THIS is a place where The End of the World sells. The theme is celebrated on Tshirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs and posters. You cant get away from it. As a brand, it is very powerful, says Mayor Jorge Garramuno. Hes talking geography, not Armageddon.
Ushuaia, situated along the picturesque Beagle Channel in Tierra del Fuego, amid a backdrop of jagged, snow-capped mountains, proclaims itself the worlds southernmost city. Chilean officials like to make the same assertion about the town of Puerto Williams, a military settlement slightly to the south, but Ushuaia is by comparison a metropolis, home to more than 55,000. Hotels, casinos and travel agencies have multiplied in recent years like the regions abundant, albeit nonnative, beavers.
Foreign vacationers, mostly from the United States and Europe, cant seem to get enough of this rugged and glamorous terrain at the tip of South America. Nonstop flights from Buenos Aires touch down daily. Hundreds of cruise ships now anchor here during the relatively mild months between Christmas and Easter. The number of visitors to Ushuaia approached a quartermillion last year, double the total five years earlier.
A lot of people are surprised when they arrive here because they think they are coming to a village where penguins are waddling on the streets and Indians are riding around in canoes, notes Mayor Garramuno, who arrived 27 years ago, when the city had less than one-fifth of todays population. Instead they find a modern city.
Once marked on maps as Terra Incognita (Unknown Land), this is believed to be the last place on the globe that prehistoric humans reached by foot as the ice shelf retreated about 14,000 years ago.
Over the years, Ushuaia has served as an indigenous campsite, Anglican mission, prison colony and way station for corsairs, whalers, pirates and gold diggers, among others. The Indians, convicts and shipwreck survivors are all gone, replaced by guidebooktoting, exotica-seeking sightseers in waterproof gear and hiking boots. Tourism pumps more than $120 million a year into the economy as the city milks the worldwide ecoawareness boom.
Ushuaia has gained global traction as a base to visit receding glaciers, observe penguin and sea lion colonies, follow the path of Charles Darwin and even trek (with sunscreen) beneath the ozone hole, which occasionally extends above the city, though it cant be seen. Ushuaia is also the southern terminus of Patagonia, another tourist brand oozing cache.
Another lure: The deep harbor is a major gateway to Antarctica, an increasingly hip destination for the environmentally inclined.
But the onslaught of world-end chic hasnt shattered the allure not yet, anyway. Although some unsightly development mars the town, nearby parks and waterways offer access to a largely unspoiled landscape of inlets and moorlands, forests and bays.
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