The End of the Expedition: A Morning in Ushuaia

Early morning: the end of the voyage through Tierra del Fuego and Staten Island. From the window of our cabin,
we could see the lights of Ushuaia, Argentina, from which we were to fly to Buenos Aires and then home.

Ushuaia, with around 75,000 population, has a cargo and cruise ship port, a military base (from which some of
the action was staged during the war over the Falkland Islands), and some electronic assembly plants.
Ushuaia is farther south than any other city in the world -- the tip of South America is considerably south of Africa,
Australia, New Zealand, or anywhere else outside Antarctica.

From my last moments on the best viewpoint on the National Geographic Explorer. 

In the harbor, we got close-up looks at some of the pelagic birds that
had been flying around the ship as we traveled. This is the
southern giant petrel. For Len's complete bird photos, link HERE.

"Todos somos Fuentealba" -- political wall art which intrigued me on our brief tour of the small downtown (which is
mainly souvenir shops where I didn't go). A friend explained that Carlos Fuentealba (1966-2007) was a socialist/labor activist in Argentina. During a protest, he was shot in the back by a policeman.

At the Ushuaia Maritime Museum, we enjoyed seeing models of some of the most famous ships that explored and
developed the European presence in the area. This is Magellan's ship Trinidad, first European ship to explore here
in October and November of 1520.

In the US we have painted cows, pigs, etc.
Here evidently they did the same trick with penguins.

Tom Rohde, who was on the tour with us from Santiago, Chile, to Ushuaia, wrote this limerick to celebrate our departure:

It's the end of the world, so they say

And soon we're all going away

So as we say goodbye, a

Last look at Ushuaia

And a hope that we'll come back some day.

Tom also says my blog is "probably the most complete documentation of a cruise in the area since Darwin and Fitzroy" -- though I doubt that, I appreciate the sentiment and hope that I haven't overdone it. This is, however, the end!