Ok, Relax. I’ll give you a bit more about the effective end of the road. The last city in the world. But I won’t boor your pretty little faces off by telling you what I had for breakfast, or every single step of my last trek. I’ve got a few significant things to share about Ushi (My playful pet name for Ushuaia), that I think you might like. Ushi, AKA Shu-sha, AKA Koosh-Koosh sits on the trough of an arena of snow capped mountains. The streets are steep here and the shops are plentiful. From most places in town, you can see the harbor and which ships are reloading supplies and tourists. Everything from blue collar freight ships to jumbo Carnival Cruise Ships to National Geographic South Pole bound research vessels can be caught here at any moment.
The few main streets are well developed for tourists with everything from outdoor equipment to trinkets to $10K camera lenses to high fashion with a survivalist motif. Many will say that it is the most touristy place in Argentina and they would be incomplete if not to mention that it is also the most expensive. This is all fine and dandy because there are real things to do here, and some of them are actually free. There are many treks that are free and a few that you just have to pay for transportation into a national park as well as the park entrance fee. You can also go on sight seeing adventures with sea lions, seals, beavers, and of course penguins.
I elected to walk with the penguins for a measly $65. When you consider how close you get to these creatures, it is a real bargain. And let me have a healthy rant about penguins while I’ve got you here. Penguins, are, the, most, stupid, creatures, ever.
Now once more in it’s own paragraph:
Penguins, are, the, most, stupid, creatures, ever.
If they weren’t so damn cute they wouldn’t be so damn protected and they would be more damned lunch. They must be stoned out of their minds or something, because they will stand in the walk way (the same one that tourists pass by every day) seemingly trying to be stepped on. They are so dumb that they decide that it’s a good idea to build a nest in the walk way as well. Full of moronic noises, these poor things have anything but a low profile. One can spot them pensively staring out into tierra del fuegian Andes, when in reality they are just blankly staring at the end of the beaks. These creatures are like a mix of hot girl in the room and dreamy dull hunk in the room. The hot girl gets all sorts of things for free because the giver somehow psychologically thinks that if he gives her what she wants, then she will sleep with him. The dreamy dull hunk says few things, thus letting the over analysing female fill in his blank response with the her wildest fantasy. The absolute dullest men I have ever met tend to receive the deepest compliments from their female admirers.
On a plus side, the whole refuge wreaks of fish (a seafood lover’s dream). I was walking on the path and the guide told us to avoid getting close to a certain penguin who was stressed. I carefully passed many a penguin, looking for the stressed one, wondering if the guide had a sixth sense about these things. They all looked the same. Perhaps it takes years to detect a stressed one. Then I came upon one that was lying on it’s belly, wings spread, and face down in the dirt. I think I found the stressed one….
If I had a nickel for every penguin that I saw trip and fall on its face, I would have surely thrown it at them. Seriously, when I play with dogs, I can’t help but talk to them in a voice that you talk to a baby with (because I love them like my own children.) But when I am around penguins, I cant help but call them the idiots that they are.
If they were rats, they would have been eradicated years ago. Same with whales. They taste great. I’d love to harpoon one. Free steak for life.
Any readers left? Have I eternally offended any of you fair weather animal rights activists?
Back to Ushi. This place makes for a stunning sun set as long as the clouds are somewhat reasonable. You know what also? We are not in Patagonia anymore! Tierra Del Fuego actually has a lot better weather for some reason, even though it is more southern than Patagonia.
Another fog has lifted as well. I am no longer in couples country. Patagonia was so stricken with Couples that I began to call it Couple-gonia. But Ushi is a quick three and a half hour flight south from Buenos Aires, so it brings all sorts of single travelers for some reason. Don’t question a good thing, as far as I am concerned. In the last few days, I have met and hung out with no less than 3 new people every day. This is the type of travel that I signed up for. The couples shocked me like a freight train when I got to Patagonia. It was like I missed a memo or something.
Little did I know that there would be significance in the symbolic nature of Ushuaia’s title of “End of the World”.
This would prove to be my greatest test to date.
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