Original subtitles

[upbeat music]

♪ ♪

Narrator: Argentina.

A land of extremes.

From the continent's tallest mountain

to oceans where behemoths roam.

This is where adventures take flight,

history comes to life,

and children dream of glory.

Argentina is a country of stories

as varied and rich as the land itself.

Venture south and you enter a realm of giants.

This is where the world's largest dinosaurs once ruled,

legendary outlaws tried to disappear,

and inspiration and wanderlust

drive travelers to hit the road.

♪ ♪

Patagonia,

where the end of the world seems within reach.

♪ ♪

[dramatic percussive music]

♪ ♪

The coast of Patagonia

is where the waves crash against rugged cliffs

and the broken bones of the continent

spill into the Atlantic ocean.

In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan and his crew

were the first Europeans to see this land,

and their reports were like something from a fairy tale.

♪ ♪

The chronicles tell of encounters

with people twice their own height.

They were referring to the native Tehuelche people.

But the Europeans called them Patagones

after a fictional colossus.

♪ ♪

The name stuck,

and the land itself was, and still is,

called Patagonia.

♪ ♪

Patagonia runs all the way

to the southernmost tip of the continent,

which is often called "the end of the Earth."

With more than 350,000 square miles,

it's bigger than the state of Texas

and contains just 2 million people.

[soft music]

It's one of the most sparsely populated areas of the world,

for humans at least.

Wildlife flourishes here.

As Magellan's crew traveled further south,

they saw these odd birds

and thought they were some sort of wild goose.

But they're penguins.

Despite the Europeans' confusion,

they were named after the expedition's leader

and are known today as Magellan penguins.

[penguins chittering]

Here at Punta Tombo, adult penguins

are looking to get in a little family time.

♪ ♪

They're returning from migrations

that took them north,

chasing food like squid and krill.

Some penguins have traveled almost 4,000-mile round trip.

It's the season to settle in and make babies.

Penguins are monogamous.

So even after they've been separated for months,

the same two adults will pair off each year.

♪ ♪

Except it's not always "happily ever after."

♪ ♪

Some couples have wandering eyes,

and if they don't produce young,

a few couples will go their separate ways.

♪ ♪

They'll each find a new mate and pair off again.

Every year, a pair will produce 2-4 eggs.

But the population has been in decline.

Oil spills and fishing nets are constant threats,

and overfishing and climate change

have triggered a decline in their food supplies,

causing some groups to starve to death.

[inquisitive music]

But nature is resilient, and the news is not all bad.

Up the coast at Caleta Valdés Provincial Reserve,

Park Ranger Matías Tricase is on the front lines,

helping to defend the wilderness.

He keeps a close eye on sea lions

and the occasional elephant seal

that cluster along the beaches.

They gather here by the thousands.

Hauling their huge bodies onto the gravel beaches,

they sun and rest, safe from predators.

They are awkward on land,

so they stick close to the water,

where they're more at home.

Weighing as much as 800 pounds,

they are massive animals, but are still tiny

compared to the ocean's true giants.

[soft music]

Southern right whales return to the waters

off of Caleta Valdés from August through October

to feed on krill.

♪ ♪

It's not instinct that draws them here.

It's a learned behavior called philopatry, or site loyalty,

passed from mother to daughter.

♪ ♪

Each generation of mothers leads their young calves

to waters off the Valdés Peninsula.

♪ ♪

Docile and reaching close to 50 feet,

right whales once made easy targets for hunters.

They are called "right" whales

because harpooners said they were easy to hunt

and floated after being killed.

Right whales once teetered on the brink of extinction,

but today, their numbers are slowly growing

once again in the south Atlantic.

It's too early to celebrate,

but the fragile recovery of the southern right whale

is a source of hope for conservationists.

♪ ♪

[mellow acoustic music]

The towns on this coast are compact, picturesque,

and closely intertwined with the ocean.

This is Puerto Pirámides,

a center for both whale watching and conservation.

♪ ♪

Boat captain and tour guide Miguel Bottazzi

is a second-generation guardian of the sea.

