Cruising at the bottom of the world

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By Daniel Schweimler South America correspondent, BBC News

There is a cafe in the southern Chilean city of Punta Arenas with signs outside pointing to the rest of the world: Havana 8,637km, London 13,387 and Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan) 20,820km.

Cruise ships, the military and a few hardy scientists are the only ones who sail these waters now

It is as though they are proud to be so far from everywhere.

An hour and a half's drive south of Punta Arenas the road runs out. There are dirt tracks and some human habitation beyond, but it is from about here that people start talking about being at the bottom of the world.

It would take three days of non-stop driving to reach the Chilean capital, Santiago. It is easier to go east from the Pacific coast, crossing the Andes Mountains, to the Argentine towns on the Atlantic coast.

Pablo, who was giving me a guided tour of the town, is from up north. Everywhere in Chile is up north if you live in Punta Arenas.

He is married to a local woman. "Nothing else would bring you here," he grins. "It's bloody freezing."

It is a big town with about 120,000 inhabitants, here mainly because of the nearby coal, oil and natural gas.

The rest are military because Chile nearly fought a war with Argentina in these parts 30 years ago.

Intrepid explorers

There is a harsh charm about these towns with their corrugated iron houses and monuments to intrepid explorers.

Shackleton and his men were stranded in Antarctic waters for nearly two years

All over Punta Arenas there are plaques to mark places visited by the British explorers Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton.

There is the post office from which Scott sent 400 letters to say his ship, the Discovery, was returning safely to England from her first voyage.

And the British Club from which Shackleton, in 1916, showed photographs of his vessel, the Endurance, being consumed by ice.

Punta Arenas is the gateway to the southern island of Tierra del Fuego and, along with the Argentine town of Ushuaia, the nearest thing to a proper city in the vast, inhospitable Antarctic these explorers were trying to conquer.

The naturalist Charles Darwin navigated the waters of Tierra del Fuego in the 1830s on his way to the Galapagos Islands.

Cruise ships, the military and a few hardy scientists are the only ones who sail the waters now.

Climate changes

The tourists are looking for glaciers, of which there are many, and penguins, of which we found none.

"They've gone early this year," said Mauricio, a guide on the cruise ship I was on, taking us from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia, via Cape Horn.

"In just a few years," he added, "I've seen big changes in climate. The birds are migrating earlier and the glaciers are melting."

The ship's bosun, Sergio, was a fisherman here but, with that industry depleted - mostly because of over-fishing - he had joined the tourist trade.

He stood on the upper deck in a short-sleeved T-shirt while the rest of us, wrapped up like mummies, shivered in below-freezing temperatures, plus a wind-chill factor that paid little respect to thermal underwear.

"I don't know if it's global warming," he told me, as we sailed towards Ushuaia. "But it's changing, that's for sure."

They are building a shopping mall in Ushuaia - the shopping mall at the bottom of the world.

When the cruise ships stop - usually for just a few hours before sailing for Cape Horn or the Antarctic - the hundreds of passengers want somewhere to spend their money.

There was a time when the only way the Argentine authorities could ensure Ushuaia maintained a permanent population was to build a prison to which it sent its meanest and most feared criminals.

That prison, now a museum, is just another tourist attraction, part of a growth industry that entices people - such as Bolivian labourers and travel agents from Buenos Aires - to the region.

'Land of fire'

The original inhabitants, the indigenous Yamana, are gone, killed mostly by diseases introduced by the Europeans.

Despite the constant cold and biting winds, the Yamana did not wear clothes, not a scrap.

They lit fires in their canoes and on the shore, which is why this region is called Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire, since that is what the early explorers first saw as they approached this distant and unforgiving land.

The Europeans insisted the Yamana dress, but the clothes they gave them were riddled with diseases against which the Yamana had no defence.

The history of those naked Indians - plus Scott, Shackleton and the Argentine convicts, and the remoteness and unspoilt natural beauty - are what attract the growing number of tourists down here.

There are now small museums on the remote southern islands of Cape Horn and South Georgia where passengers on their cruise liners can learn more about the harsh lives of the early explorers.

Shackleton and his men were stranded in Antarctic waters for nearly two years and saved themselves only through feats of unimaginable bravery and endurance.

But today's visitors have an altogether different experience: heated cabins, hot chocolate or whisky, and round-the-clock meals as they wonder "Having reached the bottom of the world, where do we go now?"

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Thursday 15 May, 2008 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3187926.stm">programme schedules </a> for World Service transmission times.