I'm going to keep this one short, because after all it has been so long since I was in Patagonia. My third leg of the trip was to the city of Ushuaia, which is proud to be the southern most CITY in the world. It was pretty, but I couldn't see Antarctica from there, and the truth is it looked quite a bit like other cities. It was cute, and mountainy and touristy, and I did get the chance to do some beautiful hiking, and got to know a lot of other travelers.
Here's a funny little anecdote about the possibilities of what one can encounter while traveling in South America.
On the morning that I was leaving Chile, I got up bright and early to get on the bus because the trip from Puerto Natales to Ushuaia was supposed to be about 14 hours, and included taking a ferry to get to the southern tip of Argentina. Look at a map sometime, it is a mess down there! I got on my bus at about 6:45 that morning, to be ready to leave by 7. The seats on the bus quickly filled up (this is a long distance bus, where everyone sits, not like a city bus), but then men just kept loading on and sneaking the bus driver's assistant (?) money. They had quite the little business going on. After the aisle was packed with men (probably on their way to work or something), we were off! My ticket said that my transfer would be at 8:30 am, but I didn't recognize the name of the "bus-station" where I would be transferring. During the next couple of hours, the aisle emptied, and the men were dropped off on the side of the road here and there. At about 9 am, the assistant (the same one with the pocket full of pesos from his under the table business) went around and looked at everyone's tickets. He looked at mine, and told me that we would be getting off soon. He said 20 minutes and we'll be "there". 20 minutes (and more) passed, and there was no bus station (or a sign for that matter) and I was becoming a little worried that I had missed my connection. He passed through again, and said, okay we're almost there, so all I could do is trust him. After some more time passed (by this time I completely lost track of how much time), we stopped on the side of the highway, and he informed us that if we were going to Ushuaia, we needed to get off here. There were about 5 of us who got off the bus, then he pulled our bags out from underneath the bus, and basically threw them on the side of the road. For a few seconds I felt a complete panic come over me, but then another bus pulled up to the shoulder of the road, told us to load up our bags, we got on the bus that was already full of old german travelers, and 12 hours later we were in Ushuaia.
When our bus drove off the ferry, I saw this sign and thought-- wow, welcome back to Argentina!!
Once I arrived in Ushuaia it was far more welcoming. It was a little kitschy in the city, and I tried to take advantage of some photo ops.
And this one too....
Here's a Patagonia store in the REAL Patagonia. I giggled.
But I also saw some really beautiful sights. My lovely friend Jenae was supposed to go on the trip with me, but things didn't work out, and she told me to please go up to the top floor of a very high building and take a photo of "the end of the world". There weren't really any tall buildings, so instead I hiked 3 hours up a mountain, and here it is. This is what the end of the world looks like....
At the bottom of the photo, you can see the whole city of Ushuaia, and if you look reeeaaallly hard, maybe you can see Antarctica in the distance. Or maybe just imagine that it is way out there somewhere!
