We went to Tierra del Fuego National Park aboard a narrow gauge train built by convicts back in the late 1800s. They still use the same train and the same tracks. The park still has a machine shop that makes replacement parts the old-fashioned way: By hand.
I’m going to make up some numbers because the internet connection sucks and it’s late and I’m tired and kind of cranky. But I think they’re relatively close to the real numbers they told us. The park covers 75,000 acres and all but 2000 of them are off-limits to humans.
Everywhere you look, jagged mountains, all covered with snow almost down to sea level.
Look closely at the middle of the righthand side of the photo. Yes, those are wild horses pawing their way through the snow to find food. We saw hundreds of them along the tracks. Life in Tierra Del Fuego can’t be easy for any living creature.
One other interesting thing about this photo. See the stumps of different heights? They used to send the convicts out to chop down the trees. The tall stumps were cut in winter when there were several feet of snow on the ground. The short stumps were cut in summer when there was no snow. Just a tidbit I found interesting.