Tuesday i woke up and went to the bus station really early to leave rio gallegos with a bunch of people from my hostel. we had an 8 am bus out...we got to the argentine boarder a little while later and crossed it. then we entered chile! we had to go through metal detectors and have all of our stuff scanned before entering. we traveled through chilean pategonia until we arrived at the strait of magellan, which we crossed on a ferry. the bus just drove right up onto the boat. while on the boat, we could see a tonina, a small black and white dolphin. it was swimming along side the boat with us, which was so cool. we entered chilean tierra del fuego, which was flat and rather boring. then we left chile and re-entered argentina. they misstamped my passport as a turist (90 day visa). even though i´m leaving before the 90 days are up, i made them change it to a year long stamp. i didn´t want to start a presidence in my passport.
then we arrived in rio grande, argentina where more than half the bus got off. we stopped a little while later in tolhuin, argentina which isn´t important enough to make it into lonely plannet. we had pastries there and saw the beginning of the snow-capped mountains, which was great. this part of the drive was the best. we were along side the mountains and some lakes and it was absolutely amazing. we arrived in ushuaia at 8.30pm or so and it stayed light out until later than 10pm.
we´re all staying at the same hostel, which is cool. its a great hostel, super social. everyone cooks together and hangs out. its also really colorful!
so i had dinner with two americans- one from westchester and one who used to live in summit, nj....they made pategonian lamb, which was amazing.
21 nov (wed) i woke up early and walked around the town a little bit. then jon (a guy from CA) and i went on a beagle channel excursion. we took a 4 hour boat trip and saw lots of bird, seals, a light house and we got off on one of the islands. it was fantastic. the views were absolutely incredible. we got super close to a lot of seals and stuff...my pictures should be great. the water was really rough, which was not great for my stomach...but it was only rough in a few spots, so that was good.
our group was interesting..a mix of spanish and portuguese people, whom we could barely understand because they were speaking a mix of portuguese and spanish. we were the only americans. no one can understand how i, as an american, sound like an argentine. i have the accent down really well. i´m constantly having to explain that i live in bsas as a student. its really funny how many people are confused by me.
ushuaia is absolutely beautiful and i love the hostel here....the people are so fabulous. i´m going to go make dinner now and then get some sleep.
the city is super nice...i look one way out the window and see snow-capped mountains...i look the other way and see the beagle channel. the end of the world is georgous!!
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