Ushuaia

Last monday I wanted to have some exercise cause with all this partying in Buenos Aires it was time to do some healthy things. As it was still easter the gyms were still closed. At the hostel they told me I could go for a run in the park in Palermo. They showed me on the map where I could go running. In the late afternoon I caught the subway to Palermo and went to the park. The park was full of people skating, running and walking. I threw my Ipod on and started running. I ran along a big lake in the park. From there I decided to just follow the other runners as I had no idea where I could run to. I ended up running for about 70 minutes covering quite a lot  KM´s as I ran quite fast too. Afterwards I went back to the hostel, had a shower and went out for some pasta as I could use a bit of food. That night they hostel staff invited me to come to a party nearby organised by some of the staffmembers. The party was quite alright, but around 4 I decided to head back as I had a lot of preparations to do the next day.

Tuesday was the last day I had to do any last preparations before going down south. I went out to buy some tshirts of Buenos Aires. Later on I went to a camping gear shop to buy me some proper hiking boots as down south I cant really go and walk on my trainers through the mountains. I bought some decent ones and bought a fleece sweater to go with it too as I heard it was going to be quite cold down there. That night I went to bed for a few hours as I had to catch my plane at 6 in the morning.

I caught a cab at 3:30 in the morning and went to the domestic airport of Buenos Aires. The airport turned out to be only 10 minutes away from the hostel so I was there a tad early. I checked in and from there I had to wait for about 90 minutes at the gate. The plane was right on time without any delays. The flight had a stopover in El Calefate, a place I will be going to later. It took 3 hours to get there. Then the stopover took about 30 minutes. Afterwards it was another hour to Ushuaia. Once I arrived in Ushuaia I grabbed a taxi and went to the hostel. In the hostel I met a guy from Denmark, Jannik. He was on the same flight as I was. We decided to go and explore town together. We had some food and we walked around town. That night we went to bed early as we were planning a big day the day after to go to the National Park.

The next day we woke up early, around 8. We first went to the bus office to get a busticket. After buying the busticket and a boattrip for the day after, we headed to the national park. We grabbed a taxi to the trainstation, as we wanted to go on the ¨End of the world train¨. The taxi driver just kept on going about how expensive and definitely not worth the money the train ride would be. Instead he offered to drive us all around the park for a mere 150 pesos.. I tried to explain we didnt care and still wanted to go with the train. He didnt really listen though. Once we arrived at the trainstation we found out we missed the train by 20 minutes. We had to wait another 2 hours for the next train to go into the park. The taxi driver probably knew about this and waited patiently outside for us. We got back into the taxi and then he offered to drive us to the entrance of the park for 90 pesos. We still found that ridicilously expensive so we decided to get out and just catch a bus. We went walking along the road towards the park, unfortunately there werent any busses passing by. In the end we decided to take our chances and try to hitchhike instead. As soon as I saw a car I put my thumb up and we were lucky inmediatly. Two elder women from Buenos Aires were happy to drive us all around the park checking out all of the highlights. We were truly lucky. After driving and doing little walks through the park we told them we wanted to do a bigger hike in the afternoon. They dropped us off at the start of the hike, which would lead to the train station, as we wanted to catch the train back out of the park. We had 2 hours to do the 3-hour hike, so we had to walk a bit faster than average. We overtook everyone walking in front of us and we managed to complete the hike in close to two hours. Once we arrived at the end of the hike we had to walk another kilometer to get to the trainstation. I decided to try and hitchhike again and again we got lucky right away. Another couple from argentina picked us up and drove us to the trainstation. Once we got there we found no train and no-one around either.. We decided to have some sandwhiches we brought and just chill for a little bit. Then after 10 minutes we heard a locomotive arriving and there it actually was! We hopped onto the train and were really happy to be on it. We were able to rest a bit and enjoy the views. Once we arrived back at the start of the park we shared a taxi with another woman who had to get into town too. We went back to the hostel and cooked some food. That night I went to bed quite early as I was really tired as you can imagine.

The next day we woke up early again. We wanted to go and check out a small glacier not far from Ushuaia somewhere in the mountains. Unfortunately Jannik had to move hostels as the current hostel was fully booked. We ended up spending half of the morning just moving hostels and doing groceries. I was a bit annoyed as I wanted to go and do something more constructive than that. As we were going on a boattrip at 15:00 we found we didnt have enough time to go to the glacier. Instead I decided to go to the local musuem located in the old prison of Ushuaia. Ushuaia has been built by prisoners about 128 years ago. The argentine government at the time decided to populate this area by sending convicts down here. That is how they built the railway to the national park, the prison and later the whole town now known as Ushuaia. It was nice to spend some time learning about the history of Ushuaia. Then at 14:30 we headed to the port to go on to the boattrip. The boattrip took about 6 hours. We went to see a colony of sea lions, pinguins and birds. It turned out to be a nice trip. That night we cooked some dinner again and then met up with a few mexicans I met earlier in my room. They invited us to come and drink with them. They had tequila, rum and beer. I was up for a few drinks as that way I would be able to sleep in the bus the next day. As it takes about 14 hours to get to Puerto Natales, the next place I am heading to. It turned out to be a really long night and I got back to the hostel around 5AM. i nearly forgot my jacket at the club so I had to get back and get that too. I decided to set my alarm for 6, that way I would have one hour of sleep… Unfortunately I never heard the alarm and woke up around 10.. Obviously I had missed my bus.

As Jannik was staying in another hostel, he wasnt able to wake me up either. I ended up going to the office where I bought my busticket to ask them whether I could get the bus on monday, unfortunately the office happened to be closed during the weekend. I met up with the mexicans again and we went to have some food on top of a mountain near the chairlift I was planning to go onto. Jannik called me later from Punta Arenas, Chile to let me know he did catch the bus, but only by a few minutes as he nearly overslept too. Personally I dont really mind it too much, as now I will have a bit more time to check out the rest of Ushuaia. Especially since the weather is amazingly good around here stil. It is actually quite warm too considering I am so near to Antartica.

I am planning to catch the bus on monday morning instead, eventhough my busticket says saturday obviously. I reckon it shouldnt be too much of a problem, it is worth a shot I suppose.

More news soon!