Puerto Natales, Chile: It was dark when we got back from Torres Del Paine. The family was watching TV, they wouldn’t eat their late meal until after 10:00. I had a bed reserved in Punta Arenas the next night, only 3 hours away but it’s a big small city, bigger than Puerto Natales and not to be left unexplored. No reason to stay up late, Mexican telenovelas had lost their allure and I retired. What had breathed its first breath a pipe dream was now a foregone conclusion, I would go to Ushuaia. Next morning I took my time over the standard sweet roll & coffee, continental breakfast. I was packed just right, a small back pack, a large duffel and guitar. I could shuffle things between the back pack and duffel to meet my need. Since leaving Santiago, laundry had been an issue until you realize, nobody cares. Being a civilized Gringo I washed out underwear in the shower, wrung them by hand and let them dry. If they were still wet and I was traveling, I’d pack them wet in a plastic bag and hang them up wherever I was at the end of the day. Traveling light, you don’t wear the same dirty clothes, day after day. You put on different dirty clothes every day and make believe somebody cares.
The bus terminal in Punta Arenas was on a busy street with no place to park. It seemed to me that someone would get it; drop passengers off a short block away, at their convenience. Pick them up in the next block. Walking with a suitcase wasn’t that difficult, they have wheels after all. But culture can be weird and they preferred the virtual traffic jam, screeching tires, blaring horns and screaming a lot.
Coco’s mother booked me with a friend of hers in Punta Arenas; she was waiting when I got off the bus. We walked several blocks to her car and drove to the hostel, too far to walk. I went for a walk but exploring was more about exercise than about discovery. During the walk I thought about the globe about how, in relative terms, I was nearly upside down from my friends in Michigan. Outside, were you could see a distant horizon, it felt different. The country side is undeveloped, no power lines, no cell towers, no fences. Civilization has been limping along without much help since they invented trains but internet and e-mail are narrowing that discrepancy.
Next morning the bus to Ushuaia was a big double decker, I got a good seat up front and we drove east, straight into a bright sun. We would be crossing the frontier again. This big bus could operate in both countries, not have to carry bags across the border or change busses. There is a border controversy and it is still good for an argument if not a fight, 200 years later. I’ve heard both sides with bias in both directions. Either way, their border history reeks of collusion and deceit. In the early 1800’s, all of what is now Chile and Argentina belonged to Spain. It was understood they would both gain independence but in the far south, the boundary was the continental divide and it petered out at sea level among the islands of the archipelago. Someone would have to decide where to draw the line in the far-deep south to separate the two new nations. Chile wanted the whole southern tip of South America. They knew the military/economic advantage of controlling Cape Horn, the Straights of Magellan and having a presence on the Atlantic coast. When Chile’s independence came in 1810, the new border gave them everything they wanted. Argentina cried “Foul” but to no avail. Argentina was hoping for the same deal in the opposite direction but they were slow getting their homework done.
When Argentina got independence in 1816, Chile was embroiled in a war against Peru and Bolivia in the far north, not concerned with the border in Patagonia. In guarded negotiations, Spain’s deal with Chile could not be changed but Argentina’s new border was negotiable. Instead of dead-ending into the sea, they extended that boundary south, across the mouth of the Straights of Magellan all the way to what is now the Beagle Channel. It literally cuts the island of Terra del Fuego in half with the eastern half belonging to Argentina. It denied Chile its Atlantic coast. Chile cried “Fowl” and they are still fuming. Chile got the better of the deal but Argentina had the last word. Great story.
My adventure was taking me to the far corner of that disputed, forfeited and reacquired wedge of Argentine real estate. Ushuaia is the southern most city on the planet, home to nearly 70,000 residents and my new home away from home. The bus ride had taken us south across the Straights of Magellan, back into Argentina and down its Atlantic coast. Motoring west again, through the mountains, it would seem we were bound to cross back into Chile but the road ends in Ushuaia, a few miles short of that line on the map. The only place to go is back. Late in the day, tired as I was you couldn’t not notice the landscape. The channel was 4 or 5 miles across with no sign of any civilization on the other side. Uphill behind us, the mountain overshadowed everything. Running parallel to the waterfront, one block in, San Martin Ave., pronounced (Mar-TEEN) is the main street. If what you want isn’t on San Martin, you will have to ascend some serious, San Francisco like hills. The information booth at the terminal had a concierge to help visitors find their way. Turns out I was only 5 blocks from Los Cormoranes Hostel, where my bed was waiting and it was an all up hill, forward leaning struggle. I stopped often to catch my breath, turning to look over the buildings below me, to the ships tied up at the pier.
They were waiting for me at Los Cormoranes. My room had 4 beds but I had it all to myself. I stayed up a while. The study had a computer with internet connection for guests so I caught up on email and wrote in my journal. It occurred to me, here I am safe, warm and dry, at World’s End: El Fin de Mundo. I’m upside down as I’ll ever be and it doesn’t feel bad at all.
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