Docked at about 8am and left the ship at about 9:30. A little cold, at about 8º but wrapped up and no problem.
A number of other cruise ships on the dock but they were quite small “explorer” ships and probably bound for the Antarctic.
The town was bigger than expected and we wandered around for about an hour and a half. I was a bit surprised to find ski hire and ski equipment shops.
We had avoided the crowd of people offering tours, as we left the dock but decided to return, to see what was on offer. I wanted to take the train to the “end of the World” and look around the National Park. We started talking to a taxi driver, who was very friendly and said that he could take us on a 3 hour tour, for US$100. He could also take us to the train and wait for us but advised against taking the trip US$70 for a 2km trip.
We decided to take the offer and away we went. He asked if we wanted to speak English or Spanish. He said that he would be more comfortable in Spanish, so that’s what we did.
He was was born in Ushuaia and a mine of information. He told us about the history of the place, population, economic background, crap Government and apologised for the Falklands war.
He said that Ushuaia was a busy resort in both winter and summer. Many Brazilians come to ski in winter and the national park is very popular in Summer.
The population is 100,000 and has doubled in the last 10 years. This is mainly due to the Government offering tax incentives to attract industry to the area – no VAT etc. It has attracted electronics companies, who assemble mobile phones and computers.
As far as history is concerned, there was nothing here until about 1900, when Chile and Argentina started fighting for the possession of Tierra del Fuego. Argentina began to build a settlement but decided to do so by constructing a prison and using the convicts to cut down the trees and quarry the stone to build it.
It was closed in 1950 and the railway to the end of the World is all that remains of the line that was built to transport the materials.
Seems that most people are fed up of the government and blame corruption for not creating wealth from the country’s resources.
