In Ushuaia. Again.

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OUCH. That’s all I can say about the morning of the 8th of March. I was definitely hung over. Possibly still drunk. And amongst all the revelry of the night before I’d not gotten around to packing my bags. There wasn’t much to do, but I was supposed to have my bags packed, ready and waiting outside my door at 5am. And it was now 6am. But never fear. I still had my bags with me by the time I got to my hotel a couple of hours later. At which point we discovered that Hotel Ushuaia was NOT in a convenient location and I also wouldn't say it was particularly nice either. But that's what you get when you don't bother doing any research I guess. But at least Sara, Reid, Lillian and Terry were staying there too for one night.

Which of course meant that we needed to have one last lot of drinks to say good bye. So after a nap and a photo exchange, we made the long trek down the street (for the second time - we'd also been earlier for lunch) and met up with Maarten, Wouter, Andrea, Warren, Betsy, Katherine, Kevin, Almut and... well maybe that was it... It was a large rowdy group. And we were at a pub where you didn't pay for drinks as we went but at then end. Recipe for lots of confusion at the end of the night. But a good night in the end.

The following morning I was faced with the question: what will I do for the next 3 days in this tiny little sleepy town? Well I spent a fair bit of time with the last of the Antartica crew that were in town and very nearly went camping with them. The only thing stopping me was that since they planned on camping for two nights I wouldn't have made it back in time for my flight on Saturday. So instead I booked a day of hiking and canoeing at the National Park on the Friday and sent them on their way.

For anyone who happens to be in the Tierra del Fuego area and interested in a really pretty and easy hike, this is the place to do it. I had a great time. And met a lovely couple who were from the US and UK and (surprise, surprise) went to drinks with them after the day ended. I was sitting there and looked up and noticed a guy I'd reckoginsed from the hostel most of the group had been staying at earlier so I said hi he's told me that they were back in the hostel. They'd had to come home early because one of the group had burnt his hand.

So after finishing my beer and saying goodbye to my new friends I've excused myself and headed off to find out who had burnt their hand and how badly. I only realised later that I forgot to pay for my drinks when I left. Whoops. I wasn't deliberately being a tightass. I promise.

So back to the hostel and I met up with Kevin, Almut and Wouter and I saw Kevin's hand. Well the bandaged version of Kevin's hand. Apparently he'd been checking that his camp stove worked and it started leaking like a sieve and caught on fire. In his attempts to put it out he got a huge burn on his hand. And then he still went camping. Over night the blister came up and everyone froze in their insufficient sleeping bags so the following morning they made the pretty easy decision to not continue and to just come back to town. Once back at the hostel they asked the guy at the hostel where a doctor's was so that he could get his hand looked at and he was told "no no, we pay for a doctor to come to you."

And he did. A doctor came to the hostel. Peirced the blisters, drained the pus, cut away the extra skin and put antibiotic cream on and gave him two presciptions for the next few days. And then he wouldn't accept payment!!! Ummmm... what the? Free health care in Argentina. Who would have thought?

Some how this didn't discourage Kevin from beginning The Circuit at Torres del Paine a few days later though. I guess if he takes care of it he'll be ok but ouch... very ouch... I sure hope it heals ok.

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