After two flights from Buenos Aires, we began our descent to some of the most breath-taking views we could imagine. We were completely corny, screaming ¨Look! Look! Look!¨ at every beautiful thing we saw. Tierra del Fuego is as magical as one can imagine: snowy mountains, vast forests, lakes, the ocean, penguins all come together. And the two of us cannot feel luckier to have made it to the southernmost city in the world: Ushuaia.
From the beautiful airport, we zipped to our hostel in an incredibly cheap taxi ride ($1). At first, our hostel looked nice, nothing special. Then, the four of us were shown to our ¨room.¨ A beautiful, spanking new APARTMENT! Ziv actually cried with tears of joy. For the same price as all the other hostels, this amazing place gave us a private apartment, with a full kitchen, bathroom and two private bedrooms for an entire week. Already pumped, we decided to rent a car for the week to be able to fully explore this amazing magical land filled with hikes and treks. We went crazy at the supermarket, since we would actually be able to cook real food!! (we eventually would end up going to the supermarket everyday because… why not?!! Foood!!). That night, we ate some yummy stew (because mama Nicole loves stew!) and salad and played Nicole´s favorite childhood game: Continental!!! Stacen, Ziv and Tomer have all been successfully addicted. Imagine two Israelis screaming ¨Quiero puedo!!!!¨ in random messed ways. Awesome.
The next day we set out for a five hour cruise to see penguins (!!), sea lions (!!), and random birds in the wild Antarctic waters. We stood outside in the cold winds, just looking at the amazing icescapes and waters. Then, we got to the island: just feet away from us were wild penguins and sea lions!!! Real ones!!!! The penguins were just plain old cute, but the sea lions were intense. They pretty much just sit there, fight with each other, push themselves off the rocks, get back on the rocks and start the whole thing over again. Our boat then went to a second island filled with hundreds more penguins. Again, surreal is the only way we can describe it. On the way back, we met a couple of guys travelling who told us about a cool glacier to hike up in the afternoon.
The glacier was tiny, but the hike was perfect. Hard and steep, we both felt like we had finally started to do what we set out to. Nature. Beauty. The whole thing. Getting to the top was an achievement. Nicole got so hot she took of her pants and just wore her leggings—then lost her pants!!!! Figures! Only she could lose her black pants in daylight on a trail with nothing but gray rocks.
We hiked around the beautiful Tierra del Fuego National Park the next day, nestled right on the border between Chile and Argentina. The animals there are so used to us nature-lover tourists that there were two wild foxes just chillin´ near the entrance! We walked for several hours around the crystal clear waters filled with thousands of molluscs, and the best rocks to skip that Stacen could ask for. By the afternoon, the day had cleared up, and we got a ride back to our car, but decided to sit and look at the beautiful waters for a while before heading out. This is when Stacen—for almost an hour—showed off his mad skills at skipping rocks. Fulfilling probably his wildest dreams, his impressive skills got so much attention from the tourists that large group of Spaniards stopped to watch him, take pictures and clap.
The following day was bumming around, eating more stew, playing cards, and drinking wine. We actually took a four hour nap! After that, we set out on a goal to go out! Previously in the day, however, Stacen and Tomer had returned, giggling, from the supermarket, laden with beer and cookies. Needless to say, everyone fell asleep, woke up, took showers, and we actually made it to an Irish pub where we all attempted to stay awake for about 45 minutes before finally giving up and just going back home to sleep!
The next day we started slow, drinking lots of green tea and marvelling at being so far south. We finally made it out of the apartment and headed up the road for Emerald Lake. The woman that we got the map from in the entrance gave us some pretty intricate details about how to get to the top, and we were a little confused at first, that is, until we hit the trail. Tierra del Fuego, in its entrance back into winter, was beginning to display some pretty ridiculous weather, including wind, clouds, cold, and rain. The ENTIRE trail was mud! We had to hop from stone to stone for miles all the way up. The bridge was out! We had to sort of scramble through the bushes and walk across the rubble. But it was breathtaking—we walked through the forest that we considered the home of all the elves in the world. We emerged out of the forest and onto the tundra, which during the summer of course is not frozen, but soft and springy, more comfy than a mattress! We had an amazing time plodding the rest of the way up, where we got to the lake, beautiful greenish-blue, and we witnessed a cloud come over the mountain and get sucked into the lake! Ziv by this time had stepped in one too many puddles and her feet were soaked…so of course we built a fire and ate lunch! It started raining but no one cared, we had a blast. The walk down was just as breathtaking, and we chilled the rest of the night.
The next day Stacen turned off the alarm and completely messed up the plans for the huge trek they were going to do that day. So it became another bum day, where we walked around town. They saw one of the giant cruise ships docking and loading up with passengers, and Nicole was struck with a wild idea. She ran up to the entrance to the boat and asked if they needed some extra help, and we would be willing to work just to get to go to Antarctica. Unfortunately, ships have regulations and we were declined.
Our last full day we had come up with an awesome trek to a glacier. We had a map, the car to get us there, and the drive. Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side, and it was cloudy windy rainy as we started off. Before arriving to the trail, Stacen took a wrong turn and a pack of 6 wild dogs actually attacked the car, and we literally could not go any further. It was so ridiculous and none of us could stop laughing! The hike was beautiful what we saw, but the ground was flooded and the bridge of course was out as well. We walked through a peat bog 5 feet deep, and Nicole stepped on ground that actually RIPPLED with every step. After attempting in vain to place logs over the river and get over for about 45 minutes, they noticed some other backpackers walk over a bridge about 100 yeards down the trail that they had not seen. They felt stupid. Finally making it over and scaling 2 more little rivers, Nicole was looking down when, the ridiculousness of it all, a branch hit her in her good eye, knocking her contact to the ground, never to be found again. So now Nicole was blind and we had to walk back. We finally made it, only slightly depressed that we had yet to complete a hike. That night we packed up and started making plans for our next destination…El Calafate!
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