Ushuaia - The End of the World - Argentina

Ushuaia in Argentina is the southernmost city in the world. It lies on the shores of the Beagle Channel and surrounded by the Martial Mountains. It is the capital of the Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and Southern Atlantic Islands Province. It is located on the southern coast of the Grand Island of Tierra del Fuego, in the Bay of Ushuaia (aia means bay). It was founded in 1884. It has sea, mountains and forest. 

Ushuaia is a very touristy place. It is about 1100 km from the Antarctic Peninsula and is one of five internationally recognised gateways to the Antarctic. So it attracts a lot of cruise ships and expedition ships. 

The town of Ushuaia is a bit of a tourist trap. It is the starting point for many Antarctic expeditions as well as being a base for tours around Patagonia. The port area was maniac, as there were 6 cruise ships in, plus some expedition ships. Three of the cruise ships were at the dock, the other three, including ours, had to tender. And it rained, which didn't help things. 

Two cruise ships and two expedition ships and tenders from the moored ships -

The 3 cruise ships moored in the bay -

City hall

Tourist bus and train -

Monumento a los Antiguos pobladores - The Monument to the Pioneers and Old Settlers

In several places in Argentina there were signs claiming the Falkland Islands belong to Argentina as well as general direction signs -

The wifi at the port area was really poor so I dashed off to find a coffee shop, as it would be the last chance for over a week. The main street was full of expensive shops. Main shopping street -

Luckily the sun tried to come out later and there was a better view of the mountains behind Ushuaia. Glacier Martial in the mountain behind Ushuaia, it reaches 1050 m altitude and is the most important source of drinking water for Ushuaia. A ski lift goes up through rugged forest to the tundra at the glacier base.

From Ushuaia I did a trip to the Tierra del Fuego National Park.

Animals of Gatun Lake, Panama

Whilst in Panama I did an tour on Gatun Lake. Gatun Lake is a large freshwater lake to the south of Colon. It forms a major part of the Panama Canal. Colon is a city beside the Caribbean Sea, lying near the Atlantic entrance of the Panama Canal. The lake is man made, created by damming the Chagres River. 

From Colon we drove along the highway then turned off through the national park. We saw the prison, complejo carcelario El Renacer, where Manuel Noriega spent the last years of his life. He was Panama’s drug running military dictator of the 1980s. He died 2017.

At the jetty of Gamboa we transferred to a boat. Initially we went along the canal and saw the large crane used for lifting the dock gates.  

The first critter we saw was a crocodile, but I didn't get a clear photo as the boat was bobbing up and down. 

We carried on to Monkey Island where we saw a Capuchin monkey. The boatmen lured it closer with a banana. 

We then came into the lake, some saw a Howler Monkey but I was the wrong side of the boat. Nearby was a Panama tree, Sterculia apetala, which is the national tree of Panama.  

Further on saw a tamarin and a snail kite. 

We also saw various iguanas

A Southern lapwing -

As we were leaving, the Panama Canal train went past. The passenger train runs once a day in each direction Panama City to Colon, and serves as a commuter as well as a tourist train. 

There are also around 10 freight trains in each direction in 24 hours. See more on the passenger service and also the freight service. The cargo train going over a bridge (taken from inside the van!).

The Chinchorro mummies, Chile

The so-called Chinchorro mummies, which were discovered in the early 20th century in the Atacama Desert in present-day Chile, and associated sites, were recently inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2021, "Settlement and Artificial Mummification of the Chinchorro Culture in the Arica and Parinacota Region". 

The Chinchorro mummies are mummified remains of individuals from the South American Chinchorro culture, found in what is now northern Chile. They are the oldest examples of artificially mummified human remains, having been buried up to 2000 years before the Egyptian mummies. The earliest mummy that has been found in Egypt dated around 3000 BC, while the oldest anthropogenically modified Chinchorro mummy dates from around 5050 BC. The oldest naturally mummified corpse recovered from the Atacama Desert is dated around 7020 BC.

The Chinchorro were a group of expert fishermen and gatherers who inhabited the Atacama Desert between 7020 and 1500 BC. Shell midden and bone chemistry suggest that 90% of the people's diet was seafood. They lived along the coast and the mummification techniques were done by people in southern Peru and down through northern Chile as far as Antofagasta. The Chinchorro culture was developed before the arrival of the Incas. 

