Just three-and-a-half kilometres off the Uruguayan coast, jutting out from the Rio de la Plata is Isla Martin Garcia, now a nature reserve.

Separating the island from the coast is the Canal del Infierno (channel of hell) where seven currents compete – a true deterrent for escapee prisoners of the past. And on the 180-something hectares there are an abundance of lush vegetation, virgin forest, rocky outcrops, a plethora of bird and plant life.

Spanish explorer Juan Díaz de Solís named the island after one of his crew who died there in 1516. Martin Garcia, it seems, has a chequered past, changing hands several times. Guillermo Brown, the Irish founder of the Argentine navy, seized it for the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata at the beginning of the 1800s but it wasn’t until 1973 that it became part of Argentina.

The Argentine Navy controlled Martin Garcia for 100 years until 1970 during which time it served as a penal colony and prison and acted as a quarantine base for European immigrants. Former presidents Marcelo T de Alvear, Hipólito Yrigoyen and Juan Domingo Peron all spent stints on the island as political prisoners. At the beginning of the Second World War, the German battleship Graf Spee was scuttled off Montevideo and its crew were temporarily imprisoned here and from 1976-1983 during the military dictatorship political prisoners were tortured here.

Around the perfectly-kept Plaza Almirante Brown are what remains of the military barracks, later to-be jail cells, the old Cine Teatro, the Museo Historico, the Casa Medicos de Lazareto (the former quarantine building), which now houses the Ecological Interpretation Centre, and what used to be the penitentiary’s nerve centre are now the park rangers’ offices.

The defunct lighthouse was constructed in 1881 under President Julio Argentino Roca to warn of the island’s presence. Gun Batteries, which were never used, still stand on the perimeter. Near the old port to the northwest is what’s left of Chinatown, a group of derelict houses, where prostitutes gathered in areas known as "chinas".

Today the island’s 200 residents rent their properties from the state.