052 GOING PLACES PLACES 052 GOING TEXT actsandfestivals. classmusic world for asahub hasbeenbuildingitsreputation andsince2005, in theworld isthesouthernmost city America, locatedatthetipofSouth Ushuaia, of theworld Music n City Break COLIN BARRACLOUGH SEPTEMBER 2009 at the end end the at PhoTo COrbIS PhoTo facundO SANtana PhoTo LAS hAyAS rESOrt hOtEL and ice-cappedpeaks with itsstunninglandscapes has longcaptivatedvisitors Fuego del Tierra page) (facing southernmost city; this world’s to draw big another become years,musichas In recent GOING PLACES PLACES GOING PhoTo facundO SANtana SEPTEMBER 2009 Ushuaia 053 n City Break favour the challenging runs and guaranteed snow at Cerro Castor, just 26 kilometres from town, and as burgeoning Antarctic tourism has turned Ushuaia’s port into a busy re- supply stop for polar-bound cruise liners and yachts. Indeed, it was Ushuaia’s emergence as one of Argentina’s most popular tourist destinations that spurred the city’s first classical music festival, the Festival Internacional de Ushuaia, in April 2005. Argentine conductor Jorge Uliarte, who now presides over the Berlin Symphonic Orchestra, had long harboured a desire to bring world-class classical music to Patagonia’s southern reaches. “Jorge was conducting with Georg Solti at the Salzburg Festival in Austria, and believed he could apply that festival’s model to Argentina,” said Hernán. Jorge took the reins as artistic director, gaining the patronage The pioneer culture of Salzburg city authorities and winning enough commercial sponsorship and government interest to put his plans into Lucas Bridges is perhaps the best known of Patagonia’s pioneers. His father, an English missionary, came to Tierra del Fuego in (From top) A ride on the Tren practice. Since 2005, the 15-day festival has gained stature each 1869 to convert the island’s now-extinct Yamana, Aush and del Fin Del Mundo steam train year, showcasing opera, chamber music and solo recitals by Ona tribes to Christianity. Lucas was born in the tiny house his is a great way to view Ushuaia’s some of the world’s premier musicians. Headline concerts have father built on the site that would later become Ushuaia. As wonders as it puffs along a hilly a child, he grew up with Yamana boys as playmates, speaking route and covers many areas that seen Jorge conduct large-scale symphonic works with leading their language and hunting side-by-side for guanaco. In 1886, are inaccessible by foot; the city orchestras from Prague, Berlin and Moscow. when the Argentine state gifted the family a plot of land some ana clings to the shore of Tierra del t 85km to the east, they set up the island’s first farm, Estancia SAN Fuego; a sign proclaiming Ushuaia Harberton (Email [email protected]). Lucas later O d Cool culture described his childhood vividly in Uttermost Part of the Earth, the as the city at ‘the end of the world’; autobiography he penned in 1948, a year before his death. Both acun Tierra del Fuego’s austere topography and sheer isolation (facing page) Ushuaia launched its f S Harberton and Estancia Viamonte, a sister property, remain in o deterred settlers for far longer than in Argentina’s more first jazz festival this year T the hands of Bridges’ descendents, and accept paying guests. emoteness seems to define Pho pastoral regions. Charles Darwin journeyed along its shoreline } Argentina’s far-south settlement of Ushuaia. Some 3,200 kilometres from Buenos Aires and very far indeed from the rest of the world, the city clings to the h shore of wind-swept Tierra acloug rr del Fuego, at the very tip of A b South America. It is squeezed COLIN between the jagged Martial mountain range and the gunmetal o T waters of the Beagle Channel, where near-incessant gales howl Pho in from Patagonia’s untamed steppe, and snowstorms can Rdescend from icy Andean peaks even at the height of summer. Tourists seem to agree. Hikers and Head any further south and the next stop is Antarctica. climbers have long been drawn by Yet here, in the world’s most southerly city, a cultural Tierra del Fuego’s challenging trails revival is starting to draw musicians, artists and chefs from and ice-capped peaks; in-the- Europe, Asia and North America. In a region known for know fly fishermen, too, have untamed nature, pioneer culture and sheep farming, Ushuaia long valued the monster-sized is emerging as an unlikely cultural hub. trout and salmon to be found in the island’s glacier-fed streams Southern symphony and lakes. Only in recent years, “As the southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia has however, has Ushuaia become become an international brand,” explains Hernán Román, a must-do destination for an event producer who helped launch an annual classical mainstream