Exploring Ushuaia

Thursday, 26-Jan-2023 7:00pm Argentina time
After a decent night's sleep and some breakfast we spent the better part of today at a very cool museum that Mel and Colleen found. Museo Maratimo de Ushuaia was about a 15 minute cab ride from our hotel. On our way there, looking down the cross streets toward the water and port reminded me a little of San Francisco.

It's actually several museums in one. The building is a big former prison with five 2-story wings. Each floor of each wing was a different museum. The building was left configured as a prison. The bars were left on the windows. The guard stands overlooking the dining area / gym were all still there. The cells in most wings had the walls repaired, painted, and had the doors removed. Other than the maritime museum, each former cell contained an exhibit. 

The old prison building is at the bottom left of this postcard pic

 

We first went through the maritime museum, a small part of the first wing past the entrance. It contained pictures, ship models and maps going back hundreds of years. There was a map showing within maybe a hundred mile radius of Ushuaia, all the shipwrecks that had occurred over the years. Two areas had particularly large concentrations. Hopefully our boat won't be going through either of those areas.

Other than the maritime museum, which was in what was probably a former office area, yhe rest of the first floor of that wing was a museum of the history of the prison. There were exhibits of some of the more notorious criminals. There were a few photo ops with life-sized prison dressed manikins.

The second story art gallery wing had a lot of paintings, in several different genres, of like in the Ushuaia area -- ships, water, mountains, and so on. The first story featured paintings of one artist, who wad there in person working on more, and selling his work. Several of his paintings featured cartoon characters in Antarctic scenes, e.g. Homer Simpson being poked by penguins. 

The martinet museum continued on the second floor of one wing. Many exhibits showing Argentine maritime history, particularly around Ushuaia. 

Penguins and birds of the Argentine Sea

The Antarctic museum interested me most of all. Of course it focused on Argentine Antarctic activity and history, there were also exhibits of many historical Antarctic events performed by other countries. It included Amundsen, Scott, Shackleton, Charcot, and many others. There was a two cell exhibit with posters describing the many Argentine Antarctic bases. 

The first floor of one wing was left as the original prison. The furniture and toilets were gone and all the cells were empty. The doors were still on all the cells, no improvements were made, including any original graffiti still being there. The shower room and sinks were all intact at the end of the wing. 

 

ll-in all a very entertaining day. Admission was around $35US each, more than we've spent on anything else in Ushuaia. The cab rides to the hotel were about $5US each way for the three of us, which was more than the cab from the airport to the hotel yesterday. Almost time for a good dinner (the hotel restaurant doesn't open for dinner till 8:00pm). Tomorrow is technically the first day of the cruise. The package included one night in the hotel. We added last night and tonight on our own dime, thinking we'd need a little recovery time from the travel, and wanting to check out Ushuaia beyond just the hotel. So far, the mission is on track.

View from dinner Thursday night