From Ashland To Argentina: To the End of the Earth

Well here goes round two...I'm in the chair preapring to write vollume two of Book One: Adventures in the South... I never thought I would have so much to say until i sat down and tried to write it all. At one point I looked at it and thought, "maybe I should just write a book, for real" but who am i kidding I'm too busy adventuring. In case you haven't gotten the point yet, I LOVE IT HERE....and I am extremely happy. I know some people are sceptical about S.America, the culture, the location, blah blah but honestly, I love my life here. Anyways, so I rudely left you all in El Calafate...

       So...we had just about finished our time in El Calafate and i was loathed to go, honestly I could have stayed for months there and been perfectly content. I have come to discover how much I love being away from the big city, must have something to do with where I was raised. But anyways, we got up on the 17th (I think) and got into the taxi to go to the airport, and halfway there Alex realizes he left his iPhone at the hostel...and for the record this isn't even the most important thing he has forgotten somewhere (passport, cough on the plane, cough...) so our driver called in a favor and arranged for another driver to go to the hostel and pick up his phone and bring it to the airport. And it really worked out!! Anyways no one cares about airports and airplanes so....we made it to Ushuaia!

       Landing in Ushuaia was crazy, you look around and there are grey skies and clouds, grey water and humungous black mountains covered in blankets of pristine white snow. Hello El Fin Del Mundo... So of course the airport is about 20min from town, so in we go, sharing a taxi with a guy from Spain, and got to our hostel, which would be home for the next 5 days. We were staying at Antarctica Hostel a few streets above the main street in downtown Ushuaia. The hostel had a lovely view of three nightclubs from the front down, and an actually lovely view of colorfully painted houses and the water from the front door of our room. The main part of the building was a big open lobby and bar with a hall down the the showers and bathrooms. Up the stairs was a nice big kitchen with a door leading off to the open air hall to the dorm rooms.

         Honestly, I can't remember everything in chronological order anymore but the first few days there we did a whole lot of nothing special: sleeping, resting, cooking, exchanging money, getting rained on, exploring the town. Then we decided to get out of the hostel and go hike Glacier Martial, so we took a cab up to the base and started trekking...I would just like to clarify something. What may be a surprise to you, as it was to me, there was no glacier. This was where a glacier used to be, and carved out part of the mountain side, got it? great. So we trekked up a rather steep dirt and rock road to get to the actual trail. The trail wound around the mountain side over streams, snow banks, moss, mud, rocks, and some insane inclines. We decided to go as far up as the trail went, so by the time we got to the top...ish, we were in tank tops and huffing and puffing. We met a group of...15? Israelis taking a hooka break on an out cropping of rocks, man these guys are friendly people. They ALL wanted pictures with the blonds and the black guy. Hahha we are all some kind of novelty to someone everywhere we go. So after this they left and we continued up the snow. There was a small pass you could climb up, but I had a puddle in my running shoes and somehow that just didn't seem like fun. So i sat on a rock outcropping and talking to a guy from BsAs as Callie and Alex disappear over my head into the snow. I sat there for maybe 15 minutes slowly turning into an ice cube when I hear giggling and Callie is slipping/running/walking back down the pass sans Alex. When she gets to me she tells me Alex is going all the way to the top. By now I'm freezing and cant feel my toes an inch, so Callie trades socks with me, this is the mark of true friendship; giving your warm, mostly dry SmartWool socks in trade for wet, smelly, cotton socks. But I'm usually the least prepared so I wasn't going to argue. Let me tell you though, those Alpaca sweaters we bought in Cusco saved our freezing skins.

         Eventually, we see Alex, on his butt sliding down the pass and that was no slight incline either. Man this is a long story....ok so we all start our way back down, which due to the cold mainly went we ran down the side of a snow covered cliff, Alex slid and Callie and i just ran. Even back on the trail Callie and I kept up a steady trot, one to keep warm, two to help cushion our knees and three because it was getting to be evening. When we finally made it down to the road, we decided that, despite the wet feet, and fatigue we were going to walk the 7k back into town....college students you know, gotta save the money!!! So off down the road we go taking every short cut we could find. One short cut lead to Alex cutting his figure open and me falling down twice. But we finally made it back...it only took us...what? Like 2 hours of something. And I would just like to say that Callie and I have never gotten lost, we have impeccable directional sense...Alex on the other hand gets lost....go figure. And in case you are wondering, I'm allowed to rag on him, it all comes around in the end :P
     Well this is already monstrously long....so looks like there might be a part three, heck maybe even a part four.....Keep your eye out!!