Okay, further south still...

Went to El Chalten, Argentina to see Mount Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre, some highly sought-after prizes for climbers. We could see them from the bus and from town as we drove in. The other tourists were snapping photos like mad, even from the bus. I thought "wait until you're off the bus for a better picture; heck, wait until you hike up closer to it and the shot will just get better". Well, I guess the other tourists knew what I didn't: these mountains live in the clouds most of the time. In the afternoon, the mountains disappeared. We tried hiking to a viewpoint looking toward Cerro Torre the next day, but couldn't see anything and the day was mostly an opportunity to test the quality of our rain gear. On the next day, I tried hiking toward Fitz Roy but quickly decided it wasn't getting better, so I turned back to spend the day with Veronica, who had already concluded that it wouldn't be possible to see anything. It was a good thing that Veronica snapped some photos on the day we arrived.
So I guess the moral of the story is to take advantage of what you have available to you in the moment. Hmmm... there's probably a good metaphor for life within that...
So, we got skunked out by the weather in the El Chelten area. Still, the trails were quite pretty, and the views on the day we arrived were quite nice. Add to this a great waffleria, a good brew pub and some great fresh pasta, and life was still quite good.

Feeling like we had had our fill of hiking anyway after all the backpacking in Torres del Paine National Park, we were itching for something different. We grabbed some plane tickets and are now in Ushuaia - about as far south as you can go. Everyone here is madly shopping for Christmas, while we were racing to hit the grocery store before it closes. With most things closed tomorrow, we have filled the little fridge in our little cabin with roasted chicken so that we don't starve on Christmas day. We also have an electric kettle so we will be able to prepare some instant mashed potatoes, and really live it up.

Being nearly the "end of the road", the town is filled with lots of people who are just finishing cycling, motorcycling or RV'ing from Alaska to the tip of South America.

Tomorrow will probably be a quiet day, a chance to relax and read, and on Saturday we will be taken out to an island where we will get to walk around amongst the many penguins that live there. Should be good.