After the dinner last night Fabian drove me to the airport where my flight to Ushuaia would leave at 4:30 in the morning. It was also Fabian who picked me up when I arrived in Buenos Aires three weeks ago, and who has been a helping out with a whole bunch of other things. