The end of the world

I made it! One end of the world to the other! Tierra del Fuego, here I am! In the national park, which I'm going to tomorrow, there's a sign that gives the distance to Alaska. I definitely need to get my picture next to it.

Alaska's southern opposite is beautiful... often windy and rainy, but beautiful! Urshuaia, the city, has a very Argentine flavor, but like Alaska, it's stuck somewhere between the new tourism-oriented development and backwoods, rustic edges. I love it!

To travel from Calafate to Urshuaia I spent all day and night on a bus. In addition having to cross into and back out of Chile to get to Urshaia we had to do a beautiful ferry crossing across the Megellian Straights. This is a picture of my bus loading onto the ferry.

So this was by far the highlight of the bus trip! During the 20 min. ferry crossing a pod of toninos followed us, jumping in and out of the boat's wake. I didn't even know that toninos existed... I'd never heard of them, never seen a picture. So when a girl motioned me to the edge of the boat and I looked over and saw all these black and white dolphins I was blown away. It was out of this world.

The harbor in Urshuaia is beautiful, esp. when graced by a rainbow!

The full view

Yesterday afternoon I hiked with a few newfound friends up the side of a mountain outside of Urshuaia. The blowing snow and whipping wind cleared for some minutes to offer us this impressive view of the town below.