Ushuaia Argentina Tierra de Fuego “final del mundo” This is what the signs and souvenirs say; the end of the world, but what if it is the beginning? In this place where lake and land, sky and sea, all merge into mist that rises and falls through the turning of the day.
In this place where the breath of cold is never far away, couldn’t it be possible that it is the beginning of the world? This place where water is always in all its states; ice and vapor and liquid. Could we have emerged from cold, in the mist in the midst of seas?Edit
We hiked up to Martial Glacier, up and up for miles as the path wound round the broken stones of morrain. As we claimed higher ground the cold cloud of the glacier’s air rested on our shoulders before we could even see any snow. Up as far as we could go we arrived at just a tiny finger of the Glacier reaching down. On the way I caught site of a small brown moth colored with subtle shades of reds and greens, like the terrain. It was the only one I saw, and I lost sight of it again until we reached the snow, where it fluttered round me, before heading into the heights where I couldn’t follow. A last hint of summer before the world turns cold.
Manolo and I seem to be drawn to the ends of roads. We’ve ended up in some of our favorite places following an unknown road to its very end. Our home is at the end of a dead end lane. In Ushuaia we watch the gray sky turn to gray night over the Beagle Channel. We are marking our 40th year of being together. We met in a northern place, and so it seems fitting to have come so far south that it feels like north again.
