The Ultimate Spring Break - Chapter One: Ushuaia, Argentina

Neither rain, flood, mechanical difficulties with our plane, layovers, food poisoning, forgetting my towel, a common cold, nor an airline strike could hold us back from having an amazing spring break. I traveled with my fellow ACA-ers, Rachel and Brian, through Patagonia starting at the "End of the World," Ushuaia. Before even arriving in Buenos Aires for our flight we had the rain and flood to deal with. Then fifteen minutes after take-off our plane had to land and be boarded by a fully suited crew of firefighters. Six-hours later we boarded the same plane.



Ushuaia is beautiful. It won my heart immediately with all the sailboats anchored in the harbor and ships docked at the piers. Water, islands, and mountains in the backgrounds complete with a glacier above the town. Yes, that's a glacier! And you haven't seen anything yet.



The first day we spent walking through the National Park which was beautiful. We met a really nice woman from the Netherlands named Ellen who we hiked. Spanish was one of her five languages so we spoke together in castellano even though she spoke English perfectly. That was great!



We saw more streams, rivers, woods, and mountains. And a lot of rabbits actually. Where there are a few, there are many.



We even saw a huge beaver dam - castorera. It made me think of the beavers in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia since I just read "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" in Spanish. You may or may not find that interesting. I'm just really psyched that I read a book in Spanish. After our hike, we left the park to find lunch before embarking on our boat tour of the strait and nearby islands. I grabbed a sandwich at a small bakery. BIG MISTAKE!



We had two guides and the boat to ourselves. We drove by a small island covered by different birdlife and sealions.


This lighthouse made such a striking silhouette against the bright sky that I had to take a photo. It was about this time in the day that I began feeling the effects of what I now believe to have been food-poisoning. The next 24 hours were probably the worst of the entire trip for me, but the two young and attractive Argentine men at the hostel helped distract me from my misery by chatting and making me tea. Fortunately, the trip could only get more fabulous after that point and so much more was still to come.