After a long early-morning trip to the airport on Saturday morning (March 15), waiting in line for over an hour, etc. etc., I boarded the plane and enjoyed my exit-row (and thus backpack in overhead compartment, argh!) slumber most of the way to Ushuaia (pronounced oo-SWY-yah). When I got to my hostel, there was a little mix-up with the rooms, but fortunately it all worked out at the end. So, I put my stuff away and took to the streets. First stop? Lunch. Second stop? The Museo Marítimo y Presidio (the Maritime Museum and Ex-Prison of Ushuaia). There were model ships and info about the explorer Ferdinand Magellan as well as other maritime things (like a compass with water inside). The prison part featured details about the criminals who occupied the cells, etc. I then checked out the former lighthouse, a scale-reconstruction which was the inspiration for Jules Verne´s Lighthouse at the End of the World. After checking out the lighthouse, I checked out of the museum entirely. I wandered along the main street of Ushuaia, taking in the fresh air and atmosphere that reminded me of a combination of Reykjavik, Iceland and Andorra (Reykjavik for the fresh air and for the layout of the town; Andorra, because the stores were open and they seemed to sell everything).
At night, I ended up meeting up with Cecilia, a girl whom I met way back when (it´s funny that here, ´´way back when´´ is only a month and a half ago) in Salvador when she was traveling in my temporary homebase. She is from Ushuaia, so already when I arrived I had a contact. Fortunately, when I called her, she was in town, so at night when a friend of hers was having a birthday get-together, she invited me to come along. The friend whose birthday it was is one of five siblings, and basically the ´´get-together´´ was more like a dinner (read: empanada extravaganza) at her house, with various friends of hers (and her siblings) stopping by throughout the course of the night. Cecilia and I went by car, so I got to see some of residential Ushuaia on the way and then spend some time with real locals...just as they hung out with an American, thus making me the representative for all things American and everything that goes on in the (good ole?) US of A. One funny thing happened when the second sibling, Natalia, asked me if people count sheep in the United States. (I forget how we got to this topic of conversation, but believe me -- we covered a lot of ground. I think it might have just been a conversation of cultural differences, more or less.) I said, yes, that it´s a thing for kids, really, and Chris, the third sibling..he said, ´´you know what? When I was a kid, I used to count sheep to help me go to sleep, but here we also turn sheep into asado, so every time I would count sheep, I would get hungry.´´
Sunday morning, I ended up taking a boat excursion through the Beagle Channel , something that is recommended for everyone who travels to Ushuaia. The boat trip lasted five hours, and a lot of it was spent going to and traveling from the places, but the views were great. The boat first stopped at La Isla de los Lobos (the Island of the Sea-lions), where we saw...sea-lions! They were really fun to watch, and man are they loud when they bark! They also seemed to cohabit well with the cormorants that were there. The next destination was the lighthouse. Third, we went to see the penguins that live at Isla Martillo (Penguin Island), where we saw lots of happy feet. (By the way, these ´´stops´´ that the boats make aren´t stops for us to get off of the boat; rather, the boat just got really close to these animals so that everyone could take two (or two hundred as the case may be) photos.) While going to see the penguins (which were farther away from the other sites), we saw Chile pass us by -- that is, Chile was on one side of the boat and Argentina on the other. Once we finally docked back in Ushuaia, the day was only half-done, and since I only had a limited amount of time in the city, I had to take advantage of the rest of the day and do something else. On the boat, I had met two Spaniards who were staying in my hostel, and it was lucky for me that they arrived in Ushuaia the same day that I did. Thus, when I ultimately decided to go check out the Glaciar Martial , I had company. We took the chairlift to the base of the ski area (the whole zone is a ski area, but it´s not winter right now, so it wasn´t all covered in snow), at which point we hiked up almost to where the glacier begins, the whole thing just going up, up, up (yes, I realize, the glacier wouldn´t be down). The view from up there was *wow* but when we finally descended, it proved to be a little tricky. Eventually, we made it down just fine and then instead of taking a taxi the 7km back to the hostel, we hoofed it.
Later on, the Spaniards and I had a rather interesting evening. They had stumbled across Bingo the previous night, where one of them, Joaquin, ended up winning just over 3,000 pesos (about $1,000 USD). Thus, after a hearty dinner, Joaquin, Manolo, and I went to try our luck there. Lots of close calls, but sadly no Bingos for us.
On Monday, I went on a cuatro-por-cuatro excursion, also known as 4x4. When I got in the car, there were two Argentine guys already there, and when I started talking to them, we soon started talking about differences between our manners of speaking (my Spain Spanish vs. their Argentine Spanish). Then we picked up five more people (one Argentine and his cousins, four people from Spain -- from the Basque country), so our tourgroup ended up being a funny bunch of people, because it was a lot of back and forth between the countries. (I found it funny, too, when the Argentine guys said to the Basques that I speak like them -- that is, the Basques.) The tour itself ended up being a full day event and made lots of stops, most of them to take pictures of scenic views along lakes and such. We saw husky puppies (from a distance), went to a place where there are 8km of beaver dams, and went canoeing. We also had lunch (asado), which ended up lasting a good three and a half hours, including waiting time, eating time, and talking time. When I got back to the hostel, I found my Spain buddies and unfortunately, we didn´t make it a Bingo night, but that´s ok, because it was cold outside and everyone was worn out.
Tuesday was my last day in Ushuaia, which meant I had to go to Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego or I wouldn´t get to go at all. Manolo and Joaquin hadn´t gone yet, either, since Monday it was rainy, so the three of us went together and hiked a 6.5km trail along the coast that took a few hours. The weather turned out to be great (sunny and not too cold, if you kept a good pace), so it was a good hike and we definitely earned our sandwiches and hot chocolate at the end.
And so ends my time at the end of the world. I went to Ushuaia thinking that maybe there would be a couple of things to do and I might end up bored by the time it was time to leave, but surprisingly, when I left, I could still think of a few more things to do. I guess that just means I´ll have to go back! So, having made it to the end of the world, I can safely quote R.E.M. in saying, ´´It´s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine...´´
hasta pronto,missy
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