No Doom, No Gloom--Just Friendly Folks at the End of the World

There’s a bowling alley at the end of the world. A movie theater too. Casinos, ice cream parlors, sporting goods stores, ATMs, Internet cafes, restaurants that serve whiskey and homemade chocolate. The end of the world has it all.

Argentines call this harbor town of 44,000 the end of the world because it’s the southernmost city on the planet. They don’t care that several Chilean islands and Antarctica lie farther south. How many stuffed penguins emblazoned with El Fin del Mundo (The End of the World) do they sell in Antarctica?

To reach the end of the world, you head south out of Buenos Aires on Route 3 and follow it until the pavement and ferries stop 2,010 miles later. Or you can fly, as Andrea and I did. We came to see what the end of the world looks like.

It sits at the bottom of Isla Grande, the biggest island of Tierra del Fuego, the Argentine-Chilean archipelago cut off from the South American mainland by the Strait of Magellan. The town is wedged between the north shore of the Beagle Channel, named for the boat that brought naturalist Charles Darwin here in the 1830s, and jagged glacial peaks that leap from the sea. Mt. Olivia looms in the distance like the Matterhorn’s evil twin. The land is not as harsh as it sounds. Red and yellow tulips grow in front of City Hall.

A good first stop on a tour of the end of the world is the End of the World Museum, where the staff will stamp your passport to prove that you experienced Ushuaia’s claim to fame. Artifacts show the life of the region’s earlier inhabitants, nomadic Yahgan Indians who traveled by canoe and kept their naked bodies warm with sea lion fat. A few blocks away, the Maritime Museum displays ship models and recounts the building’s years (1902 to 1947) as a prison.

One morning I joined seven other passengers aboard the Tres Marias, a small excursion boat that cruises the Beagle Channel. After passing out lollipops, skipper Hector Monsalve motored us to Isla de los Lobos, where a dozen sea lions sunned on the rocks. At nearby Isla Alicia, hundreds of black-and-white king cormorants sat atop nests of seaweed and guano.

Monsalve later cut the engine and donned a wetsuit and diving gear. He jumped into the 45-degree sea with a waterproof video camera. We watched on a closed-circuit TV in the cabin as he aimed the camera at the crabs and sponges below. When Monsalve resurfaced with two king crabs for us to inspect on the deck, I asked whether he was going to throw them back in the water. “In the water, yes,” he said, smiling. “But in a pot of boiling water.” Twenty minutes later, the group feasted on fresh crab, French bread and white wine.

Many tour buses make it to the end of the world. Most wind up at Tierra del Fuego National Park, a 155,000-acre spread of lakes, rivers and glaciers along the Chilean border. Andrea and I marched past the crowds into a forest thick with beech trees. We followed a coastal trail along the Bahia Lapataia and, passing steamer ducks and kelp geese, we soon had the end of the world to ourselves.

They are mighty hospitable at the end of the world. When Julius Linares, owner of Residencia Linares, heard our bus left at 5:30 a.m., he insisted on rising to fix us breakfast. “I have to give you your farewell,” he said. In the morning, after coffee and biscuits, he called a taxi and saw us to the street.

“Muchas gracias,” I said. “Adios.”

“Ciao,” Linares said.

Yes, they say ciao at the end of the world.

NEXT WEEK: One last trek before coming home.

Did you miss a Wander Year installment? The entire series since it began in January can be found on The Times’ Web site at https://www.latimes.com/travel/wander.