As anybody who knows the area a bit will tell you, PN Tierra del Fuego is not much in Patagonian terms. Perhaps Ushuaia, that southernmost city in the world, needed a tourist attraction, and voila, a national park popped up. There is even a funny little tourist train that covers a very small part (a couple of km?) of the way towards the park apparently through some heavily cleared lands and for quite a bit of money; it is entertaining to watch quite a number of people (during my visit, one was nervously reading a clipping re Tierra del Fuego and the train from the New York Times travel section) cutting their trips to the park short half-way so they too could fall into what surely must be one of the most pathetic tourist traps in all of South America.

As to the park itself, while not overly dramatic, it is a good place to check out the natural landscape of Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost part of South America, if interested (as I very much was) and if you have time. While the climate is quite mild for such an extreme location, the countdown to Antarctica has begun in earnest in this area and the forests are relatively monotonous and species-pure as well as largely silent. There is actually some easily observable wildlife, if you came all the way here to check out European hares that is. The area is so infested with them that if you hang around till dusk you may well see hundreds hopping about (it is rumored that the notorious TV miniseries When Bunnies Attack was shot right there in PN Tierra del Fuego). There is also a beaver family, proud owners of an impressive dam, an attraction for locals but of course beavers are not native in the park either and are just as destructive. Do not expect to see the beavers during daylight; even if they bothered to poke their heads out a bit before dusk they would be scared right back again by the constant noisy multi-level discussions of the visiting family groups for which this (beavers, discussions, or both) appears to be the main attraction of the park.

There are many short disjointed hiking trails in the park passing landscapes that range from mildly entertaining to quite beautiful indeed. (Apparently, the more dramatic hikes in the area are in the mountains right behind Ushuaia.) The park ends on the Chilean border and one hike actually takes you there. There is nothing but a rusty marker on the spot; one perhaps might expect barbed wire, drenches, mine fields, that type of stuff, because they almost went to war, right ? Or maybe they just wanted the pope, well, anybody, to pay some attention to them at long last? So, anyways, go right ahead, dip that other foot across the border, just do not expect this to turn into your Berlin Wall moment.