His father, Tito,

was a pioneer in the study of whales

and started one of the area's first

whale-watching companies.

♪ ♪

This business helped shape Puerto Pirámides.

♪ ♪

And the town has honored Tito

with a monument in the shape of a whale's tail.

♪ ♪

[funky music]

♪ ♪

Farther south along the coast

Puerto Madryn looms larger.

It was founded by Welsh settlers in 1865.

They arrived on a ship called the "Mimosa"

long before there were any piers to welcome them.

Their goal was to keep the Welsh culture

and language alive.

[singer vocalizing]

Elizabeth Harriet Adams Humphreys

was the first woman to disembark.

14 days later, she gave birth to a daughter.

For the Welsh settlers, this was a sign of hope

in what seemed a bleak land.

[soft acoustic music]

Moving into the interior,

they found desert and hardship.

But this wasn't an empty wasteland.

They soon encountered the native Tehuelche,

who still live in the area.

Today, native burial sites are marked by sacred symbols,

and they contain stones piled as a tribute to the dead.

Unlike the Argentine government,

the Welsh settlers believed

that the Tehuelche should retain their lands,

and a kinship grew between the two groups.

In the early years, the Welsh came close to starving,

but the Tehuelche traded meat for bread

and taught the Europeans key survival skills.

One settler, Rachel Jenkins,

helped save the struggling farms

by introducing irrigation.

As a result, parts of the desert bloomed.

[soft music]

Upriver, Gaiman was one of the first

and most successful farm settlements.

Even today, residents keep the Welsh heritage alive.

♪ ♪

In 1995, Lady Di, Princess of Wales,

went to a traditional tea house in Gaiman

and had the Patagonia version of the Welsh fruit cake.

♪ ♪

Today, the Welsh and the Mapuche Tehuelche flags

fly alongside the Argentine,

symbolizing the diverse roots of this place.

[tense music]

Farther inland, on the Patagonian Plateau,

the landscape is as hostile and uninviting

as when the Welsh arrived.

♪ ♪

Out here, winds are almost constant

and can reach 90 miles per hour.

While this makes farming almost impossible,

the wind itself can be harvested.

62 windmills in the Madryn wind farm

produce enough electricity to power 100,000 homes.

♪ ♪

Towering 380 feet above the ground,

they are modern giants.

But they're far from the first.

[dramatic music]

A life-sized model of the Patagotitan mayorum

is a tourist attraction today.

Standing 65 feet tall

and measuring 130 feet from head to tail,

these dinosaurs once roamed the Patagonian Plateau.

Millions of years ago, this area was humid, warmer,

and covered in forests.

Plant and animal life flourished.

But now you have to dig to find evidence of it.

♪ ♪

World famous paleontologist Rodolfo Coria

heads up a search for ancient life.

He returns to the Plateau just about every year

to hunt for fossils.

This "rock star" of paleontology

has uncovered many of the world's largest dinosaurs.

One of these was 114 feet long and weighed over 70 tons.

He and his team named this plant-eating beast

the "Argentinosaurus"

in tribute to the country where they found it.

One of the world's best dinosaur collections

is held here

at the Egidio Feruglio Paleontological Museum.

It contains the fearsome Giganotosaurus,

or "giant southern lizard,"

which may have been bigger than the T-Rex.

[tense music]

Farther west, dinosaurs are not

the only type of fossils found underground.

From up high, these look like alien tracks,

roads that scar a dry plateau that once was a shallow sea.

This vast plain is now called Vaca Muerta, or Dead Cow.

Today, it has sprung back to life

as a gateway to liquid gold: oil.

The national oil company YPF estimated that there

are billions of barrels of oil underground here.

Through a controversial process called "fracking,"

these fields produce almost a quarter

of Argentina's oil and gas consumption.

Though these plains appear endless, the oil is not.

Time will tell if oil drills ever go extinct

and, like the dinosaur, become fossils themselves.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

But Patagonia doesn't just power the country.

