We travelled to the most southern city in the world with the intention of visiting the Cape Horn. Or at least this was what Elise said she wanted to do before we booked our tickets for Ushuaia. Getting to the ´Horn´ should however prove to be more easily said than done, which I will come back to later after first telling you about the southernmost city in the world: Ushuaia.

Ushuaia is located south in Argentina and is the capital of the Malvinas province. The Malvinas Island might give association to the Falkland war the in the 80`s, which is because whereas the British call the island `the Falkland island`, the Argentineans refer to it as the Malvinas Island. Using the British name for the war and not the `Malvinas war` doesn`t rest well with the local people. Neither do any pro-British sentiments, because as the sign in the port postulates: `British pirates are not welcome`.

But let`s get back to the city. In our lonely planet book Ushuaia is nicknamed the gateway to Antarctica. Therefore the Penguins and Sea Lions which resides a couple of kilometers outside the port, in the Beagle strait, should come as no surprise. To see these animals in their natural habitat was is nevertheles an unique experience.

But apart from cool penguins and sea lions, Ushuaia looked strangely familiar to Northern Norway. Especially from above. Actually when we were inbound for Ushuaia and looked out of the window, I had to remind myself that we were not inbound for Bardufoss in Northern Norway. The terrain was almost inimical with its ice cold waters, green forests and mountainous wastelands.

In Ushuaia we checked in at a Hostel outside the city called: `La Posta`. It was clean, friendly and quite cheap (compared to the rates other places in the city). The guests we met there were also nice, and to mention a few, we had the pleasure to get acquainted to a 50 year old Dane, who had been travelling the American continent from the North in Alaska and southwards since 2008, and an Argentinean loving Norwegian who had lived in Rio Gallegos for a year during high school.

From the Norwegian we actually also learned how to drink the famous Gaucho (Argentinean word for Cowboy) drink: Matè. Matè is a green looking, herb-like drink. You mix it with hot water and drink it from a metal straw. The taste reminds you of a very strong tea.

The ritual surrounding the sharing of Matè is on the other hand not as straightforward. There are a bunch of rules that should be abided to not to offend anyone. As the stories from Bruce Chatwin`s book `In Patagonia` described: In the old `wild- Patagonian- west` any mistake in the Matè ceremony could offer an excuse for a gun or knife fight. We therefore listened with excitement to the Norwegian when he explained some of the rules. Like that you should always finish your cup before handing it onwards to another Matè drinker and that you never should say thank you after having finished your cup unless you are leaving the place, as this suggest that you do not wish to continue the conversation. We listened to the different customs and watched a football game on TV, and I came to think that even if we were talking in Norwegian, it probably does not get any more Argentinean than this.

After a couple of days at La Posta, we started to adjust to the new calmer and colder surroundings, and perhaps even more important the new behavior of the local people. In Brazil we had gotten used to being hassled for our white skin and western look, constantly having to answer whether we were Gringos from Estados Unidos (the U.S.) or from Alemania (Germany). The hassle had grown to such a nuisance that Elise during one of our first nights in the dormitory in her be-wilderness was screaming out: 'NORUEGAA' (Norwegian in Spanish). At first she told me that she was not sure whether she had been screaming this out aloud or not, since she had been half asleep - half awake. But in the dark dormitory in La Posta someone had heard her, because after a couple of seconds in uncertainty, she could hear the Argentinean in the neigbouring bunk replying to her in a calm friendly voice: `Si, Si` (yes, yes). I guess this episode also symbolized the fact that there were no problems being a Norwegian gringo in Ushuaia.

Having gotten fully acclimatized we started to check out the possibilities about the Cape Horn affair. As I said earlier getting to the Cape Horn seemed to be quite the challenge, and when we looked up the different tour agents in the city or the few pages concerning the island in our Lonely Planet we found no specific offers. We were told, however, that we could potentially be able to hitch-hike our way to the Cape with the different sailboats resting in the harbor, but even this seemed like a radical move as most sailors docking in Ushuaia opt for a calmer sailing route trough the `Straits of Magellan` if they are going to the Pacific than trying their luck around the Cape Horn.

In fact, after some Google re-search about the Cape Horn we found that rounding the Cape was regarded in the sailing community on similar par with the accomplishment of climbing the Mt. Everest. As a fact there exists a gentleman's club in France called `Lè Capihornos`, which exclusively consists of sailors that have accomplished this prestigious task. At this point we understood why we had so much trouble finding a tour agent that could take us to the cape and got a bit embarrassed for our ignorance. Soon however we started to joke about whether we shouldn`t look for any day-hikes to Mount Everest also, while we first were at it.

Having lost all hopes for getting to the Cape at this point, we were walking around in the city to find the next bus leaving for Punta Arenas and Chile. Then we found to our surprise a Cruise ship that was heading for Punta Arenas, which also anchored for a day at the Cape Horn. Sadly enough the trip did not allow us to round the cape, which would have guaranteed our spot at the legendary Capihornos club. The cruise ship however planned to dock in the cover for the converging wind and water streams of the Pacific and Atlantic between some islands close to the Cape. After reading about the rounding of the Cape online, we also thought that this solution would be the more rational one, for `land-crabs` like us and we decided to go for it. The only downside with this potentially brilliant cruise was the price. In fact it almost took an entire monthly budget. But we disregarded this at the time and hoped that we would be able to cut our costs when we got further to the North - to the Andean countries (ref. Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador). We signed on and paid our bills with joy over finally being able to see what we came for.

