Tierra del Fuego 

 I though it most appropriate to begin the Dusty Globe blog with an entry about a place that can legitimately be described as the edge of the inhabited world both literally and metaphorically.

 Tierra del Fuego.  The Land of Fire.  Megellen so named this land as he was the first European to pass through its wicked waters in the 16th century.  The land of fire it is not.  It is a land of windswept, cold earth.  It is a land of ice and stark granite faces.  It is a land of fog-encased islands.  A land of fire… not so much.  But, Magellen can be forgiven, for he primarily spied it only from the ship-eating waters at the southern transition between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Split between Chile and Argentina, both countries label this wilderness on their maps in a sort-of miscellaneous way:  “Teira del Fuego, Antarctica, and South Atlantic Islands.” It is identified on the map as if it represents whatever is still farther down there, beyond where civilization needs to go.

 Ushuaia, on the Argentina side, is the southernmost permanently inhabited town in the world–the edge of civilization literally.  Further south, still, over on the Chile side, is a matrix of rain-soaked islands, glaciers, fjords and temporate forests.  Few people ever visit this southwestern reach of Tierra del Fuego because it really is almost impossible to get to.  The waters are too trecherous for most boats.  The land is blocked by the icy Darwin Mountains.  By air, adventurous pilots will find few suitable landing places, and any flight path will be full of hazards:  High mountains and perpetual winds on the east; Almost constant rain, fog and mist on the west.

The cartographer’s view of this place shows a landform that tapers and narrows to the south until it is no more.  The lone traveler, heading south from Buenos Aires will cross ever larger tracts of lands with ever fewer people while the continent itself becomes narrower as it reaches for the Antarctic.  Warm vinyards become cooler ranches.  Cool ranches become cold sub-antarctic grasslands.  And, then the sea…

 From Santiago, Chile, the experience would be remarkably different.  On the windward side of the great Andes, the southern traveler would encouter thickening forests while fingers of the Pacific reach into the mountains, creating great obstacles.  This traveler would either have to take to the sea, or traverse to the eastern slope to continue his southern route.  In the southernmost reaches, this land becomes almost impossible to traverse.  Here the land and sea become interspersed.  This is a land of islands, fjords and forests.  The rain and clouds and mist are near permanent.  Inland just a few miles, the mountainous spine becomes encased in permanent ice.  By the time the land gives way to the sea, the permanent snow-line is but a few hundred feet above sea level.

 I have not yet been to this place myself, but I will someday.  Lima, Peru is the closest I’ve been and it is a world away.

- dgeiling