Ushuaia is a long way from anywhere. It is the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina and is commonly regarded as the southernmost city in the world. Ushuaia is located in a wide bay on the southern coast of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, bounded on the north by the Martial mountain range, and on the south by the Beagle Channel.
Ushuaia was founded informally by British missionaries, following previous British surveys, long before Argentine nationals or government representatives arrived there on a permanent basis. The British ship HMS Beagle, under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy, first reached the channel on January 29, 1833, during its maiden voyage surveying Tierra del Fuego. The city was originally named by early British missionaries using the native Yámana name for the area. Much of the early history of the city and its hinterland is described in Lucas Bridges’s book Uttermost Part of the Earth (1948). The first house constructed in Ushuaia was a pre-assembled 3 room home prepared in the Falkland Islands in 1870 for Reverend Thomas Bridges. One room was for the Bridges family, a second was for a Yámana married couple, while the third served as the chapel.
Ushuaia became a penal colony. In 1896 the prison received its first inmates, mainly re-offenders and dangerous prisoners transferred from Buenos Aires, but also some political prisoners.Thus, during the first half of the 20th century, the city ,centred around the prison, was built by the Argentine government to increase the Argentine population and to ensure Argentine sovereignty over Tierra del Fuego. The prison was intended for repeat offenders and serious criminals, following the example of the British in Tasmania and the French in Devil's Island. Escape from Tierra del Fuego was similarly difficult, although two prisoners managed to escape into the surrounding area for a few weeks. The prison population thus became forced colonists and spent much of their time building the town with timber from the forest around the prison. They also built a railway to the settlement, now a tourist attraction known as the End of the World Train (Tren del Fin del Mundo), the southernmost railway in the world.
The prison operated until 1947, when President Juan Perón closed it by executive order in response to the many reports of abuse and unsafe practices. Most of the guards stayed in Ushuaia, while the prisoners were relocated to other jails farther north. After the prison closed, it became a part of the Base Naval Ushuaia (Spanish), functioning as a storage and office facility until the early 1990s. Later it was converted into the current Museo Maritimo de Ushuaia.
We obviously were got off the Explorer early, at about 9am. They need to turn the ship around for arriving passengers. Only a handful of our cruise was going on the next leg to Antarctica. This left us with an hour to wander round Ushuaia (not much open at that hour of the morning), before being taken to the comically named "Malvinas International Airport" and back to Spain via Buenos Aires and Madrid.
We eschewed the (expensive) Silversea transfer and got a taxi from the Aeroparque in Buenos Aires to the International Airport there. Much to our annoyance Iberia only open their desk 3 hours before the flight, so we had to slum it in the departure area waiting a couple of hours for the desk to open. Business Class counts for nothing with Iberia.
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Life on Board the Silverseas Explorer
The voyage on Silversea Explorer in South America