After over 24 four hours of plane flights, layovers and taxi cab transfers between airports I arrived in the city of Ushuaia, Argentina on Christmas  Day at 6pm local time. It was a long trip here but luckily for me I arrived with no delays and with all of my baggage and field gear.  Ushuaia is a very interesting city. It is   touted as the southernmost city in the world due to its location near the extreme southern tip of South America.  There are about 57,000 people who live in Ushuaia, but in the summer time the population grows due to the large number of tourist that come here.  Many of these tourist come to Ushuaia to  get on one of the many tourships that embark from the city and travel to the Falklands Islands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula.  During the summer  there are about 30-40 ships that make these voyages, returning to Ushuaia every 10-18 days to pick up new passengers. That means at any one time there are about 3-4 tourship at the port unloading and loading people and supplies.  It can be a pretty hectic place.

(Left) Giant Santa; (Right) Ushuaia sign

So imagine my surprise today as I arrived to find a very quiet Ushuaia. The roads were empty, many business and restaurants were closed and there were no tourships docked at the port. I have never been to Ushuaia on Christmas day, but I soon realized that everyone in the city was probably spending the day at home with their families. The weather was nice so I took a walk around the city. It is the middle of the summer here so even though the weather is chilly (about 45°F) there are many flowers blooming throughout the city (such as the Lupine flowers pictured here). Another exciting thing I discovered was a giant 25 foot Santa Claus which was strategically placed outside of a night club which billed itself as ?the Southernmost Discotheque in the World.?  Like many other place it was also closed for Christmas. After finding one of the few restaurants that was open and having dinner I walked back to my room for a full night?s sleep.  I have one more day in Ushuaia tomorrow before getting onto the ship on Dec. 27th

Lupine flowers in Ushuaia