenging cruise than the one we were on.
As an aside, Isla Hornos is billed as the southernmost tip of South America, but apparently the Diego Ramierez Islands are farther south.
After
going around the Horn, we docked at Ushuaia, Argentina, which bills itself as
the southernmost city in the world. Again, there might be some controversy
here, as the smaller Puerto Williams is farther south. However, Ushuaia has a population
of approximately 180,000 while Puerto Williams’ population is less than 3,000, so
it’s questionable whether Puerto Williams even qualifies as a city.
Ushuaia
was originally established as an Argentinian naval base but, because of its
isolated location, soon became the site for a maximum-security prison. The prison
was closed in the 1940s and is now a museum. These photos show the prison and
the city with the Beagle Channel in the background. The Beagle Channel was
named after the ship Charles Darwin sailed on, but it has nothing to do with him.
The name resulted from the Beagle’s first excursion, and Darwin didn’t join
until the second.
Finishing up on the southernmost cities, we stopped at Punta Arenas, Chile, which claims the distinction of being the southernmost city on the South American mainland. (Ushuaia and Puerto Williams are both on islands.) Punta Arenas lies on the of the Straits of Magellan, and there is a large statue to the explorer in the main square. That statue is pretty traditional, however, and there are others that are more interesting. The one pictured here is the monument to the Schooner Ancud, which took possession of the Straits of Magellan for Chile in 1843. Many of the figures on it are taken from myth, which is most obvious with the mermaids on each side in the front. The other photo shows Punta Arenas from the balcony of our cabin.
So much for the southernmosts. Next week I’ll cover some of the wildlife we saw along the way.
