Ushuaia Bus

At the world’s southernmost city, a vintage British Routemaster bus, imported from England and lovingly restored, ferries passengers through Ushuaia’s steep streets, narrated by tango music and tales of prisoners who once built this remote outpost. The double-decker offers the only authorized access to the old naval base and former airport, exclusive routes negotiated between the owner and military authorities. It’s a peculiar transit through a town that calls itself El Fin del Mundo, where most visitors are thinking about somewhere else entirely: the icy continent just 1,000 kilometers south.

The bus itself has run this route since 1999, shipped over from England and rebuilt under its owner’s supervision in Buenos Aires. The prisoners in the commentary were real too: convicts at the notorious Ushuaia penal colony built much of the town, including the prison that held them, which operated until 1947 and now does the more comfortable work of being a museum. Everyone in Ushuaia, it turns out, has always been building something for someone else to use later.