Peat and stumps

From the Train of the End of the World we saw meadows of peat and the stumps of all the trees the prisoners cut. The timber was used not only for building but for fuel. Then natural gas was found in the area and trees were no longer needed for heating in this rather cold climate. This area is about 55 degrees latitude South, so its climate is about like Ketchikan, Alaska in the North, with the seasons reversed, of course.

Artichokes (sob)

Well, there will be no pretty artichoke blossoms; instead they have been doused in melted butter or mayonnaise! There is a smaller one which was in the bottom of last week's photo and will no doubt also disappear soon.

Estacion del Fin del Mundo

Here we are (Dick and Margie) at the Station for the Train of the End of the World.
The train was originally built as a freight line to serve the prison of Ushuaia, specifically to transport timber. It now operates as a heritage railway into the Tierra del Fuego National Park and is considered the southernmost functioning railway in the world. It is a small train of small cars carrying tourists over part of the old route, though peat bogs, waterways and vast areas of stumps where the prisoners cut timber. We were served a lunch and a drink of our choice during the scenic trip. A sort of Argentine Wine Train! For more info see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_of_the_End_of_the_World

The end of the road

We took a day trip out of Ushuaia and visited the National Park and saw the sign that marks the end of the Pan American Highway. Alaska 17,848 km!

Ushuaia vegetation

Happy Autumn!

No, not here, but it's Fall in Ushuaia when it's Spring here. This is a field of Fall flowers and the reddish plants look like what we called ironweed in Indiana (perhaps because in the Fall they turn the color of rusted iron-also they're hard and tough).

Artichokes

This is a little digression to the Corte Madera Bike Path for today. These artichokes are growing beside the path and if they last, they should make some nice blossoms. So if no one harvests them, I'll take photo each week to show you their progress.

Building

WHO designed this building?? In Ushuaia.

Armada Argentina

At a small airfield in Ushuaia sits this airplane of the Armada Argentina (the Argentine Navy). It's not listed among the Armada's current airplanes, so I suppose it is just a display piece. See info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_Navy.

One of my Daily Photo-ers John C. is an encyclopedia of airplane lore, among other things. Thanks to him, I was able to find this on Wikipedia : The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota is a military transport aircraft that was developed from the Douglas DC-3 airliner. It was used extensively by the Allies during World War II and remained in front line operations through the 1950s with a few remaining in operation to this day.

Your education for today!

Architecture in Ushuaia

In this part of the world we often saw buildings that were different from what we are used to. Most likely they reflect styles of the designer's original home country.

Saturday

Every day in every elevator of ms Amsterdam there was a mat showing us what day of the week it was. There were 12 passenger elevators - think about the stack of mats for all those elevators! And we never caught anybody changing them, although one day we got on an elevator that was one day behind; that was confusing!

More clouds

For fans of cloud photos (and I'm sure there are a lot of us!) here's another near Ushuaia, Argentina.

Rainbow

Our next port was Ushuaia (oo shwy uh), Argentina. Berthed next to us was the Star Princess, carrying twice as many passengers as the Amsterdam--big! Just before we disembarked a rainbow appeared and it was that rare sighting - a full bow!

Clouds

You may have noticed from the glacier photos that the weather was quite overcast on the Beagle Channel; but at times, the clouds were quite interesting, as in this photo.

Alemania Glacier

We're back sailing along the Beagle Channel in Chile. As you may know the Beagle Channel is named for the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin's ship during his explorations in this area in the 1830's. To see Darwin's timeline : http://www.aboutdarwin.com/timeline/time_04.html#0040

The Alemania Glacier is very large and now does not come all the way to the water, as it must have in the past.

Egret

Here is one last bird picture from my Tuesday sojourn at The Ponds: an egret wading in the shallow water near the edge of the first pond.

Flying geese

Last Tuesday at The Ponds the air was full of birdsong, a very good reason not to wear an iPod in one's ear as some people do, though I must say, I've never seen pond-walkers do this. Among the calls came the goose's familiar 'honk' along with a couple of warbeling sounds (trumpeting?) I've never heard before. Two of them were flying toward the ponds and as they went over they presented this picture.

Ducklings

It's spring and that means birdie babies! Here we see some of the duck variety with Mom & Dad at The Ponds on Tuesday.

Red-wing blackbird

We'll leave South America for a few days to show a few photos from The Ponds on Tuesday morning. This red-wing blackbird was giving its little song just for me (ha!).

Francia Glacier

The next major glacier we saw while sailing the Beagle Channel was the Francia Glacier. It comes down to the water, unlike the last glacier we saw, but since it was the end of summer, there was no floating ice.

Italia Glacier

Cruising on the Beagle Channel after leaving Punta Arenas, we passed several glaciers, Italia Glacier being the first one. If you Google it, you will see that my photo shows that it is rapidly receding. The waterfall coming out of it attests to its melting. It's pretty frightening.

I'm away for the weekend and the next daily photo will be Tuesday May 5

Orange face

As I walked on deck while we were tied up in Punta Arenas on March 6, I spotted an orange face looking right at me. It was one of several buoys to which the Amsterdam was tied up; we couldn't berth on shore there. Later a boat came out from the harbor and cast off our lines. Goodbye, Punta Arenas.

Colorful

Punta Arenas is a very colorful town, as are most of the towns we saw, probably because the landscape is rather drab. This shot was taken from an overlook and you can see our ship in the background.

I should have said last time that Camelot Fin is in Punta Arenas, Chile, almost at the 'end of the world'.

There was no photo yesterday because of a dead PC. I thought it was permanently dead. After many attempts and talks with the computer guru (his business), what finally fixed it was unplugging it and plugging it back in. Voilà! Thank you, Dr. Elyse (not the computer guru).

Camelot Fin

So now we know where Camelot ended!

Tombs

I said the cemetery was filled with the cypress trees. Of course, the main purpose of the cemetery is as a cemetery, and this is a huge one! So the main feature is naturally the tombs, plus a few other kinds of trees. Punta Arenas vies with Buenos Aires for the most beautiful cemetery in South America. I say BA wins for its general beauty plus it has Evita's tomb. I'll show you her tomb when we get to Buenos Aires.

Avenue of trees

The people in this avenue of trees in the Punta Arenas Cemetery show the size of these trees. I'm sure they are manicured to maintain this smooth shape but we didn't see anyone working on them that day.