RIGHTY. I'm NOT in Ushuaia anymore... but I'm doing the last month or so in retrospect so I'm spilting this blog up into two sections. Here's the first...

MORE BORDERS, MORE BOUNDARIES

After leaving El Chalten in Argentian Patagonia, me and Team Germany took the long bus trip to Puerto Natales in Chile. This took alot longer than expected, due to some amusing goings-on at the border. Before that we had to change buses in Calafate and spent some happy hours drinking coffee in the sunshine. That was the high point of the journey. The next bus was cramped, hot and busy. I sat next to another german. We had bought lots of food in a preparation to make a yummy dinner in our hostel that evening but the fates were against us. Turns out you can't take food over the border to Chile... so after waiting aggges to get OUT of Arg, we had a food-eating-frenzy at the chilean check point, where they scan everything you own and vegetable-sniffer dogs search the bus. It's serious stuff. I really thought they might shoot Rafi for eating bananas at the immigration desk. After realising we wern't going to get away with our fruit and veg stashes, we stuffed our faces right there in customs. Much to the amusement of the other passengers, bus drivers and customs officials. We were laughing so much we could barely swallow our rushed mouthfuls. Then just as we thought we had made it through, the dog took a dislike to one of the people on our bus and we had to wait an extra hour while loads of them of got rechecked. Mysterious; annoying. Anyhoo we arrived to our cosy little family-run 'Nancy Hostel' in P.Nat. When I say family-run, it was actually a Chilean familes' house. Lovely, lovely people though. And very comfortable. After 4 nights of camping, getting up at 4.30am and a whole day of travel; bed felt like the most beautiful place I could imagine.

The following day was the day of preparation for our trek. We met up with Julia (Yulia, Yules to me) another Germainian that Rafi knew off the net. The four of us set out to shop, pack and rent gear for a 5-day stint in the national park. This actually proved to be quite a challenge. I had forgotten how complicated things can get when there's more than just one person's thoughts, opinions, tastes and needs. It really hurt my brain, I'm just not used to it! None-the-less, come the evening we were sitting in a yummy pizza place, toasting our new team; Los Angeles del PAINE. (It had become a bit of a joke that I prounounce this name in the English way - Pain, not Pay-ee-nay - the latin way). Our moto? "No Paine, no gain" And so began our trekking adventure...

TORRES DEL PAINE - The Big 'W'

