Ushuaia, the end of the world

Well, in English again.

Last day in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. That´s what they keep telling us everywhere. We have tried to be in many places called "the end of the world". I think that in every tourist tour the guides tell in every possible place that this is the end of the world. We haven´t taken any tours because it feels quite stupid to be in one huge group, one of the people who try to catch everything with their videocameras and go everywhere by bus. I wonder what they do with their 50 hours of videotape when they come back home. Probably they ask all relatives and friends to home. "This is our Maria eating Pizza (for 10 minutes), this is the Statue of icantrememberwhat, this is me sitting in the bus." Some of the couples even have TWO videocameras so they most certainly aren´t going to miss anything. And what is greater than having a stereo image of everything.

Beyond end of the world is Antarctica. Which, by the way, is very cheap place to visit. The cheapest last minute trip we have seen, is 2500 US$. Normal price is something between 5000-10000 $ depending how long is your trip. Normally they are something between 10-20 days I guess. So, we haven´t been there yet and since the school is starting next week, I think it has to be passed.

Yesterday we rented a car and went two a couple of places which cannot be achieved by foot. The national park of Tierra del Fuego was not special. Filled with tourists and routes you could even go by wheelchair. So not exactly the most extreme place to trek. Ok, there was other routes too but we felt that after El Chalten this place was quite lame and we were out quite quickly. After that we decided to go to Cabo San Pablo, some 200 km away from here. In Cabo San Pablo, there was a old ship which laid on the beach. That was quite impressive sight and we went to explore it really close. Guess the captain has been so happy after passing Cape Horn that he started celebrating and found himself and the boat on a sandbeach.

On the way we gave a ride to Israelian girl who was hitch hiking and had lost her passport, credit card, money and valuables. She still had faith, though. I asked that weren´t there any lockers in the hostel and she answered that she doesn´t use them. That is a very nice attitude towards the whole world but I´ve heard that there are some criminals out there. Like she finally found out. She had decided to hitch hike from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires (3500km). It is a great idea but with just some 30 euros and no tent, the romantic feeling of adventure can disappear on some cold nights without roof on your head and no food to eat. Hopefully she´ll find her way to Buenos Aires.

On our first days of the trip, back in Bariloche, we saw a great advertise of Chivas Regal Whiskey. There was a picture of guys sitting on chairs on ice and fishing. The text in the picture said: "Ice fishing in Alaska". And on the top of the picture was big text: This is Chivas Regal life.
Guys who were fishing obviuosly had a bottle of Chivas next to them. After that we have been talking of Chivas Regal life and if something nice that we have been doing, could be it. I think that most of the time it has been Jimmy Walker Red Label life, sometimes even falling to Jack Daniels life. We tried to catch some Chivas Regal life by going sailing to Beagle Channel in front of Ushuaia. The wind which usually is very powerful here, was disappoingly low and we didn´t sail much. So, once again, JD life. But we saw our old friends, sea lions and penguines. We also went to an island where the native indigenous people had lived and heard stories about their life. They lived their life totally in canoes(!) and embarqued only when there was a storm. Of course the good old imperialists came and killed almost all of them soon after arriving.

It is very interesting to notice how even the most macho men are giving cheek kisses to each other when they meet. That is the argentinian way. Imagine Finnish older guys working at for example ship building yard. Every morning coming to work they would kiss each other on the cheek before starting the ship building. There was also a doorman in one bar kissing his male friends when they arrived to bar. Not to be seen in Finland. Of course, cultures are different and here you won´t be seeing the best parts of Finnish culture like lively small talk and people who just can´t stop speaking to unknown people because they have so much to say.

My plane is leaving tonight to Buenos Aires where I will stay for one night. Then I will take the bus to Mendoza, the wine capital of Argentina. As I found out, they happen to have the biggest wine festival of whole year this weekend. Since I was passing Mendoza on way to Santiago, I couldn´t prevent myself taking a hostel there for couple of nights and check how the argentinian festival life differs from Finnish one. It´s going to be a interesting weekend and after that on Monday, I´ll be already sitting on language course classes at the university. How nice is that.

PS. We were able to catch our only glimpse of the Olympics: the ice hockey final between Finland and Sweden. It was of course a disappointment but it didn´t feel that bad because of being here. Whole olympics were so distant event this year that it was difficult to be part of it. Of course we still beat up one Swedish guy back on the way to hostel. (Just kidding, we didn´t where he was from).