End Of The World As I Know It

I arrived in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, with a goal. The city proudly proclaims itself on all tourist information as The Most Southerly City In The World, and I was going to finally accomplish my trip's biggest mission. Mitad del Mundo to El Fin del Mundo. Now all I had to do was figure out exactly what I had to do to claim the prize.

Pete, who was not coming to Ushuaia, collects stamps. Not to send a letter, but stamps in his passport book. He got one on the Equator, in the Galapagos, in Macchu Pichu, and now mandated that I get the famous End of the World stamp and show it to him so he can atleast live through my passport vicariously. Often a man of my word, I set about attempting to find this stamp.

I first tried the tourist office, an easy choice, and was delighted to learn they had the stamp. In fact, they had four. And the dock had one. And the post office had one. And apparently there's one in the nearby National Park. I chose one, the Lighthouse at the End of the World one, and considered it mission accomplished... but wait, not yet.

See, Ushuaia may be the most southerly city in the world, but its not the most southerly town. Across the Beagle Channel is Navarino Island and the Chilean town of Puerto Williams. I bet they have a stamp. I went down to the dock and attempted to find a ferry across.

Well, boats dont just go to Puerto Williams and back. You have to pay 100 dollars each way, go through the entire immigration process again, and you'd still be wasting your time, since it's mostly just a town for the families of the military base which takes up most of the island.

Ok, so I can't get to the world's most southerly settlement, but atleast I can get to the WMS lighthouse, the one in the stamp, right? Well, no. Only military transports from Navarino go out that far. But the boats will take you to A lighthouse at the end of the world. That's kinda the same, right?

Well, to be fair, it was a lovely boatride, and I did get to stand on a spit of land even further south than Ushuaia, and climb up on a hill to give me a distant, hazy view of Puerto Williams. I was hoping to see across the island and all the way to the start of the Southern Ocean. Nope. I was hoping to at least see down the Beagle Channel, to the clear line where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet. Nope. The view was fantastic, but nothing different than what I'd see on Ushuaia's frigid beach. The only difference is that this inconsequential rock is the most southerly point I'm likely to ever reach in my lifetiome.

I needed a different way to claim Mission Accomplished, and decided instead to reach the End of the Road. In Tierra del Fuego National Park is a sign at the end of Route 3, proclaiming to the proud drivers who have the chuzpah to drive down the entire excrutiating route just how far they've come (and how far they have to go back). I took a bus into the park, posed next to the sign, and considered it mission accomplished... but wait, not yet.

Route 3 is the road between Buenos Aires and Ushuaia. It's not the end of the Panamerica, which deadended somewhere in the middle of Chile. It's not WMS road, since that's between Puerto Williams and the military base. That road, like this road, is gravel. If you really wanted to celebrate something, you'd be taking pictures at the End of Paving, which is a completely uncelebrated, unmarked, and barely noticed transition point some miles outside the park.

So it was back to the stamps. I walked a few miles across the park, on a surprisingly underwhelming and dull trail considering its location, coming out next to a jetty into the Channel. At the end of the jetty was a small shack, the WMS Post Office. And it was locked. Post office closes at 5pm, I'd arrived at 5:15. No stamp for me.

But, I'm a persistant little fuck, and started looking for hinges or busted locks or other ways to covertly burglarize the post office. Except I was hardly covert at all, and the ranger drove up in his massive Land Rover to confront me.

Him: "What are you doing?"
Me: "Looking for a stamp."
Him: "We're closed."
Me: "When did you close?"
Him: "At 5."
Me: "Why?"
Him: "It's Christmas Eve."
Me: "Yes, it's almost Christmas. Did you close it?"
Him: "Yes I... fine, come on."
Mission accomplished. Of course I'd never intended to burglarize a building, especially so blatently. I just wanted him to come over so I could lure him into the Christmas Miracle Trap.

I got my stamp, a giant page-stealing seal of a stamp featuring a family of penguins, despite the lack of actual penguins in Ushuaia or the National Park. In fact, I got an entire page of stamps, the ranger's frustration and generosity mingling to completely horde an entire page of my precariously dwinding passport space. I hope Pete is happy.

But more importantly, I got a beer. People who trek all the way to the WMS post office dont just get free stamps, they get a free beer: Cape Horn Microbrew. A beer you will not find anywhere else on earth. I laid back on the cloudy, freezing beech and drank my prize. Perhaps this I can call mission accomplished.

As it turns out, the last bus was also at 5pm, and I was left stranded in the park. Thankfully though, a pair of Europeans gave me a lift back to town. As I sat in the back seat and quietly stewed in my own arrogent sense of achievement, the pair start comparing birds here to those in Alaska. I stop them; "Wait, you've come all the way from Alaska?" Oh yes, they came all the way down the Panamerica, over to Route 40, and finally to Route 3, to reach the end of the road, having began at the start of it. I had a nice slice of humble pie to go with my WMS beer.

And yet, none of these objective-based material Mission Accomplished matter compared to the real goal gained. While traipising around Tierra del Fuego, I got an email welcoming me, with full scholarship, to postgraduate studies in Australia. I was finally finished chasing, both pointless mission objectives and an uncertain future.

And above the computer terminals in the hostel is a map, an upside down map of the world with Ushuaia at the top. And on this crazy inverted map, a slogan: The End of the World, the Beginning of Everything.