Yesterday i spent most of the day in the hostel in ushuaia. it was kind of like leaving home when i got into my taxi to head to the airport. i had become pretty good friends with the people i met there. we had traveled from rio gallegos together. the airport in ushuaia is brand new and has spectacular views because they built it on a peninsula facing the city. you litterally take off over the beagle channel with snowcapped mountains on either side. i still can´t get over how much i love the andes mountains. i think there´s a blog entry from when i went to peru. if not, there should be and the andes are amazing.
at the airport i bumped into a group of spanish travelers whom i had met on wednesday on a boat excursion on the beagle channel. we started talking and soon realized we had basically the same schedules for calafate and torres del paine, chile. we decided to join up....aka me join them...and travel together. we arrived at el calafate and went to our hostels. then they called me and told me they had everything figured out for the next four days. i was somewhat shocked and hurried to their hostel. at there hostel, which was a hell of a lot nicer than mine...oh well, there is a travel agency. the guy there had put together a plan for the next four days which allowed us to see all the glaciares, go to chalten, which i didn´t think was possible, and get to torres del paine. we end in puerto natales, chile - less than 24 hours before i need to be on the boat from there. so we all went to the atm and took out a lot of pesos to pay for this adventure and now i have spanish travel buddies and i can´t talk to them in english, which is fantastic because it means i get to practice spanish. then we went to the grocery store to stock up for these excursions. also, the travel agent guy gave me a free membership for hosteling international, which is something i was considering anyway and costs in the range of 25 US. i went back to my hostel and ate my food for dinner. i´m sharing a room with a french couple, which is difficult because the wife speaks spanish poorly and neither speak english. so our conversations are basically me guessing what she is saying. they´re nice though. there´s another guy in our room, but i haven´t talked with him yet.
today, i woke up super early to go to see some glaciers. we took a boat trip which brought us around the northern ones, not perito moreno, which is the famous one. we´re going to that tomr. it was freezing outside the boat because of all the wind. the glaciers (is this how its spelled in english??) were amazing, but even better were the ice bergs. they´re sooooo cool, literally and figureatively. we stopped for lunch in the bay where we walked through the forrest and ate overlooking three more glaciers and a river full of ice bergs. it was incredibly beautiful. on the way back, all of us fell asleep in the boat and they had to wake me when we got to the port. all in all it was a great day, especially because i paid 1/6 the entrance price for the park. the entrance price is 30AR for foreigners, 10 AR for nationals, however i paid 5AR because i am both a nacional and a student....man i love that my paper USAL library card with my picture taped to it can do all this stuff!!
right now i´m at a locutorio-communication center??- then i´m running some errands, like getting some more food, souveniers, and trying to change money because i need chilean pesos. then its bedtime for another early morning.
tomorrow i´m going to el chalten, where i won´t have internet at all, there is no bank or atm, and we´re going hiking. i´m also going to see the perito moreno glaciar...so excited. yes mother i´m 100% fine and doing well.
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