It represents the frontier,

and its wildest places spark a quest for adventure.

[tense music]

Narrator: Venture west in Patagonia,

and travelers will discover

one of the wildest places on Earth.

♪ ♪

This region wasn't fully explored by white Argentinians

until the late 1800s.

♪ ♪

In the 1870s,

Francisco Moreno led scientific expeditions here.

Just before reaching the border with Chile,

he came upon a natural wonder: Lake Nahuel Huapí.

♪ ♪

As a reward for his work,

Moreno earned the title of "Perito," or expert.

The government granted him a huge tract of land

around the lake.

Moreno set aside 29 square miles

on the condition it become a national park.

Argentina became the third country

in the Western Hemisphere

after the United States and Canada

to create a national park system.

The protected lands around the park grew to cover

more than 2,700 square miles, making it more than

twice the size of Yosemite National Park.

♪ ♪

[sweeping music]

Snow melts from the Andes mountains,

and the water finds its own way

through a dramatic and lush landscape,

all the way to the park's namesake lake.

This basin was carved

by glaciers over millions of years,

and the water has been flowing ever since.

At the southern end of the lake

is the gateway to the wilderness,

the city of Bariloche.

Many of the early settlers of Bariloche

were German immigrants,

and their influence is reflected

in the city's Alpine-style architecture.

[dramatic music]

But the area's German history contains a dark chapter.

♪ ♪

On a tree-clad island in the lake,

mysterious ruins are all that's left

of a strange experiment.

Austrian Ronald Richter was a Nazi scientist.

In the 1950s,

Argentina brought him here to lead a secret program.

Richter promised to create energy from nuclear fusion,

and the Argentine government sank huge sums of money

into the project.

But Richter failed and left little to show for it

but these old ruins and empty walls.

♪ ♪

[soft acoustic music]

Now this area has emerged from its checkered past

to become the top tourist destination in Patagonia.

From Bariloche, you can catch a cable car

to a revolving restaurant with the sweetest views.

Or you can motor out onto one of Argentina's largest

and deepest freshwater lakes.

On the water, visitors keep an eye out for Nahuelito,

this lake's version of the Loch Ness Monster.

Stories of Nahuelito reached the United States,

where former president and hunting enthusiast

Teddy Roosevelt talked of stalking the beast.

But he never got the chance.

♪ ♪

There are still reports

of a long-necked sea-serpent-like creature,

but there's no proof that Nahuelito exists.

♪ ♪

Instead, the only unusual sights

day-trippers are likely to encounter

are ghostly shipwrecks.

They are relics from the park's bygone days

of mystery and intrigue.

[funky music]

Today, mystery gives way to luxury.

Visitors looking to be pampered

can stay at one of the world's premier hotels,

the Llao Llao.

Named for a local mushroom,

the hotel has survived fires and financial calamity

to remain one of Argentina's most glamorous hotels.

Built in 1938,

four American presidents have stayed here.

Most recently,

Barack Obama brought his whole family in 2016.

♪ ♪

[tense music]

For those who come looking for a more rugged experience,

the backcountry beckons.

Mirror-calm lakes, like the Laguna Negra,

are a dream destination for hikers and backpackers.

A string of huts runs through the mountains.

Roughly a day's hike apart,

they give the more daring a chance

to see some of the most stunning and rugged country,

while providing a comfortable place to sleep.

[dramatic music]

For those looking to pick up the pace,

there are plenty of two-wheeled adventures.

Visitors can jump on a bike and take the spectacular

Ruta de Los Siete Lagos, or "The Seven Lakes Route."

The first section winds around Lake Nahuel Huapí.

♪ ♪

Near the north end of the lake,

a side trip down a dirt road leads

to the Quetrihué Peninsula.

Here you'll find a rare forest of Arrayan trees.

In the myrtle family, Arrayan generally look like shrubs,

but here, they grow to be almost 60 feet.

[tense music]

This forest of cinnamon-colored trees

is so fantastical, some think Walt Disney used it

as inspiration for the movie "Bambi."