Early start after not much sleep due to excitement/worry-over-wet-socks. ALL my socks were still wet when we left, not such a great thing for hiking. We caught our bus out to the National Park entrance, watching the very cute Guancos out the window. They are like small, prettier, wild llamas. The plan was to go west to east on the 'W' (named so because it resembles a W on the map, duh!). This meant starting our trip with a boat ride across Lake Pehoé - a supercool blue. We set off on Day 1 with our heavy packs up the valley. Reckon at the start we were all carrying about 15kg or more. Spirits were high, and not even a bit of drizzle and some steep uphill sections could bring the mood down. Passed Lago de Los Patos (Duck lake - no swans here) and had a nice picnic lunch. Started feeling the strain in the afternoon but incredible views of the emerging Glacier Grey kept us walking onwards. Lots of more ups and downs, some stupidly steep sections and eventually we arrived at our first campsite - Los Guardos. Plagued by mini-flies we cooked soup and set camp. Went and marvelled at the Glacier that is really close to the campsite. It's definately worth it to hike up this 'side-trail'. Slept deeply. Day 2 dawned bright and early. Porridge with dulce de leche and coffee and we're off! Back down the way we came (the downside of the 'W' - you have to retrace if you can't do the full 9 day circuit, but it's worth it). Weather good, which for me had certain draw-backs... You see after the near-perfect conditions we had experienced so far, jokes had been made about God looking out for us. I started kidding about repenting my atheistic ways and turning into a 'believer' if the good weather held out for T del P... the others leapt on this and it became an ongoing joke for our time in Patagonia. It was looking like I was going to have to start saying my prayers... However, bad news awaited us at the bottom of the valley. Our next campsite was ´closed´hmm. We were pretty worried, so we raced off to try it anyway. It wasn't closed but very busy... we got a spot just in time. Awesome scenery of the 'Cuernos' peaks on the way. Yummy rice, card games, bed. Day 3 was our 'day-off'. we got to leave our big packs in our tents and hiked up Valle Frances where you normally get awesome views... the Big Man had let me down, the deal was off... cold, rainy and even some snow at the top of the trail! Even though we didn't have the big bags, still became exhausted very fast. The river was incredible, even though the best mountains were hidden in the clouds. Hard decision to make whether we change camps or not, the rain was looking very heavy and we had a huuge distance planned for day 4... failing miserably to get up early, we slept in due to lots and lots of rain. Boo. Nearly got washed out. Feeling miserable, cold, filthy and dis-heartened we set off on possibly the longest day of the trek. By some miracle, the sun came out, we dried out our tents at lunch, treated to private air-displays by condors. Our frowns were quickly replaced by smiles. Especially since this was Valentines Day and Rafi gave us all flowers and chocolates! What a guy. The famous patagonian winds arrived as we rounded the corner to Valle Torres (it looked like Rivendell). By this time I was either seriously flagging or trailblazing like a maniac. I practically ran the last 7 Km up to Torres campsite. We could see the famous Torres poking through the clouds and aimed to get up for sunrise to climb up and see them. Day 5 sunrise failed. I took the executive decision not to get everyone up because it was raining. We slogged up the steep, steep, steeeep hill later on. Lots of SNOW again, real snow! We had made it! It felt really good to make it to the top, even if we were all exhausted and cold and couldn't see the mountains from the mist. Back down the mountain to pack away and eat our last porridge. The trek back to the bus stop was hard and painful at times, but we kept spirits high with chocolate and silly games. Have you ever played I-spy with germans? One word; Hilarious. We also saw foxes, lots of guanacos and a skunk! Finished as team and had an amazing feeling of accomplishment. We had walked over 100km in 5 days. We celebrated by eating the last of the food and I watched the sunset over the mountains on the busride back to town. An experience I will never forget.

Patagonia is a place that already has a huge place in my heart. The fresh, sweet water you can drink from any stream or river, the smell of wild flowers on the wind, the freshness of the air... Do believe the hype, it's magical. And I miss it, probably always will. A lot of it has to do with having spent my time there with wonderful new friends. Sharing experiences like this are important and getting to know people so well for once has been one of best things about it. Sadly, as always when travelling, our ways had to part. After a final day in P.Nat recovering (the best lemon merenge pie ever!) we had to part ways. I was lucky and got to keep Dorit for abit longer - she came down to the Tierra del Fuego with me. Which is the next chapter in my travels...

ELLIE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Ush-Why-Ah! El Fin del Mundo! Yes, I had reached my goal, my destiny, the place that started all this mad wander-lust in the first place; Tierra del Fuego - the land of the fire. The most southernly city of the world. Fulfilling my aims and dreams like this is a very surreal experience. It has in fact lived up to it, maybe in a way different than I thought it would, but it feels so special to be here. It's a funny little seaside town, perched in front of mountains tantilisingly close. When we arrived from our bus-boat trip from P.Nat (we saw dolphins!) our couchsurfing host failed to show and instead we booked into a hostel, watched a aptly firey sunset and had beer. It felt good. I was in a very happy place. The next day we got a couchsurfing place for real; with a lovely guy called Carlos. Explored Ushuaia and booked our boat trip for the next day to see the wildlife in the antarctic Beagle-channel. It was touristy of course, and expensive, but definately worth it. We saw sealions, a Minke whale, and two different types of penguins, Maggellen and Gentoo! Very exciting, very cute. We also got to go around an old Estancia (farm) and learnt alot about the local history. Did you know the Beagle channel was formed by glaciers over 10,000 years ago, is 180km long and joins the Pacific and Atlantic oceans? Well you do now. It's pretty chilly down there at the bottom of the world, so we did a lot of hot-chocolate/beer drinking and postcard writing in cosy cafes and pubs. I'm such a flashpacker at times. Probably the reason why I am going to be in debt when I get home. Oops.

This has become abit of an essay, so I'm going to continue the End-of-the-world chronicles in the next post. Apologies for ranting on.

EJT