To the end of the world and back again!

It took me three days of busrides, but I finally got there: the end of the world! Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world, and man are they proud of that: you can read the slogan in every corner. Ushuaia is the gate way to Tierra del Fuego, Land of Fire, a beautiful national reservate with forests looking over the Beagle channel. It was also possible to go on the channel with a ferry, however when the last group came back from the trip and told me that the last hour they were all vomiting cos of the bad weather I declined...

So I climed up the Martial glaciar, a nice 3 hour walk from the hostel, from where you had a wonderful view over the town; at least, during the 5 minutes that the clouds would break, cos there was a heavy snow storm going on at the top! Really fun to fool around in the snow though. And what a small world we live in: on my way back I encountered my australian friends from Puerto Varas, with whom I shared my birthday applepie! We had a great diner together at the all you can eat parilla (=BBQ) restaurant for no more than 12 dollars pp followed by a visit to the Irish pub :)

Next day we took the plane north again to El Calafate, gateway to the Glacier national park. We saw the most impressive colorful ice bergs and rumbling glaciers. The following day I went back to Chile, a 5 hours drive to Puerto Natales, gateway to the Torres del Paine, where I planned to do a 7 day hike around the peaks of the park. I met up with two girls from Tjechie, Renata and Maria. After three beautiful but hard days of 7+ hours hiking through amazing landscapes, weather caught up with us: it started raining and didn't stop... After 2 rainy days we were soaked all through, with mud everywhere. The rivers began to swell to almost impossible sizes and made us jumped to at least 3 stones with our 20kg backpacks and a violent river underneath. When we arrived tired at the rangers office, they invited us to their warm and welcome shelter and gave us coffee and bread. We felt too comfortable, and after hearing the horror stories of the rangers of the situation of the following tracks, we took the catamaran back to Puerto Natales and a warm and dry bed ;)

Arriving back in El Calafate 3 days earlier than planned, allowed me to go up north to El Chalten, to visit the mountain range of Fitz Roy. The first hike I made there I met another friend: Tristan from Engeland. What a small world! We had a nice diner and a nice hike the next day. The winds were very strong at some points, but all and all the clear skies gave perfect views of the Fitz Roy.

The last days in El Calafate were very quiet: some hiking, some horseriding, visiting glacier Perito Moreno (which wasn't so impressive as the whole world seems to think). I flew back to Buenos Aires, tried to do some shopping there, which is quite impossible with high winter in Holland and top summer in BA. I missed my flight, which made me get rid of my last pennies, and arrived back in Holland on the 4thh of February.

Since then I found a place to stay in Amersfoort, moved all my stuff, and had a great bachelor party of my sister. I'm all set for the wedding this Saturday. But please let the weather be dry and sunny!

Hope to see you all soon, come and visit me in Amersfoort!