One of the most sought after destinations for the traveller is Ushuaia, Argentina. The most southerly city in the world. Apparently some Chileans claim that Ushuaia is not actually a city to try and strip it of it's title, but that may just be childish rumour. The Chileans and Argentinians are about as fond of each other as the Brits and the French.

It is, to be fair, probably the smallest city I have been to so far. Even so, it's larger than the vatican and it's the capital of the province so if it wants to be a city then let it be one. Ushuaia is a charming port town surrounded by snowcapped mountains where there is very little crime. This is because there is only one road to get out of town so a bank robber is going to be pretty easy to snare - unless of course he boats down to Antarctica, but I don't think penguins accept hard cash.

We managed to be here at the right time because on Sunday the flying club celebrated an anniversary (20th?) with some death defying air displays. We stood in the crowd and watched as two small planes (they probably have more technical names which someone with an interest in planes could tell you) flew round each other in some sort of romantic dance while some woman played some cheesy tunes on a saxophone. After a while of impressive near misses, one of them flew out of view and as we craned our necks to see where it had gone it suddenly appeared 10 feet from our faces. It was so close that I think a man in the front row got engine grease on his moustache!

Two days later we discovered that it was the 120th anniversary of Ushuaia itself. How handy! We went down for the parade with a couple of chilled out German friends as early in the afternoon as we could manage. There was a small boy dressed as a horse who amused us greatly, but the rest of the paraders were pretty ordinary really. Comprising of respresentatives from the whole of the province there were more than 20 schools, some factory workers, the hockey club, some misguided youths and others, all trailing past with no floats, no balloons and no free sweets. There was, however a swing band with a very enthusiastic conductor who swung along with them letting his long beard sway in the breeze.

We went to the pub.

Later we were treated to an impressive fireworks display launched from the decks of the Chilean warships in the harbour. Apparently there had been some talk that Chile was going to attack, so we half expected the display to finish with some mortar bombs, but somehow I think it was probably just some more silly rumour.

School no.15...

Ushuaia on a normal day