THE FIRE THAT STILL PERSISTS

The southernmost city in the whole world, Ushuaia, is the entrance gate to Antarctica, the place where mountains, glaciers, forests and sea meet; it is the capital city of the Argentinean province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and Islands of Southern Atlantic.

Spiritual and inaccessible. Rich in legends and stories of conquerors, adventurers and people chased by justice or by sad memories. It is also said that Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire) is the place where the world starts and from where it is still possible to explore virgin lands.

Anyway, Tierra del Fuego continues feeding the imagination of travelers and, suggestively, invites us to discover how the soft Patagonian plain blends with the extremity of the Andes, the forests with the rivers, the mountain tops with the sea and reality with myth.

The first human beings who lived in these lands accessed on foot to what today is Grande Island, more than 10,000 years ago. They were hunters and nomadic collectors who came from the north, ready to survive with the natural resources provided by a space which was still linked to continental Patagonia. Later, a second group settled. They were nomads of the sea who sailed from island to island from the western archipelago of Patagonia.

Perhaps during thousands of years the ocean waters eroded of the continent or, perhaps, important telluric movements generated the splitting of the continent, forming a big island and an inter-oceanic path. After a long time, Hernando de Magallanes's (in English, Magellan) expedition discovered this island and this path that allowed him to sail around the world for the first time in the year 1520 AD: they were Grande Island and the Strait of Magellan.

While crossing the strait, the Spanish sailors saw fire and smoke over the northern coasts. And because of this the island was named "Tierra del Fuego". Then two centuries followed of European explorations and more direct contact between the white man and the natives.

With a past marked by European sailors, Indian hunters and a jail with sad fame, the city today presents the tourist with a different way of learning its history. Ushuaia, its capital city, is not only a small and charming city in the end of the world or a simple bay of unique beauty protected by the winds: Ushuaia is nature and adventure in its maximum expression.

In Ushuaia, the tourist will have ample chances of living an memorable summer or the harshest winter near the Antarctic. Adventure tourism, trekking, horse-riding, sport-fishing or mountain-biking; trips to unexplored places, boat trips on the up to date catamarans or comfy sail-boats will take you along Beagle Channel to Cape Horn and the Antarctic Continent.

Ushuaia has a first-class hotel and culinary infrastructure, allowing you to taste the traditional "centolla fueguina" (Fueguian spider crab), as well as black hake, codfish and sea bream, exquisite sea food and fish, and also Patagonian lamb cooked on a cross.

Its people, its origins, its mystic and its nature are revealed in dance, paint, ceramics, handcrafts, photography and theatre; these expressions can be appreciated in cultural centers, theatres and sometimes in the open air.

We invite you to visit the southernmost region in the planet, source of motivation and challenge, of myths and legends which are still alive even for those who have never stepped on these lands or sailed the seas south of the South. Where the grand icebergs are everlasting witnesses and you, the protagonist.

Ushuaia Introduction
Patagonia, Argentina
Postal Code: 9410
Telephone code in Argentina: 02901
International Telephone code: 54-2901