55° S

The time has come, to leave this town. Its a pity really, because we have had such a good time here. But unfortunately, time and money are limited quantities, and we can´t really afford to spend much of either on Ushuaia any more, so we must head off. From Ushuaia, there is only one way that you can go. North. Well, perhaps two ways - North, and maybe a little bit more South.

Today we went on a bit of a tour around the area - we had been talking about doing this for quite a while, but we sort of waited for a good day, and for a few plans to unfold a bit. After exploring the options, together with an Italian couple, we ended up paying the owner of the Hostel we are staying in, Claudio, P$200 (US$35) to drive us around for the day. The morning dawned to another fresh dusting of snow, but not to worry. We headed off anyway, along the south coast of Tierra del Fuego. We drove through magnificent snow-coated forests of ñire, the antarctice deciduous beech that is currently bright red in colour and about to drop its leaves. The ñire gave way to lenga (evergreen beech) forests in places, and together the two switched back and forth, depending on the local microclimate conditions - this was most evident on the hillsides. The red ñire started right from the treeline - further down the hill, there was a sudden chage of colour from red to green as the lenga took over. And towards the bottom of the hill, the lenga was replaced by a second unknown deciduous forest that was yellow in colour. The striped hillsides, impossible to photograph properly as they are, will be one of the enduring memories of this area.

The forest gave way rapidly to exposed coastline. And talk about exposed - the wind absolutely rips through the beagle channel at times, distorting the coastal trees beyond belief, leaving its image everwhere, even when its not blowing. I have seen trees distorted by the wind before, but not like this. One particular tree was just growing sideways, with branches extending 20m downwind from the trunk, but with nothing on the upwind side. Unique.

Three hours driving took us to the end of the road at Estancia Puerto Rancho. At that point, we had crossed the 55th parallel, and were further south than any settlement, except for those in Antarctica. Our trip south had ended. There was now only one way to go - back to the warmth of the north. And so too our travels in this part of the world - sadly, it is time to leave. We catch the bus north at 5:30am this morning.