Some even think Disney had a cabin here.

But there's one Dumbo-sized hole in the story.

Walt Disney never visited this area.

The myth is just as fictional as one about a talking deer.

♪ ♪

[soft music]

However, there is a Disneyesque castle

overlooking the Quetrihué Peninsula.

It's just not Walt's.

It's the castle of Messidor,

with its own tales of intrigue.

After a coup d'état in 1976,

the first female president of Argentina

was held prisoner here.

María Estela Martínez de Perón was ousted

and held captive for seven months,

cut off from the surrounding scenery

when her captors boarded up her windows.

♪ ♪

[inquisitive music]

But today, those who journey through the national parks

can see it all if they don't mind working for the views.

Farther north, mountain hikes

are a favorite of Gabriela and Fernando,

who have lived here for 30 years.

In this ever-changing landscape,

they are always discovering something new,

because there's one constant here.

The promise of more adventure.

♪ ♪

Farther south in Patagonia, a new surprise awaits

around every corner,

from breathtaking, rugged beauty

to journeys that take travelers back in time.

[train chugging]

[soft music]

Narrator: In a realm of towering giants,

one mountain stands head and shoulders

above its neighbors.

The Lanín volcano.

It rises 12,000 feet above sea level.

♪ ♪

In the native Mapuche language,

Lanín means "dead rock" or "extinguished."

But geologists think this monster might just be sleeping

and could erupt once again.

♪ ♪

The area surrounding Lanín contains one of the largest

groves of araucaria trees in South America.

They thrive on the exposed rock and sand slopes.

Looking like illustrations from a Dr. Seuss book,

they are the descendants of Jurassic era trees.

♪ ♪

While the araucaria trees survive like living fossils,

they are listed as endangered today.

♪ ♪

[tense music]

Forest fires are common in the area

and pose the greatest threat.

Park Ranger Martín Pereyra has fought many blazes.

He's served in Lanín National Park for 23 years,

10 of those in fire control.

From his isolated outpost,

he works with the native Mapuche communities

that co-manage this national park.

He has to stay alert.

Spotting traces of smoke can help prevent a fire

from getting out of control.

♪ ♪

With the winter setting in, Martín also has to prepare

for when snow will close the roads.

He could be cut off from the rest of the world

for weeks at a time, so to stay warm,

he has to be ready to start fires of his own.

Except his will be in a stove.

[soft acoustic music]

Isolation isn't the only way

to commune with nature in Patagonia.

For some, the best way to become one

with the great outdoors is with a rod and reel.

♪ ♪

To the south, a short, natural channel

called the Correntoso River

connects Lake Nahuel Huapí and Lake Correntoso.

This unassuming stretch of water

is actually quite unique.

At 650 feet in length,

it's one of the world's shortest rivers.

It's also one of the best trout fishing spots

on the planet.

But the fish these anglers seek are not native.

There were no trout here until 1904.

♪ ♪

When explorer Perito Moreno was developing

his gifted land around these lakes,

he imported seven crates of live trout

and landlocked salmon from the United States.

Many of the fish died during the 50-day journey,

but enough survived to seed a new fishery.

The result, the fish and their offspring

have thrived here,

turning this short stretch of water

into an anglers' Eden.

[soft music]

Venturing into Patagonia,

the farther south the journey leads,

the more desolate the landscape

and the more isolated the towns.

But there are signs of attempts to make inroads here.

In the early 1900s,

the Argentine government attempted

to build a rail network across the country

until they ran out of steam.

Deep in Patagonia, many of the rail lines are empty

except for a few famous trains that still run to this day.

[train chugging]

With just 29 1/2 inches between rails,

it looks like a toy, but La Trochita,

or "the narrow gauge train" is a true workhorse.

♪ ♪

Called "The Old Patagonian Express"

by famed travel writer Paul Theroux,

it became famous around the world.

♪ ♪

And like "The Little Engine That Could,"

the Patagonian Express is undersized

but just won't quit.

