Earth #indie30

BootsnAll’s writing prompt is about the earth!

I felt most in tune with the Earth while in Ushuaia, Argentina. It was so disconnected from the world, and it was so rough and raw and isolated.

There was so much history, about the Indians who settled there and the Yaghan who lived off the land, and made use of the areas we were hiking. We were exposed to the elements, even in the height of summer. We were, as they say, at the end of the world.

We left Ushuaia by boat and traveled around the Beagle Channel with nature at it’s wildest element surrounding us.

Wildlife was everywhere.

Every person we talked with had concern for the animals, and they would talk about global warming and the water temperatures and how the wildlife is suffering.

Before taking a small boat to get to Martillo Island to see the penguins (yes, penguins!), we were invited to take a guided tour of a a one-room museum and research area. There were displays of the bones of various whales, sharks, beavers and sea lions pieced back together in the museum.

I think what was most amazing that there were/are so many species in this area completely outnumbering humans. And those are just the bones they are able to salvage. Once you headed into the research area there were loads of bones waiting to be cleaned, sorted and labeled. We saw an entire whales skeletal system drying out on the grass behind the museum. The skeletal system was longer than the bus we had taken on the two plus hour drive from Ushuaia.