At the end of the world in Ushuaia

The southernmost town in Argentina, and the world

It’s the end of the world as we know it – or so Ushuaia’s ridiculous gimmick would have us believe. Wears thin after a while, but mostly just funny (we had lovely coffee at a cafe with “Enjoy; it’s the end of the world” printed on all their napkins. Well, I liked it).

Much like Bolivia’s highest everything, so are we now surrounded by “southernmost [insert otherwise uninteresting thingy] in the world!” signs. (Actually there’s a naval settlement called Puerto Williams that’s just slightly further south, but we don’t speak its name around these parts.)

The big surprise is that Ushuaia actually does feel like the end of the world, in that way that has desolate mountains on one side, and an ominous stretch of ocean on the other. It’s touristy but a nice town, and despite my reservations, a pleasant place to spend some time.

Which is fortunate, because we kind of got here and found we couldn’t leave. I mean we actually couldn’t – we got to the end of the world and were told there’s no way out again. Buses are daily but they’re all full. Flights are expensive but they’re full too. We wanted a bus on Monday, and are instead taking a flight on Tuesday, for an irritating amount of money.

Taking a flight at this point in the trip feels like giving up, in a way, after coming so far around South America overland. But it’s a stretch of land we’ve already seen, and we don’t really have any choice, and it’s only an hour’s flight which will be closely followed by 20 hours on a bus anyway.

So we’ve filled our excess time in Ushuaia sorting through vast numbers of glacier pictures, a visit to the Tierra del Fuego national park, which sounds cool, but after Torres del Paine, was really just a nice little park (you’d think we’d have had enough of national parks by now, but apparently not). And, today, a long walk up the mountain behind Ushuaia, which culminated in a shockingly sudden hailstorm that I’m convinced would have scarred our faces if we hadn’t been more careful.

Trekking in Torres del Paine

So as you may have spotted, we survived the Torres del Paine trek just fine. Or at least with the prevailing ability to type.

It was fun, and a lot less stressful than the last trek we did – the terrain was a little smoother, the altitude was a lot lower, the days weren’t as full-on and daylight lasted longer. And we could amble along at our own pace, which was great.

On the flip side, of course, we had to do everything ourselves: not a problem but not what you need when you’re tired from trekking anyway, and it generally meant going slightly hungry for four days, drinking river water (refreshingly ice cold, logically enough as it was streaming off mountain-top glaciers), eating crunchy rice and denying ourselves tea out of terror of running out of gas.

Fortunately we were allowed to build fires at our first night’s campsite, and in an inspired moment of resourcefulness, Rich burned our trail map and started an impressive blaze that, for one evening at least, warmed us up, made us tea, and filled my hot water bottle.

The cold was awful, really, and I would have enjoyed camping if the cold hadn’t been so relentless. The second night – bereft of fire, tea, and hot water bottle – was the coldest I can remember ever being. At one point I was so still and blue-tinged that Rich had to check if I was still breathing. Fortunately on the third night I got some sleep, as I took more precautions and wore everything I owned.

But the national park itself was beautiful, filled with jagged peaks and perfectly aquamarine lakes, all rugged and Patagonian. We got lucky with the weather – we spent the better part of our first day struggling up to the base of the Torres (towers) del Paine themselves, the fog thick around the mountains until the moment we approached (clambering up an impossibly steep mass of boulders for what seemed like forever), when it all cleared and four looming towers of rock appeared out of nothingness.

Then it was gorgeously sunny; day two was tough but day three was lovely; day four, we had a bit of rain, and then we were back in Puerto Natales for a matter of hours before an early start to a 12-hour bus ride out of Chile for the fourth and final time.

Now, after Ushuaia, it’s all north from now on – and hopefully warmer, milder weather. See you in Puerto Madryn!