On an expedition cruise at the end of the world

The “Ventus Australis” is moored in the port of Ushuaia, the last large city before Cape Horn with around 60,000 inhabitants. It almost looks like a toy there on the deep blue water. Compared to ocean liners that often stop in Ushuaia, the "end of the world", she is an agile expedition ship.

Penguins, dolphins and humpback whales swimming through plastic waste or getting caught in fishing nets? "No, that doesn't exist here," explains Alicia Gallorobi proudly. A small group of crusaders in thick polar parkas are crowding around the Chilean naturalist and lecturer on the pier.

They have all booked an exclusive journey through the island labyrinth of Tierra del Fuego - once in a lifetime Tierra del Fuego! About a third of this lonely and spectacular stretch of land is Chilean, the rest is Argentine. Its ecosystem is considered intact. However, Tierra del Fuego is becoming increasingly popular with tourists.

Designed for just 210 passengers and 60 crew members, "Ventus Australis" seems made to explore the narrow fjords of Tierra del Fuego. And that means: 1000 kilometers without a telephone network and internet connection. Evening entertainment like on luxury liners is not on the agenda anyway.

As you cast off, Ushuaia, the world's southernmost city, disappears before a crystal-clear rainbow. Half an hour later, the “Ventus Australis” crosses the border between Argentina and Chile on the Beagle Channel. The water is deep blue and clear. All around: snow-capped mountains and glaciers. The Darwin mountain range forms the last great elevation of the Andes before the end of South America.

At Puerto Navarino it goes through a narrow channel, the Murray Channel, with course to the Isla Hornos. The passengers on board the small expedition ship are excited: will their lifelong dream come true today? It is a blustery, cold morning when the ship reaches Cape Horn.

The passengers have poured onto deck. Packed in thermal trousers and thickly lined safety jackets, the small group of tourists is about to set off. But Captain Álvaro Contreras announces his sad news via loudspeaker: Poseidon's wave machine has too much energy. The weather conditions make it impossible to land on the island.

The Dutch navigator Willem Corneliszoon Schouten, who probably sailed along it on January 29, 1616, is credited with discovering Cape Horn. For centuries, circumnavigating the Isla Hornos has been one of the most feared passages in the world. Before the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914, the Cape Horn route was thought to be the only navigable route around South America. There was no alternative.

The way through the Strait of Magellan further north was impassable for windjammers - due to narrowness and countercurrent. It is estimated that more than 800 ships sank off Cape Horn and around 10,000 sailors perished. The fastest circumnavigation was accomplished in 1938 by the four-masted barque “Priwall” in just five days. The negative record is held by the German sailing ship "Susanna", which needed 99 days for the circumnavigation in 1905.

Today, a member of the Chilean Navy, who has been seconded for a twelve-month period, lives on the remote island, probably one of the safest places ever during the Covid 19 pandemic. Together with his family, he takes care of the meteorological station and forwards the weather data to passing ships. At the same time, Chile is demonstrating its presence at this symbolic site. An old dispute over the border in Tierra del Fuego is smoldering with neighboring Argentina.

Most of the passengers wanted to go to the small post office in Cape Hoorn, in order to send a very old-fashioned postcard home with a sign of life, provided with the coveted special postmark. From the continent's southernmost post office, it should go to the famous monument, which was partially destroyed during a hurricane at the end of 2014 but has now been completely renovated.

A flying wandering albatross was cut out of its massive, staggered steel plates in memory of the countless sailors who drowned off Cape Horn. "It is believed that the souls of the dead sailors live on in the petrels," explains expedition leader Marcelo Gallo. "A beautiful legend," says the 41-year-old, who himself has been "600 times at Cabo de Hornos" - a murmur goes through the rows of passengers.

Isla Hornos is commonly considered the southernmost point of South America. That's not entirely correct, because the deserted Diego Ramirez Islands are 100 kilometers further south. But Cape Horn is loaded with a lot of seafaring history.

Just approaching Isla Hornos by ship also conveys a sense of timelessness: It is a place where the industrial revolution, cultural and religious struggles, hot and cold wars, wealth and poverty, misery and plenty, all the change, that mankind has brought to planet earth have apparently remained without a trace.

This time, too, the island remains untouched. Two thirds of the landings would only succeed at all, Marcelo Gallo reports later. Shaken by two warring oceans - Cape Horn is washed by the South Pacific and the South Atlantic - the passengers are happy to leave the place again.

And the initial disappointment disappears when, a few hours later, Navarino Island's Wulaia Bay emerges. Here was once the largest settlement of the Yagan, who are among the natives of Tierra del Fuego. To explore this historic site, passengers don orange life jackets and transfer to motorized inflatable boats. Beforehand, they have to disinfect their shoes in a tub to protect the fragile ecosystem.

On land on the way through the wilderness there is not the tiniest piece of garbage, no fishing net, no flotsam, no styrofoam. However, microplastics have already been found in the stomach contents of the Antarctic king crab, explains expedition leader Gallo. That is fatal, because the crustaceans are an important part of the food chain.

The first stage is an abandoned radio station. Inside, a small exhibition provides information about the history of the region. In front of the building, the Chilean shipping company of the "Ventus Australis" had a simple yagan dwelling made of leaves, branches, moss and scrub built.

Five indigenous tribes once lived on Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia: the Kaweskar, Selk'nam, Aónikenk, Haush and Yagan - all seafarers who traveled through the fjord landscape of Tierra del Fuego. Before the white European "discoverers" came, they lived in the midst of wild nature and traveled on the sea in their small boats.

They were aquatic nomads, subsisting on seafood, hunting sea lions, and rubbing their fat on themselves to protect themselves from the cold. Anthropologists estimate that the indigenous people came to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego about 10,000 years ago.

