Christmas in Ushuaia
By: Matias Travieso-Diaz
All people have had ill luck, but Jairus’s daughter and Lazarus had the worst. Mark Twain
Laz pulled the parka closer to his body, ineffectually trying to ward off the gelid wind that blew from the mountains. Argentina was supposed to be warm in late December, but in Ushuaia, at the end of the world, the temperature rarely rose above fifty degrees. “Today, not even fifty,” Laz mumbled. Talking to himself was just one of the habits that over the years had attached to him like fleas on a dog’s fur.
He had not come to this remote outpost to see the sights -- Ushuaia held little of interest to entice a seasoned traveler like himself; it was described in the tourist guides as merely “a sliver of steep streets and jumbled buildings below the snowcapped Martial Range” of the Andes. He was also not interested in a trip to Antarctica, or in hiking the steep trails of Andorra Valley or trekking to the Martial Glacier, a couple of hours from town. “I’m not athletic,” he told himself; not that his arthritic knees would have allowed him to go ambling about as he used to in his youth.
He had signed up for a four-hour boat cruise on the Beagle Channel that would take him to his goal, the area around the Les Eclaireurs lighthouse. Sailing along the channel off Ushuaia, the boat had passed by sea lions basking on the rocks, cormorants sitting on nests, fur seals, and other wildlife he did not recognize. On Martillo Island, the boat had come close to what the guide described as one of the largest penguin colonies outside of Antarctica. Laz had taken numerous pictures, although he had no expectation he would ever show them to anyone.
The boat finally arrived at Les Eclaireurs lighthouse, an iconic symbol of Ushuaia that the locals called the “lighthouse at the end of the world.” Its distinctive red and white stripes contrasted sharply with the backdrop of snow-capped mountains north of the channel. Laz would have liked to disembark, but this was not permitted.
The end point of the boat tour was small Bridges Island. Passengers got off and set out on a walk, in search of native flora and fauna. At one point along the trek, Laz paused to gaze at the sprawling view across the Beagle Channel, with Ushuaia in the distance and the lighthouse not far to the northeast.
An albatross, gliding on enormous wings, circled around Laz. It spiraled down and landed a few yards away, righted itself and began pecking at the ground with its longish hooked bill in search of morsels cast away by the sea. It paused for one moment, raised its head, and stared at Laz as if offering encouragement.
Laz extracted from his coat a small notebook with dirty, worn covers and opened it.
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