Tierra Del Fuego, Getting Lost, Stopped at Customs, Etc...

Well hey ya´llz, it´s bright and early Saturday morning and I´m sitting in the beautiful little town of El Calafate, Argentina.

I left off in Tierra Del Fuego, in the world´s southernmost city, Ushuaia. The town was absolutely gorgeous, sitting on the bay with jagged snow capped peaks hanging all around. The downsides were that A: it was freezing, and B: it was very very expensive.



I grabbed a bus first thing in the morning to go to the national park, and the driver left me off supposedly near a trail head. After about 40 minutes in, I realized I was actually on no trail head at all, but just casually walking through the woods, with no sense of direction. A turned around and started back in the direction I thought I came. Luckily I came across a big slop of mud I got stuck in earlier, and found my way out to the main road.

I headed back to the main road to find some trails, luckily I found a nice little 20 minute hike which led to the 8km, 3 hour, Senda Costera trail. What it lacked by the number of people on it, it made up for it by it´s scenic views. It was really incredible.








Upon finishing the day I was exhausted, but decided to check out the bus tickets to El Calafate. I was planning on staying another day in Ushuaia, hiking to the Martial Glaciar, then heading out. To my surprise all the bus tickets on Saturday were booked, so I had no other option but to leave the following morning at 4:40 am. Bummer.

Normally I dont have too much trouble with bus rides, it was hours in time, not too bad. Here the problem was customs. First we had to exit Argentina and go through their customs. Took an hour and a half of just sitting there. Then drove 5 minutes to enter the border of Chile. Another hour and a half of lines. Then we had to hop on a boat to cross the border to the mainland of South America.



Then back to exit through customs again, but got held up at Chile. Apparently the customs officers were looking for drugs, so they pulled a few fine young chaps aside, including me. Here we sat in a room, listening to their drug babble, and telling us how severe the penalties for bringing drugs through the country were. After a wait of over an hour in a small room stuck with young people who look like drug addicts, the guys told me to lift up my shirt and go. Didnt even check my bags. Not sure what their scheme was, but it was boring and a little frightening. Then another hour to enter Argentina again.

Arrived in El Calafate at around 12:30 am. Bus loads of proper Europeans got of their buses with their premade reservations from hostelworld, where as I, who still isnt quite smart enough to make a reservation in advance, got stuck in the black of night trying to find a place to stay. After the first 5 places were closed, I hiked a decent ways uphill to find a nice little place that only charged 30 pesos a night.

It is the evening of the 18th, and I did a day trek to the Glaciar Perito Moreno. I haven´t seen anything quite like the thunderous crash of the glaciar as it wedged and broke through the valley. The colors of the glaciar varied from solid white, to a deep glowing blue. I have finally found superman´s secret lair. It was quite incredible, going to go to El Chalten tomorrow, not sure why, then Bariloche after, here are some pics!