Nearly at the end of the world.
My Spanish must be getting better. I just reconfigured the browser -- all written in Spanish -- to allow cookies for Blogspot.com so I could get into my account and make this posting. It{s a small step for mankind but a huge leap across the continent for me!
My first night here, I sat down at a table in the dining area of the hostel and joined in on a game of international Scrabble, and came out pretty well in the end. The other players were an Italian guy and Spanish girl (traveling together) and another guy from Puerto Williams, the official southernmoast city in the world. Ushuaia claims it but it{s just a motto to attract naive toiurists. I got along so well with the Italian and Spanish taht we{ve been spending the last few days together, trekking.
One of those treks was through the Tierra del Fuego naational park, a forest with beavers, old layers of dead leaves and other organic material called peat bogs (i{m pretty sure there{s a mistranslation in the name here, which happens often in the English version of brochures), green lakes, lush mountains and hills and all sorts of wildlife I haven{t seen before. We started on a 1 hour trek to the border of Chile, then headed south to Lapataia Lake. To get to Lapataia Lake, you hike around picaresque lakes and rivers. The scenery is prime of course, but I was more impressed with all the wild bunnies running rampant. Hundreds of the furry mofos. Combine that image with hectares and hectares of short, mossy-like grass carpeting the landscape, and you{ve got something out of a storybook. A weird fantasy land. It was at best surreal. I heard some Americans behind me remarking about the same hard-to-grasp reality of it all and it really brings up the fact taht so far, most of the Americans I have met on this trip compare landscapes, experiences, etc., to movies. I find myself doing it too. For instance, when I was at the Perito Moreno glaciar, I told an Italian girl walking with me that the giant iceberg looked like the ice cathedral that cointained kryptonite from the Superman film. The woman from Houston knew exactly what I was talking about. So there I was again on this hike to find beavers, in that predicament, of having nothing better to think of when faced with that resplendent scenery than to think it looked like we were on a Hollywood set. Goddamn L.A.! But no sooner was I basking in this golf-course heaven did i realize that we were walking through a lifetime of rabbit shit. Pellets everywhere. You couldn{t avoid them. In some areas, where apparently the grass was tastiest, you couldn{t even see the green underneath because it was covered in a blanket of rabbit poo.
After that highlight and an undescrible amount of more walking, we came to the beaver colony. But no beavers! We later found out they were hard at work sleeping.
Today we almost made it to another glaciar. After walking at a steep ascet for at least an hour during which time we got blown over by the crazy-strong wind a few times, we came across what was an impassible section. The trail suddenly went alomst vertical. So when you{re counting in mud, wet conditions and the wind factor, you turn around. And that{s what we did. SO close, but so far! On the way down, my knees almost gave out because of the steepness of the trail. Halfway to the entrnce, we got relief from the cold and stopped in a refugio, which is essentially a refuge for climbers. There we had soup and bread and warmed up next to their wood stove. I would have liked to stay there for days.
I take it back what I said about the weather being warm. The temps have dropped significantly. It{s almost freezing at night and on the trek up the glaciar today, the temp was 4 degrees C. I have been bundling up and looking like the little brother from A Christmas Story (there I go with the movie comparisons again).
I was lucky and got a ticket for a 12 hour bus ride on Wednesday to Punta Arenas, in Chile. I was worried I{d be stuck in Ushuaia until Friday. There are only a few buses that leave to Punta Arenas and as happens when you{re backpacking, you{re likely to be on the same itinerary as say, 200 other backpackers, so the buses fill up quick.
I am hoping I{ll get some time to spend in the north of Argentina. As much as the south of Argentina is beautiful, it{s quite touristy, and moreover, expensive comparatively. The Argentineans I{ve spoken to complain that every since the value of the peso fell like Humpty Dumpty a few years ago, it{s too expensive for them to travel much, so they{re relying on tourists to come to the country. That realization has made them become a litte less snobby than before.
Off to the market now to get some food.
My first night here, I sat down at a table in the dining area of the hostel and joined in on a game of international Scrabble, and came out pretty well in the end. The other players were an Italian guy and Spanish girl (traveling together) and another guy from Puerto Williams, the official southernmoast city in the world. Ushuaia claims it but it{s just a motto to attract naive toiurists. I got along so well with the Italian and Spanish taht we{ve been spending the last few days together, trekking.
One of those treks was through the Tierra del Fuego naational park, a forest with beavers, old layers of dead leaves and other organic material called peat bogs (i{m pretty sure there{s a mistranslation in the name here, which happens often in the English version of brochures), green lakes, lush mountains and hills and all sorts of wildlife I haven{t seen before. We started on a 1 hour trek to the border of Chile, then headed south to Lapataia Lake. To get to Lapataia Lake, you hike around picaresque lakes and rivers. The scenery is prime of course, but I was more impressed with all the wild bunnies running rampant. Hundreds of the furry mofos. Combine that image with hectares and hectares of short, mossy-like grass carpeting the landscape, and you{ve got something out of a storybook. A weird fantasy land. It was at best surreal. I heard some Americans behind me remarking about the same hard-to-grasp reality of it all and it really brings up the fact taht so far, most of the Americans I have met on this trip compare landscapes, experiences, etc., to movies. I find myself doing it too. For instance, when I was at the Perito Moreno glaciar, I told an Italian girl walking with me that the giant iceberg looked like the ice cathedral that cointained kryptonite from the Superman film. The woman from Houston knew exactly what I was talking about. So there I was again on this hike to find beavers, in that predicament, of having nothing better to think of when faced with that resplendent scenery than to think it looked like we were on a Hollywood set. Goddamn L.A.! But no sooner was I basking in this golf-course heaven did i realize that we were walking through a lifetime of rabbit shit. Pellets everywhere. You couldn{t avoid them. In some areas, where apparently the grass was tastiest, you couldn{t even see the green underneath because it was covered in a blanket of rabbit poo.
After that highlight and an undescrible amount of more walking, we came to the beaver colony. But no beavers! We later found out they were hard at work sleeping.
Today we almost made it to another glaciar. After walking at a steep ascet for at least an hour during which time we got blown over by the crazy-strong wind a few times, we came across what was an impassible section. The trail suddenly went alomst vertical. So when you{re counting in mud, wet conditions and the wind factor, you turn around. And that{s what we did. SO close, but so far! On the way down, my knees almost gave out because of the steepness of the trail. Halfway to the entrnce, we got relief from the cold and stopped in a refugio, which is essentially a refuge for climbers. There we had soup and bread and warmed up next to their wood stove. I would have liked to stay there for days.
I take it back what I said about the weather being warm. The temps have dropped significantly. It{s almost freezing at night and on the trek up the glaciar today, the temp was 4 degrees C. I have been bundling up and looking like the little brother from A Christmas Story (there I go with the movie comparisons again).
I was lucky and got a ticket for a 12 hour bus ride on Wednesday to Punta Arenas, in Chile. I was worried I{d be stuck in Ushuaia until Friday. There are only a few buses that leave to Punta Arenas and as happens when you{re backpacking, you{re likely to be on the same itinerary as say, 200 other backpackers, so the buses fill up quick.
I am hoping I{ll get some time to spend in the north of Argentina. As much as the south of Argentina is beautiful, it{s quite touristy, and moreover, expensive comparatively. The Argentineans I{ve spoken to complain that every since the value of the peso fell like Humpty Dumpty a few years ago, it{s too expensive for them to travel much, so they{re relying on tourists to come to the country. That realization has made them become a litte less snobby than before.
Off to the market now to get some food.
posted by Chocolat at 9:50 AM
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