They were masters at adapting to environmental conditions: despite the polar weather, they hardly wore any clothes. Her body temperature was probably higher than ours. They didn't build cities, they didn't build monuments, but they could draw and painted their bodies with lines, circles and dots, as can be seen in old photos of the Selk'nam brought by Marcelo Gallo.

Other black-and-white photographs show terrified members of the Yagan tribe who were persecuted, converted, and later murdered by the whites. Today, one last Yagan descendant lives on the island: Cristina Calderón, a 93-year-old woman whose death will finally wipe out her people. She is the last to speak the language of her people. Calderón has been recognized as a "living human treasure" by the Chilean government.

English captain Robert FitzRoy also anchored in Wulaia Bay on his first research expedition in the early 19th century. FitzRoy was commissioned to capture the coast profile here at the end of the world for the British Crown. He made maps that were used for a hundred years.

FitzRoy came up with the idea of ​​taking four Yagans to England and turning them into "civilized people". O'run-del'lico boarded in exchange for a button. That's why the English called him Jemmy Button. He was dressed as a sailor, later as an Englishman. He lived in England for over a year, traveling from the Stone Age to the heart of the industrial revolution.

After making a "gentleman" out of Jemmy Button, FitzRoy brought him back to Tierra del Fuego on his second expedition. Also on board the "HMS Beagle": Charles Darwin, who helped to explore the area, study the locals and lost his humanity here. "The most despicable and wretched creatures I have ever met" - this is how the founder of the theory of evolution called the Yagan.

In 1883 the settlers, the gold and fortune seekers, the military, the police, the ranchers and the Catholic missionaries came. After centuries of being associated with water and stars, the indigenous world collapsed. The Chilean government supported the ranchers out of economic self-interest. The natives were accused of notorious cattle rustling, called barbaric and hunted down by bounty hunters.

Many of them fled to distant Dawson Island where the main mission was located. Their faith, their language and their canoes were taken away from them. They were stuck into clothing contaminated with the bacteria of civilization. Most became ill and died in less than fifty years. In the end, the indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego were expelled and murdered.

Exact figures are not known, but modern research assumes that up to 100 million people have died in the Americas since the end of the 15th century from diseases introduced by European conquerors and missionaries. This demographic catastrophe facilitated and made possible the Europeans' colonial triumph.

Thus weakened, the indigenous societies had little opportunity to defend themselves. The European settlements and colonies made a significant contribution to establishing Europe as the economic and political center of the world.

150 years later none of this can be found. The stillness of Tierra del Fuego, the beauty of nature with its snow-capped mountains and sub-Antarctic rain forests and the abyss of colonial history will leave you speechless.

Driving through Tierra del Fuego, we continue to the Eagle's Glacier and along a lagoon through sub-Antarctic rainforest that is dripping wet but whose ground is soft as a flokati. The next morning, the expedition ship glides along the Gletscherallee. The Ventus Australis anchors at the Pia Glacier, one of 632 glaciers that make up the Darwin Ice Field. Most of them are unexplored and untouched.

This ice field is a remnant of the last great glaciation that ended approximately 12,000 years ago. Over the past century, some glaciers have retreated, including the famous Marinelli Glacier. Responsible for this: climate change.

But there are also glaciers that are growing: “Some glaciers go against the global trend. That's why glaciologists come here to study the phenomenon," says naturalist Enzo Mardones, who is on board the ship.

One could spend hours staring at the white mountains full of spikes and teeth with their sharp-edged ridges. The white is streaked with bright blue lines, as if someone had spilled blue liquor over the frozen snow. Small calved icebergs float in front of the glacier. With the dinghies, the passengers glide up to the glacier tongue, a wall as high as a skyscraper.

The end of the four-day journey is Punta Arenas: the largest city off Antarctica was founded in 1848. At that time, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego were considered a huge wonderland, an uncharted terra incognita, a fantasy place for the restless, wanderlust-stricken adventurers and emigrants dreaming of wealth. The few towns in the area are surrounded by the endless Pampa, the Patagonian pastureland of sheep.

Today, downtown Punta Arenas is home to designer shops, fast food restaurants, and ship chandlers. Graceful, magnificent villas and ugly concrete construction mistakes characterize the cityscape. The streets are laid out like a chessboard: square, practical, modern. The Cementerio Municipal is one of the most impressive monuments in Chile. Some even consider it the most beautiful cemetery on the entire continent.

On the quays in the port, wool, meat and wood disappear into the stomachs of the freighters. Mussels and king crabs are coveted by fishermen and canned and shipped all over the world.

A monument dedicated to Fernão de Magalhães stands in the town square. Power-conscious with one foot on a cannon, head held high in triumph, the Portuguese captain, better known in this country as Ferdinand Magellan, gazes into the distance.

In 1520 the navigator had sailed to the tip of the South American continent and is said to have discovered the passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific on November 1st. At his feet, two defeated natives crouch to the left and right, spears, bows and arrows in their hands. Not humble, but with lowered eyes.

Tierra del Fuego cruises will take place in the southern summer between the end of September and April; the four and a half day discovery tour from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas and vice versa costs from a good 1400 euros per person in a double cabin, including full board, drinks and excursions.

Ushuaia is best reached from Buenos Aires, Punta Arenas from Santiago de Chile, both with Latam, the largest airline in South America. The flights last about three and a half hours. The Federal Foreign Office offers current travel and safety information for Chile and Argentina on its website.

A huge chunk of ice shelf has broken off in Antarctica. A natural process, but the researchers are concerned about the speed. This could have a negative impact on emperor penguins in the long term.

Source: WELT/ Jan-Friedrich Funk

This article was first published in December 2021.