The Chinchorro were unique by their exceptional preservation of the dead. They were the first society in the world who mummified their dead, from around 5000 BC. The mummified remains were found in the Chinchorro beach of the Arica and Parinacota. The practice of mummification lasted for almost 3000 years. 

It seems people of all ages and social statues were mummified. Although higher ranking people had more elaborate and complex mortuary treatment. Even infants were mummified. Infant mortality was high due to high arsenic concentrations in the environment. 

These pre-Hispanic people believed that the mummies connected the real world with the supernatural. The mummification process had four different techniques, which changed over time. They all required a lot of care but the black and red techniques were the most complex.  

The Archaeological Museum of San Miguel of Azapa, outside of Arica, is a good place to see the mummies. It is run by Tarapaca university.

After death the flesh was removed and the limbs completely dis-articulated, to be later reassembled with clays and coloured mud as well as wood.  

On this display the limbs have been removed and replaced by sticks.

The mummies were then embalmed using the black or red techniques.

The Black Mummy technique is the oldest and most complex. It was practiced from around 5000 - 2500 BC. Often the skin was replaced with sealion skin when the own was insufficient. As a final touch, the body was painted with black manganese.

The Red Mummy technique - the organs were removed through incisions and the cavities then filled with sediments. The body was painted with red ochre. They added a long human hair wig that was secured with a clay cap. Sometimes the skin was replaced in the form of bandages. This style of mummification lasted from about 2000 - 1500 BC.

It was hard to take good photos through the glass cases.

Red and black face masks with the characteristic holes for the mouth, nose and eyes were created using colour pigments, and probably modelled after the faces of the deceased. The dead were then placed on cloths made of reeds and buried superficially in the desert soil. 

The two more recent techniques were more simple. There was a bandage technique. And the 4th was a mud coat. Here the body was covered with a mud coat, which set and helped prevent decomposition. This technique only lasted a couple of centuries. 

Some babies had their head shapes altered by winding tight bandages around to produce for example a square shaped head.

There are many other sections to the museum apart from the mummies but we had quite a rushed tour and had little time. This scene shows a caravan of lamas -

A BBC article on the mummies, from 2021, "Living with the world's oldest mummies! There are some good photos of the mummies and masks.

Atacama desert geoglyphs, Chile

The Atacama Desert in north Chile is a desert plateau in South America covering an approx 1,000 km long strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains, in the rain shadow of Andes. It is the driest nonpolar desert in the world. And there are various geoglyphs in the desert.

A geoglyph is a manmade arrangement of the natural landscape to create a geometric or effigy form. Often dark coloured stones are placed on the lighter coloured ground.

Some of the geoglyphs can be seen outside the town of Arica. Arica is the driest city on earth. It is a port city with the Atacama desert right behind. Not far out of town are lama geoglyphs of Atoca in the Azapa Valley. The Atoka geoglyphs are located immediately to the east of Cerro Sombrero, 7 km from Arica. The figures made by an accumulation of stones and represent a typical caravan of llamas with their guide, and preceded by two dancing characters with anthropomorphic characteristics. Although our guide told us the 2 lamas in front of a shepherd are the ones that know if there are bad things ahead. Then more lamas behind the man. They are more than 1000 years old. This would correspond with the time of the Inca influence, (1000-1400). 

These scenes relate to caravan traffic that took place between coastal lowlands and the highlands for the exchange of goods. Llama caravans brought products such as charqui, quinoa and wool down from the highlands. These items were traded for products from the coastal valleys such as maize, red pepper, fish and seafood.

Further on are the La Tropilla geoglyphs which we didn’t see but also represent a group of camelids and anthropomorphic figures.

Beyond those are the Cerro Sagrado geoglyphs. The geoglyphs of Azapa are located on the slope of Cerro Sagrado, 4 km from the Atoka geoglyphs. They show human figures, llamas and lizards. This must have been an important place for the caravanners who made this route. 

The Azapa Valley is fertile and known for its production of olives, guava, mango, bananas as well as papaya plantations. 

A modern geoglyph!!

We then went onto the Archaeological Museum, this is run by Tarapaca university. The main feature is the Chinchorro mummies. See next blog.

See more on the Geoglyphyic art of the Atacama .

See more on the Azapa Valley on Wikipedia.