When we woke the first morning of our cruise, we could see the legendary Cape Horn lighthouse and the memorial statue of the albatross from our cabin window. The new renovated lighthouse had been standing since 1962 and the statue was built in 1992. The statue was built in remembrance of all the sailors that had died in these waters, and the symbol of the albatross was chosen because old sailor-tales suggested that sailors transformed into albatrosses when they drowned. Baring in mind that the though waters around the Cape roughly took 10 000 sailors before the Panama Canal was opened do not exactly contest the choosing of the albatross`s suitability. At this point, however, there were no guarantees that we would be able to go ashore.

Since the sole purpose of the expensive cruise was to get to the Cape Horn, we had heard with some concern the preceding night that on some days, the streams in the waters around the Cape Horn were so strong that the ship could not manage to `drop anchor` (even during the summer period). And if the ship could not fasten its anchor the whole disembarkation process would not be safe to execute leaving us only with a view of the Cape from the boat. To me the waves seemed quite rough and I was beginning to grow quite pessimistic as the captain calmed my worries and announce that the ship had anchored and that the passengers leaving for the island should get ready to board the Zodiacs. To our great relief we would be allowed ashore!

Elise and I therefore paved our ways to the first Zodiac. Since most people were quite hesitant due to the seemingly rough sea we were on the first boat leaving the ship. We shared our boat with a couple of other eager passengers including a Swede that yelled out while the water was whipping us in the face: `I can`t believe we paid for this`.

For me and Elise the cost was worth it and thanks to our fellow hesitant passengers we were among to first to arrive at the statue, which allowed us to take some nice pictures in privacy.

When we stood next to the statue we could feel the wind from the Pacific picking up strength and after we had managed to take some pictures we were almost punched to the ground by the force of the wind. We were standing on solid ground and had troubles standing up straight, which made me think about the sailors who had crossed these waters in with a less stable foothold. From the statue I also could see the waters ravaging outside Drake`s Passage (a famous landmark named after the British naval officer/pirate/explorer Francis Drake) and It started to sink in why the gentleman`s club in France remained so exclusive: Crossing the continent at this spot cannot be an easy task.

As we managed to keep ourselves on our feet we walked with our heads bowed against the wind to the lighthouse, and `Uriahs` outpost, manned by a Chilean sailor and his family.

The Chilean Navy rotated the sailor every year in December, when the weather conditions were more acceptable. From time to time the Sailor got visitors from the cruise-ships along with resupplies, but during the Chilean winter between June and August, the weather in these waters was so bad that resupplying the island was impossible. It must definitely be a quite lonely posting.

Still, the symbolism of a Chilean Naval Presence on the lighthouse in these waters seemed to be of such a political importance that I guess the sailor received some benefits for his endured hardship either before or after his posting. And if he did not receive any special treatments from the Chilean army or government hopefully he would get some divine benefits from the Pope for the catholic wooden he was looking after, located next to the lighthouse. The Cape Horn was in all a truly remarkable experience.

Next stop on the schedule was Navarino Island - Located a couple kilometers north of the Cape Horn. When the British explorers were sailing these waters on their ship the Beagle under Vice Admiral Fitzory and Charles Darwin, they stopped by the Navarino Island to update their maps. The Brits defiantly supported the mapping of the region, and a lot of the names we find in the region today were named by the brits, but as the names of the different hills and lakes also suggest, they did not make a lot of effort to understand the local language. Most of the hills and lakes on Navarino Island are named Tekenika lake and Tekenika hill. Probably the Brits thought that they had found Tekenika island. On the Yamaha dialect however Tekenika means: `I do not understand what you are saying`.

After having mapped out the Navarino Island and the Magellan strait the British explorers kidnapped some Indians to bring back for display in London. There the Indians were tutored as a social experiment and thought English civility and the English language. One of the captured Indians was named James Button and after a couple of years with signs of good promise in London he was sent back to Navarino Island to help the new settlers spread the word of god and British civility. But whether he had picked up the more violent aspect of `British civility` or simply misunderstood his learning seems to be at question, because when new settlers came to strengthen the colony a couple of years later, Button had lynched all the Pilgrims and re-adopted the Indian tribal rule. The guides on the Australis cruise ship shared these stories when they were walking around in the footsteps of Darwin and Button, and when it started to get a bit cold, we headed back to the Zodiacs where other crew members were awaiting with hot-chocolate and whiskey.

Having told just a fraction of our cruise I nevertheless can conclude that we were happy, fat (from the all the free food on-board) and a bit poor as we stepped ashore in Punta Arenas. I would gladly recommend those who have some extra money available to sign up for the same experience if they ever want to visit the Cape Horn.