tourists. music festival in Ushuaia in 2005. “At best, the city’s Some 300,000 vacationers remote location was once seen as a mixed blessing. Now, arrived last year, adding it’s become an asset, a unique selling point. Other cities USD130 million to the city’s in Argentina have their plus points – their history, their coffers. Visitor numbers are architecture, their natural beauty – but only Ushuaia is city at rising by 15 percent each year, the end of the world.” as winter skiers increasingly 054 GOING PLACES SEPTEMBER 2009 GOING PLACES JUNE 2009 067 n City Break (Below) Jorge Uliarte, artistic in the 1830s – the channel would later take the name of his Today, visitors come to take day trips along the Beagle director of the Festival uaia Channel h ship, the HMS Beagle – but it was only in 1870 that English in catamarans or chartered yachts, marvelling Internacional de Ushuaia; US missionaries set up an outpost to convert the island’s now- at the sea lions and Magellanic penguins that bob in their E d (right) Las Hayas Restaurant extinct indigenous inhabitants to Christianity. Even after wake, their passage marked by giant petrels and black- offers fine dining and sweeping Ushuaia was officially incorporated in 1884, it spent the next browed albatrosses. Some foray into the island’s glacier- views of the city and the peaks nacional r E of Chile’s Isle Navarino 60 years as little more than a penal colony. Only in the early scoured interior on horseback or mountain bike, ascend the t IN 20th century did determined pioneers clear enough of Tierra Vinciguerra or Martial glaciers – a chairlift eases the ascent to AL v I t del Fuego’s dense forests of lenga and coihue, varieties of the latter, and provides an unparalleled bird’s-eye view of the ES f o southern beech, to support large-scale sheep farming. Beagle Channel – or search for Andean condors and guanaco, T EL t Pho Yet the city’s tough past has receded sufficiently that its a wild and woolly cousin of the llama, in Tierra del Fuego O symbols have become tourist attractions in their own right. National Park. h rt ESO Fuegian pioneer culture is best displayed at El Almacén Others are content to soak up the frontier spirit that lies just r AS y de Ramos Generales, an atmospheric cafe housed in a beneath Ushuaia’s surface. Stroll a few blocks from Avenida A h San Martín, the bustling LAS o main boulevard, for T instance, and you’ll see Pho HEAD ANY FURTHER SOUTH AND unpaved streets with houses patched together Guide to Ushuaia THE NEXT STOP IS ANTARCTICA from mismatched planks GETTING THERE and corrugated zinc. There recently renovated, 1906-built Malaysia Airlines flies general store, newcomer is charm in the ruggedness: from Kuala Lumpur to Buenos El Almacén de Ramos 1906-built general store, where tools, toys and mementos fill Each building is washed in shades of seashell, honey or lime, Aires twice weekly Generales (Maipú 749 Tel +54 2901 424 317 www. the floor-to-ceiling shelves. Even the penal colony is now a each garden boasts a colourful patch of lupins that somehow STAY Set three ramosgeneralesushuaia. museum hosting exhibitions of maritime and Antarctic art, and survive the fearsome winters. kilometres above com) is coffeehouse, bakery the steam train its prisoners were forced to build has become town on the beech-carpeted and wine bar combined. slopes of Cerro Martial, Las Tren del Fin del Mundo A musical link to the future the tourist-oriented – the Train at Hayas Resort Hotel (Avenida DO Ushuaia the End of the World. Sandra Ruiz Díaz set out to harness these two sides of Luís Fernando Martial 1650 International Ushuaia, its rough and its smooth, when she launched the Tel +54 2901 430 710 www. Music Festival (www. lashayashotel.com) affords festivaldeushuaia.com city’s first jazz festival, Jazz at the End of the World, ) sweeping views of the city, is a presentation of classical this year. She aimed, she says, to strike a balance between the Beagle Channel and the music, held each April, while local and international talent, and strove to form bridges, not mysterious peaks of Chile’s Isla Jazz at the End of World Navarino beyond. The 93-room www.jazzalfinushuaia. divisions, between residents and visitors. ( hotel squeezes maximum blogspot.com) takes place “Ushuaia has become a kind of international city,” says Ruiz mileage from its imposing in June every year. Visit the Díaz, who also runs Fundación Inti Main, a non-profit group location: A comfortable lounge Ushuaia Penal Colony (Tel stretches the length of the +54 2901 436 321 www. building; bar, fireside den museomaritimo.com) and restaurant all share the for an extensive collection same view. Los Cauquenes of maritime and Antarctic Resort & Spa (Bahía Cauquen art.