Ushuaia

I´m still at the very tip of South America, here in Ushuaia. Before coming here, several other travelers that I met told me that in Ushuaia, I must stay at the Antarctica Hostel and that this guy who works here, Gabriel, is just great. Well, I found this out yesterday. I walked way to the other side of town to the shoe repair shop to get my boots glued/fixed only to find the shop had gone out of business. So, I asked young Gabriel what he thought I should do. He produced some Argentine version of Crazy glue and glued the tread down on my boots. This morning, I planned to have another pretty lazy day but he assured me that I should go to Tierra del Fuego national park with a bunch of other people who are staying here. I did go. I walked on a very lovely trail by the mountains and many beautiful lakes with little islands, and peat bogs, and generally very pretty scenery and my boots worked great. I came back to the hostel and assured Gabriel that he is the greatest shoe repairman in all of Argentina. Surely the boots will last me the remaining month here.
Ahh, Argentinian Spanish... yes, they say, "zhu, zhu, zhu" alot when they talk. Yes, it sounds like they are singing when they talk. And, yes, sometimes it sounds like they are speaking Italian when they talk, but, well, I seem to understand them. At least better than I did in Chile. So, it is okay. Good actually. Ushuaia is a fun but odd town here at the end of the world. Tonight I went to an all you can eat grilled meat place with a young American guy and a young Japanese/Brazilian guy and it was very tasty. The people staying here are pretty interesting. By far, the most impressive, is young Matthew, who bought an old motorcycle and drove here from Connecticut. Although Ushuaia was his goal, he didn´t really think he would make it this far. So, he said, while crossing the U.S. he would tell people he was going to Panama. When he made it as far as Panama, he told people he was going as far as Colombia and from there, he threw caution to the wind and said that he was going to Ushuaia. Now, I am very sleepy and will turn in for a few hours. I have another fairly lazy day planned for tomorrow but perhaps, young Gabriel, has another agenda for me. Who knows. I leave Sunday for Antarctica and I believe I will not have internet access so possibly no more reports until after visiting the ice.