Ok. This story must be told. I have postponed it so many times, but...I really have no other choice but to... here it goes.
The day was 18/8. Last day in Ushuaia. A trip to the local national park, that offers mostly...snow, a beautiful view, yet nothing amazing, to the sea and...well...a sign at the end of the trail that says "End of the World" or something like that. We'll get back to that sign...
Hmmm... I was suppose to wake up for the 11 O'clock ride. Ummm...didn't happen. At some point at night it started to snow, and I couldn't resist but stay up and watch. Ok, so the real reason was that, in a strange way, I was excited by the snow even less than one of the German girls at the hostel, that ran out, and started to toy with the local dog. German girl+dog+snow=me not going to bed, and take pictures.
A near to perfect combo
So I had to take the 12 o'clock bus to the park, only with one little problem. The trip I wanted to take was a 5 hours walk, the shorter one isn't a big thing and that had to be my last day there. The last bus to Ushuaia from the park is at 5. Since I still had a 30 minute drive to the park itself, it meant I won't make it in time for the ride....
No problemo. Taxi service is available. The boy at the hostel called a local company, said that I need a ride from the end of the trail at 5:30 and... that's about it. A positive approval on the other side of the Argentinian phone set it up. I was on my way to the park.
Well... there was snow around alright. Snow, trail, me and....that's about it, in the quantity order. The walk is through a wood that goes right on the beach...pretty sight. no doubt... I was covered by 5 layers of clothes for my upper body, a jeans+GATKES for the bottom part and...for the little below the zero temps it was surely enough.
Lots of snow, some trails and my own private shadow
So far so... well, yet...there seemed to be an issue with locating the path...the heavy snow surely didn't help and the locals used these yellow poles to mark the way that basically say "Dude, it's cool... u r still sane and on the right path", only...it seems that one of the stories the old people of Ushuaia used to tell their grandkids was about "those horrible times when we had a shortage in sheeps, sense of humor and yellow poles", as there aren't very many of them on the path.
Funny enough the same concept that I learned ON BSARI while driving around Salta, up up up up up in the north, several thousand KM from my current location at the time, perfectrly fit for the solution to the "Lack of Yellow Poles" land. Rules 4, 5 & 6 applied also to walking in Ushuaia's park! so I just kept walking on and on...
Do NOT under estimate this boy. There aren't too many of him there.
ah! right! One more issue... arrows. Yep. Even when they had yellow poles, they didn't really bother to add a small arrow on them to say which is the direction to go. Add this to the heavy snow and this is how I have found myself walking on a pile of snow...till I reached what seemed like a lake. Small one but lake. No where to go further from there, which means I must have taken the wrong path and I need to go back.
Hmmmm... thinking back I came to the conclusion that while I was standing on the edge of that lake, 500 meters behind me or so, was the sea. I started to walk back, in hope to find the right path, yet...every step felt more and more wrong for some reason.
Ah, there was a reason. Well...u know the phrase "Walking on thin ice"? well... for a change it felt more real than ever... under this layer of snow there was ice, of the thin type, that covered the water that once were one between the sea and the now newly made lake.
half way on my way back it arrived. Turns out losing 23 kg during the last year wasn't enough for Mr. thin Ice. He asked for more, and its nice way of implying that I'm still too heavy for him, was pretty drastic. Down I went inside the ice-fucking-cold water on my way to...well... waterland.
Yep. I was in there.
With no shnurkel around (like that would have helped me), or any ability to float as was mentioned on this blog many times before, I guess I redefined my "a very likely death in 23 seconds experience". This was the type of the "fuckin' sure death in 2.53 seconds unless u get your ass out of the water NOW!!!!" experience.
Unless god was REALLY focused on the south of America back in those seconds, even he doesn't know how I managed to pull myself out of the water and climb back on the surface, which was known by now as "dangerously thin ice covered by snow". Slowly I made my way to what usually acts as the shore of the sea, when it's not covered with thin ice. For some reason I couldn't help but spending all those seconds thinking about the legendary "Aleksander Bish Mazal" of Rehov Sumsum, and his echoing scream "Lama Lo Amro Li Shyesh Po Od Bor??????" that escorted my childhood. Luckily...I had better luck, and didn't get to have an Od Bor. After reaching the "shore" and when felt safe enough... had a look back.
u know the "RoadRunner" cartoons? how sometimes they show like a map from above, and u see footsteps of the wild cayote going in one direction, bumping into something and then u see his footsteps change direction? well..have a look at this. pretty much the same.
That is 4 steps forward, 1 time down, and quick 6 to the right
A big hole in the water and footprints around it told the story. A look down displayed a wet brown jeans soaked in water up the knees explained how close I was to join to the sealions colony as...bife de humano. Worse than that... if I was inside the water down to my knees, it means the water came as far as... 40 cm +/- from my iPod, that obviously had a "very likely death" experience himself. The poor baby.
Obviously... there was no doubt that if one of us wouldn't have survived the incident, the trip had to come to an end, as my iPod surviving without me seemed as unlikely to take place as me surviving without him.
phew!
Wet me
There I was...half way through my path... going back is the same as going all the way to taxi meeting point, which is known to some people as the end of the world. just staying there isn't an option for a long time... ===> it's the end of the world I'm going to.
17:30. End of the world.
Me - Present
Taxi - Not
Situation - Grande Problema
u know how some people sometimes get to say "I'm stuck at the end of the world..."? well... not in so many words, or maybe in more than can explain the sitaution, this is where I was. At the end of the world...with no bus coming until tomorrow, with a taxi driver that probably forgot, with no reception at the cellphone, with one more apple to go in my lunch bag and...to ice the dulce de leche cake... no battery in my iPod!!!!
Monit Boshesha....
It started to get dark, and when the business gets dark, the me gets worried. Well..only when stuck at this nowhere place...after 5.5 hours of walking, wet feet, shoes and socks, still recovering from a sure death experience, a bus to catch in less than 12 hours, 50 km from Ushuaia itself and with no rescue in the near future. My last and only hope with a small house I spotted on the way...not sure exactly when and for what reason it's there but...as far as I remember...not too far and can't be too hostile. Hey, what do u know...maybe there's an old guy living there, with a young sexy daughter that didn't see a man for 3.5 years?
Well...no, but considering my situation...meeting people that weren't after eating me at the spot was a fuckin' good thing. Walked I go... 30 min....40 min... 50 min...the sun already disappeared behind the mountains...leaving just a few sunshines to light the sky before complete darkness takes over. and then I reached the casa. Turned out to be a "base" of the Argentinian army , probably to protect the most southern border of the country.
Kol Hazain Be....Lekabel Hatzava Be-Ushuaia????
The Casa of Salvation
My broken Spanish once again came to rescue, and somehow I managed to explain the situation they, at first, failed to understand (god damnit...how tough can it be to understand that I got stuck??? I expected to get a "Jorge, here's another western tourist that wanted to see the end of the world, didn't take the time to think the world is round and there's no real end to it, and get stuck here" face, but...no).
After 30 minutes in that casa, after eating very very dry food and drinking the local tea (which seconds only the legendary Mitz Guyava story...), and hoping that no army plans to invade Ushuaia in the near minutes, they formed a solution...sent me back to the city in a car driven by a BASAR TARI probably, not before I raped them to take a picture with me...and...I came back, in one piece, yet still very wet from the knee down, to the hostel.
They only look like El Quida members...
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