At 59 years old, conductor Alfredo Delfin Mansilla

has been driving La Trochita for almost half his life.

The rail line used to take almost 600 curves,

and the train struggled so hard to climb steep slopes,

passengers could get out and walk alongside.

[horn blaring]

Today, it sticks to flatter, straighter stretches of track

and never strays too far from home.

Still, riding "The Old Patagonian Express"

has become a badge of honor

For anyone traveling this far into the depths of Argentina.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Where Patagonia stretches even further south,

beyond the reach of the railroad,

human settlements are few and far between.

This is where people go to find solitude

and to disappear.

In 1901, Cholila was a small village

when two secretive Americans arrived.

Calling themselves James Ryan and Harry Place,

they bought a 12,000-acre ranch.

They started a major livestock operation with 900 cows,

1,500 sheep, and 40 horses.

But when two English-speaking bandits robbed a local bank,

people began to wonder

if the American ranchers living in these cabins

were really who they said they were.

The answer in a word was "no."

They were really Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,

two of America's most notorious bank robbers.

♪ ♪

All that's left of them in Patagonia

is the log cabin where sheltered from the law

until the law caught up to them.

♪ ♪

[upbeat music]

Today's free spirits can make their own escape

by venturing along a road

that traces the entire length of Patagonia:

Route 40.

Route 40 stretches

from the northern border of Argentina,

parallels the Andes for more than 3000 miles,

and leads all the way to the Straits of Magellan.

♪ ♪

Along the route, drivers often carry extra gas

and plenty of food and water because they are traveling

through sparsely populated areas.

Still, thousands of outsiders are drawn here every year.

They don't come here for creature comforts.

They come to test the limits of their body and spirit.

They're seeking the next great challenge

in a realm of extremes.

[rock music]

Narrator: Deep in southern Patagonia,

a series of stone spires pierce the sky.

The centerpiece, Mount Fitz Roy.

This natural cathedral of solid rock

is on the bucket list of many hardcore mountaineers.

♪ ♪

Reaching only 11,073 feet above sea level,

far shorter than most famous mountaineering destinations,

Fitz Roy's stature is not what makes it challenging.

Its slippery rock faces are nearly vertical,

and winds can batter the exposed climbers.

This climber, Tomas Odell,

became the youngest person to summit Mount Fitz Roy.

He was just 15.

♪ ♪

He climbed it with his older brother, Pedro,

and their father, Max, who's a mountain guide.

A year later,

Tomas is almost constantly refining his skills,

already in the ranks of the world's elite climbers.

♪ ♪

Tomas and his brother, Pedro,

are both Argentine national climbing champions,

and now they're charting new routes up Mount Fitz Roy.

♪ ♪

One of Tomas's favorite practice sites

is a cliff called el Paredon de Los Condores,

or the wall of condors.

But this climb isn't in the remote wilderness.

It's just across the river

from his hometown of El Chaltén.

It's an easy walk from his house, which is good,

because Tomas is still too young to drive.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Today, El Chaltén has

a year-round population of 3,000

that swells during the hiking and climbing season.

Decades ago, it was just a tiny hamlet.

In 1968, five friends

who called themselves "The Fun Hogs"

drove all the way here from California.

Their goal: make history.

The five "Fun Hogs" became just the third group

to reach the top of Fitz Roy,

blazing what is now known as the "California Route."

♪ ♪

They changed mountaineering in this area,

and they were also changed by the mountain.

♪ ♪

One of the Fun Hogs, Yvon Chouinard,

founded an outdoor clothing company.

♪ ♪

He named it after the place that beckoned

his climbing spirit: Patagonia.

And the Patagonia logo he created

is a stylized silhouette

of this view of Mount Fitz Roy.

[soft music]

Doug Thompkins was another of the five California

"Fun Hogs" who summited Mount Fitz Roy in 1968.

♪ ♪

On the trip, he also fell in love with Patagonia.

♪ ♪

A co-founder of North Face,

Thompkins made a fortune in the clothing business.

In 1989, he turned his focus to conservation.

