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Published: December 12th 2006
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Unfortunately I am writing this entry after I have been to Antarctica, and due to the sheer coolness of The Ice, it is kind of difficult for me to get excited about Ushuaia any more. However I did have a great time there, and I'm trying not to forget that!
So, after a couple of near-misses in the crappy hostel department, and on an incredibly snowy and cold day, I eventually settled into Cruz del Sur hostel, a friendly, homely place close to the main part of Ushuaia. I also ended up bumping into Troy, an Aussie guy I had met in El Calafate, who happened to be staying in Cruz del Sur as well. He was due to be going to Antarctica as well, although 4 days before me, and at that point was the only other person I had met who was going. His girlfriend was a photographer on one of the ships, and he had blagged a ticket through her. It was cool to hang out with someone who was getting as excited about the trip as I was, and we spent a couple of days chilling out together, playing a lot of card games and doing
View from my room on the day I arrived in Ushuaia
Apparently it is pretty rare to be getting snow at this time of year (Spring) in Ushuaia. a bit of shopping for the remaining items we needed for the trip. Shortly after arriving at the hostel, I also met a girl called Christine and spent a day with her, visiting the interesting maritime and penitentiary museum, and having lunch at a fantastic French bakery down by the docks.
A couple of days later, I got talking to an Irish girl called Kerry and we hit it off straight away (I think sharing the cheeky bottle of red at lunchtime helped!) and it turned out there was an American couple, Carrie and Abran, that she had met on an earlier flight staying at the hostel. We had a grand old time that evening with them, comparing and contrasting how we pronounce words and generally laughing at each other's silly accents. Obviously, their accents were far sillier than mine (although I think they wouldn't necessarily agree with that one!).
Funny conversation:
Me: So, Abran is a rather uncommon name. Where is it from?
Abran: It's the first name in the New Age Baby Name Book.
Me: *laughs* Wow!
Abran: Yeah, my parents were lazy hippies.
One evening in the hostel we found ourselves drinking with
Ushuaia prison
Ushuaia used to be a penal colony - this prison operated until 1947. some Irish guys and an English guy, although he could honestly have been from anywhere as he had the thickest, strongest mumbling voice I have ever heard. When I was able to hear him reasonably well, he sounded hilarious - his accent was perfectly 1960s, Austin Powers-esque. And that wasn't all that was funny about him. He also had the most comedy facial hair EVER. Actually, when I say 'facial' that's a little off the mark - he was cleanly shaven on his face, with just two large tufts of hair protruding from either side of his neck, earning him the name 'Neck Beard' since then. At various moments since meeting him, Carrie, Abran and I have often said in an affectionate way, 'Ah, I miss Neck Beard'. He was so funny. Carrie particularly had such trouble understanding him, and all three of us have broken into spontaneous impressions of him at random moments of our trip.
The day after the mass drinking session and the introduction to Neck Beard, Carrie, Kerry, Abran and I decided it would be a good idea to hire a car in our incredibly hungover states and drive to Estancia Harburton, which if memory
serves, is the oldest working estancia in Tierra del Fuego. So we started to drive the 90km journey and as we got closer we all began to feel rather unwell, and by the time we reached the estancia we were all rather desperate to visit the bathroom. We must have looked a sight, all four of us rushing out of the car to go to the loo. We then had a cuppa in the cafe, walked around in a hungover daze for ten minutes and then got back in the car to drive back to the hostel. That was a long way to drive for what ended up being essentially just a toilet stop.
By this point of my week in Ushuaia, my trip to Antarctica was approaching (although not as fast as I thought - I misjudged the embarkation day and it was actually the day after I thought it was - lucky it was not the day before!). Abran was getting seriously tempted by the thought of a last minute ticket, and I was more than happy to try and persuade him to join me on my trip. So, leaving a rather jealous Carrie at the hostel
as she said there was no way she could afford a ticket even at last minute prices, he went to the travel agency . . .
Carrie, Kerry and I were in the middle of a game of cards when he returned, successful in his mission. I was so excited that I would have a friend on the boat! But that wasn't all, little did she know but he had also bought a ticket for Carrie so that she could come too! Cue: shocked expressions, a few choice swear words and lots of happiness! We were going to Antarctica together! I did feel rather sorry for Kerry at this point though, as she was heading back up to Buenos Aires the next day and it would have been even cooler if she could have come too as the four of us were having such fun together.
The next 36 hours were a blur of last minute preparations and heightened excitement and nerves. We met a cool Spanish girl, Nuria, and another American guy called Michael who were coming on the trip with us, so it was good to know that the boat wouldn't be completely full of oldies!
And the rest, so they say, is history.
Upon returning to dry land after the trip, we checked ourselves back into the Cruz del Sur hostel, as our bus to Punta Arenas wasn't for another couple of days. Sharing our 4-person dorm with Carrie, Abran and I was an Australian called Howie, whom I'm sure we bored with stories of the ice, but he seemed interested enough (or at least was good mannered enough to pretend) so we hung out with him and a Canadian guy called Allan for the evening. It got to around 11pm, and we were thinking of having an early night, when a rep for one of the local bars came into the hostel and (I still don't know how he did it) managed to persuade us to come to the bar, where he promised drinks promotions, live drumming and fire eating. Sounded cool! Suffice to say we drank a LOT of champagne and Red Bull cocktails, danced like complete nutters for hours, I played bongos until my hands got bruised, we saw a beautiful sunrise over the bay, and I ended up getting into bed at 10:30 the next morning. Ouch. After 4
hours' sleep, I spent the whole of the next day hungover, still feeling like I was on a boat as I hadn't got my land legs back yet, and shaking uncontrollably from all the Red Bull I had consumed the night before. Note to self: Red Bull is not a good drink to down like there's no tomorrow when you have a caffeine intolerance. Won't be doing that again in a hurry! Luckily the four of us - Howie, Carrie, Abran and I - were the only people in our dorm room and could spend the entire next day in bed, talking rubbish and being silly.
The next day we said goodbye to Howie as we had a 5:30am bus ride to Punta Arenas, Chile, marking the end of my time in Argentina. I was aiming to get to Puerto Natales later that day to stay with a friend I had made in Foz do Iguacu called Michelle, and Carrie and Abran were going to spend the night in Punta Arenas and meet up with me again the next day . . .
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Sam
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On the photo's scale of one to ten of drunkness i'm thinking in the hundreds!