Ushuaia

The wind hit me before my feet even touched the gangway. I stepped off the ship in Ushuaia on a Tuesday morning in late January, and a gust from the Beagle Channel nearly ripped my hat clean off my head. The air smelled of cold salt and wet stone, sharp and pure in a way I had never experienced anywhere else on Earth. Above the harbor, the Martial Mountains rose like jagged teeth wrapped in glacial ice, their peaks disappearing into low clouds that moved so fast they seemed to be racing each other. Below them, the city itself — colorful corrugated rooftops of red, blue, green, and yellow — climbed the hillside in cheerful defiance of the latitude. I stood there at the rail for a long moment, staring at the sign on the dock: "Ushuaia — Fin del Mundo." End of the World. And I believed it.