He married longtime Patagonia CEO Kristine McDivitt,

and together, they founded the land trust

Conservación Patagonica, now Thompkins Conservation.

Working with native groups

and local and federal governments,

they have helped to protect 2.4 million acres

in Argentina.

This is part of a private/public initiative

to preserve huge swathes of land.

♪ ♪

It includes Argentina's newest protected area,

Patagonia National Park.

One effort is to return the area

to its original state, and "rewild" the park.

♪ ♪

Four naturalists use GPS to track elusive animals

through the plateaus and canyons.

Emauel Galletto,

Federico Castro, Sabastian Di Martino,

and Franco Bucci hope to understand

the animals' range and movements.

♪ ♪

One of their goals is to determine

just how much space these animals need.

♪ ♪

Some, like this endangered Andean condor,

can travel 100 miles without once flapping their wings.

♪ ♪

They surf air currents,

keeping their 33-pound bodies aloft on 10-foot wingspans.

In time, conservationists hope to create a string of parks

that stretches from the Pacific

to the Atlantic Oceans.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

Near the park's eastern edge,

erosion has cut through the 150-million-year-old rock

to form what looks like a mini Grand Canyon.

This is the Cañadón del río Pinturas,

or Canyon of the Pictures.

And it's famous for what lies at the base

of its 650-foot walls.

♪ ♪

This is the Cave of the Hands.

Painted hands and petroglyphs of animals

are proof of human settlement here roughly 10,000 years ago.

Millenia later, humans continue

to leave their mark on the land.

[soft acoustic music]

Today, evidence of human settlement

includes the animals they bring with them:

sheep.

Even though the climate near Lake Argentino

is high desert, rain in the fall and winter

turn the hills green and feeds this flock.

They belong to the almost 30,000-acre Nibepo Aike Ranch.

Four generations have ran the ranch.

But sheep are no longer the money maker.

It's now tourism.

[sheep bleating]

[soft music]

The ranch lies near the southern end

of Lake Argentino,

within the boundaries of Los Glaciares National Park.

There are 47 large glaciers in the park,

including one named after the explorer Perito Moreno.

It feeds into the lake.

Glaciers are dense masses of compressed ice

that form over thousands of years.

♪ ♪

The Perito Moreno Glacier stretches for almost 19 miles,

starting at the ice fields.

Like a river of ice,

the glacier flows down mountain valleys.

♪ ♪

The Perito Moreno Glacier can grow

by more than 6 feet a day

before spilling its blue ice into the lake.

♪ ♪

Its sheer walls stand 240 feet above the water

and is 3 miles wide.

The glacier's movements split the ice

and create seracs and crevasses.

♪ ♪

But a daring few venture out onto the surface.

And there, they can enjoy a celebratory drink

on the rocks.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

In Patagonia, there seems to be no end to adventures,

even where the wind bends and twists the trees

and the land itself seems to give out.

[dramatic music]

Narrator: The southern coast of Patagonia

is a hard, unforgiving stretch of cliffs.

And in 1520, Ferdinand Magellan

and his crew were facing ruin here.

They were the first Europeans to reach this shore,

and they needed a safe harbor for the winter.

Like the colonies of cormorants

that shelter on the cliffs,

the Europeans needed somewhere to get out of the wind

and to anchor their ships.

Winter storms in the southern Atlantic

are notorious for shipwrecks.

♪ ♪

On March 31, 1520, they found safety in a harbor

they named Puerto San Julián.

Today a life-sized replica of one of the expedition's ships,

the "Nao Victoria," commemorates the five months

Magellan and his crew spent here.

But it was far from peaceful.

On Easter, several of Magellan's captains mutinied.

The commander put down the revolt,

executed one of the leaders, and exiled another.

♪ ♪

[light music]

In the 500 years since,

Puerto San Julián has grown into a town of 7,000,

but it still seems shadowed by strife and violence.

In 1982, Argentina and Great Britain

went to war over the Falklands Island,

which are roughly 400 miles offshore.

