ushuaia and beyond

i´m back again after more than a week!! :O have i lost my fans yet??? i just had the most delicious cappuccino i´ve ever had in my life in this random town in Chile known as Puerto Natales (gateway to the most beautiful national park in South America - Torres Del Paine).. they mix brazilian, jamaican and colombian coffee to make it.. yum... it´s been incredibly hard to use the internet beyond windy san julian but being cut off from the internet was also a blessing in a way.. finding out that the war has started has no doubt dampened the spirit of our trip in ways that we didn´t imagine it would...

we made it to ushuaia (hooray!!) and had some of the most delicious cold water crabs (they look really different from the ones we have back home.. red, thorny and a little hairy) i´ve ever tried in my life. surprisingly, the southernmost city in the world wasn´t as cold as we thought, but the harbour was stunningly beautiful, and the whole city (which looked more than a Swiss mountain resort village) had a backdrop of glacial peaked mountains which made it dream-like. it was also the gateway to beautiful Tierra Del Fuego National Park, with its snowy peak, lakes and sealions. Reaching this point on the planet was more symbolic than anything else.. it was the most south i have ever gone, and after that, everything else on the adventure was more like a bonus.. after that, we took some time to get off the giant island of Tierra Del Fuego (as the ferries were more infrequent than we expected), along the way passing some of the most surreal looking towns i´ve ever seen, such as Porvenir with its desolation, closed shops and perfectly pruned trees and public parks..

we´re now waiting to get onto the 4 day 3 night cruise that will bring us (and the faithful Land Rover jeep - 8000km on this journey alone!!) way back north to the port of Puerto Montt, some 1000 or more kms away before we carry on north through Chile.. Chile has been great (albeit more expensive than Argentina) and we have had great seafood (conger eel and this shellfish called locus - the Chilean luxury equivalent of abalone) over the past couple days.. it also has the stunning Torres Del Paine which we didn´t manage to enjoy entirely because of the cloudy weather..

anyhow, this trip has already been a pleasure and luxury far beyond my imagination until now.. i still can´t believe how fortunate i am to be here, now, typing this blog entry..