Wednesday, 21 September 2016 - 12:00 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: South America / Südamerika Category/Kategorie: GeneralReading Time: 5minutes
Tourist attractions include the Tierra del Fuego National Park and Lapataia Bay. The park can be reached by highway, or via the End of the World Train (Tren del Fin del Mundo) from Ushuaia. The city has a museum of Yámana, English, and Argentine settlement, including its years as a prison colony. Wildlife attractions include local birds, penguins, seals, and orcas, many of these species colonizing islands in the Beagle Channel. There are daily bus and boat tours to Harberton, the Bridges family compound. Tours also visit the Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse. Les Eclaireurs is sometimes confused with the “Lighthouse at the End of the World” (Faro del fin del mundo) made famous by Jules Verne in the novel of the same name; but the latter lies some 200 mi (320 km) east of Ushuaia on Isla de los Estados (Staten Island).
Since 2007 Ushuaia has hosted the Bienal de Arte Contemporáneo del Fin del Mundo (Biennial of Contemporary Art at the End of the World), created and organized by the Patagonia Arte & Desafío Foundation under the rubric “South Pole of the Arts, Sciences, and Ecology”. The Bienal has gathered over one hundred artists from five continents addressing the motto “think at the End of the World that another world is possible”. As a pedagogical project it encourages students at all levels to “think about a better world”.
As in most of Argentina, football is a popular sport in Ushuaia, and in 2010 the TV show FIFA Mundial did a story about the sport’s development in this locality. Several ski areas are located near Ushuaia including Glacier El Martial (on Martial Mountains) and Cerro Castor. Opened in 1999, Cerro Castor is the southernmost full-fledged ski resort in the world. On Cerro Castor, it is possible to ski just 200 metres (660 feet) above sea level. The summit reaches an elevation of 1,003 metres (3,291 feet) above sea level, and consistently cool temperatures allow the longest skiing season in South America. Winter temperatures fluctuate between 0 to −5 °C (32.0 to 23.0 °F). It has ten elevation facilities and 28 ski trails for all skill levels. There are cafeterias, mountain huts, a ski school, a first aid room and a forest of beech. Snowboarding, sledding, and snowshoeing are also available at Cerro Castor, in addition to alpine skiing. It is located on the southern side of Cerro Krund, 27 kilometres (17 miles) north of Ushuaia. The ski season is typically between June through October. In 2012 Cerro Castor hosted the FIS Freestyle Slopestyle World Cup, organized by the International Ski Federation (FIS), and in 2015 it hosted the Interski Congress and World Cup, organized by the International Ski Instructors Association, which was its first ever event in the Southern Hemisphere. The glacier is popular even during the summer months, when the chairlift operates in both directions. Hiking trails lead from the city’s edge to the base of the glacier, which has retreated considerably over the past century, as shown in photographs on display at the Antarctic Museum of Ushuaia.