♪ ♪

San Julian was a major air base,

and more than a quarter of all sorties took off from here.

What looks like a white monolith from one angle

reveals a memorial to the war, with a plane tail

and an outline of the Falklands.

♪ ♪

40 years later, the airstrip is largely unused,

and the planes' hangers and bunkers are abandoned.

♪ ♪

The Patagonian desert

is gradually reclaiming this land.

♪ ♪

From San Julian, Magellan and his crew sailed south

once the weather improved.

Their entire mission was centered on one thing:

discovering a western sea route to Asia.

♪ ♪

Here, at Cape Virgenes,

the expedition discovered a channel

that connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,

changing the world forever.

♪ ♪

A lighthouse marks the opening to the Straits of Magellan,

named in honor of the expedition's leader.

For the first time in history,

humans could now sail all the way around the planet.

Today, cargo ships still use the same shortcut.

♪ ♪

Until the Panama Canal was built,

this was a vital lifeline for international trade.

And today, the lighthouse still beckons

to globetrotters.

Just of a very different sort.

This is literally the end of the road,

mile marker zero on route 40.

This legendary road unfurls the length of Argentina,

and, at over 3,000 miles,

is the longest one in the country.

Ricardo Lapettina and "Toni" Giorgetta

started this journey

more than 2,000 miles from here.

♪ ♪

For 11 years, they've been exploring Argentina's

dusty backroads on their motorcycles.

But finally reaching this spot is a dream come true for both.

♪ ♪

500 years ago, Magellan and his crew

sailed west through the strait.

On the far side, they saw fires burning on an island

that seemed shrouded in smoke.

They named it "Tierra del Fuego"

or "Land Of Fire."

But it is really a land of brutal winds.

It blows constantly,

and almost always from the west.

The wind is so powerful,

it seems the trees bow down before it.

Known as "flag trees,"

these native beech trees grow bent in the wind,

trying to put up the least resistance

to the brutal gusts.

[dramatic music]

Across the trailing end of the Andes Mountains,

Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world.

In the early 1900s,

it grew up around the Presidio de Ushuaia,

a cluster of prisons.

Like an Argentine Siberia,

it held hardcore criminals and political prisoners.

Closed in 1947 after reports of abuse,

it is now a museum.

[soft music]

And the town itself has become a tourist destination.

Cruise ships now line the harbor.

Ushuaia sits on the north side of the Beagle Channel.

Like the Straits of Magellan,

it connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans,

forming a shortcut.

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It's named after a British ship

that charted the area's waters and coastline

in the early 1800s.

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The captain and one passenger on the second voyage

would go on to even greater fame.

The boat was under the command of Robert Fitzroy,

who was a pioneer in weather forecasting.

The legendary mountain is his namesake.

Also onboard was an unassuming naturalist

who would revolutionize our understanding of evolution:

Charles Darwin.

He was awed by what he found in Patagonia.

Today, retracing Darwin's route,

much of the land is sparsely populated.

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Here, at Puerto Almanza,

just 30 families spread out over a 5-mile coastline.

All of them live off small-scale,

independent fishing.

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To ensure that the fishery stays sustainable,

they set single pots

and keep just the large male crabs.

The government has also banned large-scale salmon farms

as another way to maintain balance

in this delicate ecosystem.

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Traveling down the Beagle Channel,

Darwin would have also passed this strange formation.

Jutting up in the middle of the channel,

these rocks are a shipping hazard.

So the government built a lighthouse,

painted it a classic red and white,

and fired it up in 1920.

Sea lions didn't seem bothered by the new tower

on a favorite sunbathing rock.

It became known as "Faro del Fin del Mundo,"

or "the lighthouse at the end of the world."

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100 years later, it still feels that way.

[pensive music]

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This is where the journey ends

in a trek across Patagonia.

Named for mythic giants,

this is where some of the world's largest animals

still call home,

where the Wild West--

or, really, the Wild South-- lives on,

and where mountains challenge and inspire

both body and soul.

Patagonia.

This is truly the land of extremes.