The End of the World
June 10th, 2009
View the trip so farMy friend Tom said, “Ushaia is perhaps the most beautifully situated city I have ever been to.”, and I would have to agree. The landscape surrounding Ushaia is simply breathtaking. Everywhere you look, you see snow capped mountains. Amazing.
Tom and I arrived Friday night. We took a bus down from Punto Arenas, with Matias, an Argentinian we met at the hostel there. We sat at the back of the bus eating cheese, crackers, and drinking a bottle of malbec, while Tom played the guitar. It was a fun ride. I was so happy that it was a full moon that night, so that I could see the mountain range on the way down.
Matias went to his aunt’s house, and Tom and I went on a hunt for a hostel. On the third try we found a place to stay, which ended up being really comfortable. It had heated floors, which was great since its pretty cold down at the end of the world in June. We had dinner at the traditional Argeninian time, 10:30ish. Actually that may be a bit early. We then ended up at an “Irish Pub”, and drank a really good local micro-brew, Beagle. They had a blond, a red, and black. I was drinking the black, but couldn’t tell if it was a porter or a stout. Either way I was really happy to not drink lagers anymore.
On Saturday, we explored the town, which is pretty small. On Sunday we went on a hike in the national park. It was a pretty easy hike, but it was gorgeous. On Monday Matias and his friend, Sergio, took us on a hike to Laguna Esmeralda. That was an amazing hike, even though the trail was covered in snow, ice, and water. My feet got soaked but they were okay as long as we kept moving. At the lake we drank mate and had lunch. It was an amazing hike. We had plans to hike up to a glacier outside of town and then take a boat tour on Wednesday, but it rained the whole day, and we were not in the mood to get wet again, so we hung out at a coffee shop.
On Thursday we took a plane to Buenos Aires. I stayed for one night and flew to Iguazu the next morning.
