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From rail to sail

Tourists explore the southernmost tip of South America in a catamaran over the ice-blue waters of the Beagle channel

The tiny train chugs past an ice-encrusted stream, frozen peat bogs and jagged mountaintops rendered postcard perfect by a recent snowfall. Icicles drip from the rocks.

"To your right you will see hundreds of blackened, scorched tree stumps," says the tour conductor, Oscar Scheffelaar-Klotz. "This was once a forest where the convicts cut down trees. Sparks from the old freight train started fires here."

The train halts beside a replica of an Indian settlement, then rolls past an old sawmill and fields of wild berry bushes now dormant in the snow as the smokestack's plume rises in the pale winter light.

Further along, the wagons wend through the Cemetery of the Trees, hundreds upon hundreds of acres of trees removed by convicts.

"As you can see, the prisoners cut down many, many trees. And each year they needed to build the train line farther out as they cut farther and farther away from the city," the guide says.

Soon the train enters the Tierra del Fuego National Park, pocked with peat bogs and hardscrabble hills. Across the Beagle Channel, the Chilean mountains of the Darwin Cordillera glow a pale blue-white. Chile and Argentina share the main island of Tierra del Fuego.

Beech forests rise up the mountains and whisper in the wind.

Clumps of green lichen -- called "devil's beard" -- swing from bushes. With the prisoners long gone, beavers now do the work of felling trees, leaving trunks with chiseled toothmarks.

Snowy footprints, perhaps a fox, lead up a streambank. A cormorant, a seabird whose wingspan can reach six feet (1.8 meter), flies in search of an inviting lake as the train ride comes to an end.

Hopping a catamaran

Here in Tierra del Fuego, water is as much a formidable presence as land. Voyaging across both can be fitted into one day, with connections between train and catamaran bookable in advance -- such as the 100-foot (30-meter) catamaran Ezequiel MB that sails at mid-afternoon.

Andean flute music is piped into the Ezequiel's enclosed double-deck salon. Black-coated waiters serve white wine while families sip hot Mate tea -- an Argentine tradition.

Warmly dressed tourists step out of heated salons onto the open-air top deck and its panoramic view, as the ship glides from Ushuaia Bay down the Beagle Channel.

One mountain after another slides past: majestic Monte Olivia and a peak with serrated teeth called the Cinco Hermanos, or Five Brothers.

"Oh look! Seals!" a 6-year-old girl squeals as the Ezequiel pulls alongside an islet where dozens of fur seals rollick. The animals slide off black boulders into the waves as tourists "ooh" and "aah."

Another island looms up, topped with grunting sea lions, among them a 300-pound (136-kilogram) male defending his harem. Tourists crowd the side of the boat to gawk.

"Please be quiet," the tour guide whispers through the boat's microphones as the Ezequiel idles within yards.

Then the catamaran pulls away, a golden winter sunset glinting off the backs of the sea lions. Heading for home, the ship passes islands covered with squawking black cormorants. Some nosedive into the waves for fish.

The day ends as it began: Gray clouds gather atop distant mountains. The wind picks up. The mercury drops.

As waves rise higher and rap against the catamaran's pontoons, the Ezequiel speeds for Ushuaia Bay.

The city lights twinkle warmly, welcoming the tourist back after a winter's day at the end of the world.

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Copyright 1998 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

All photos courtesy Associated Press.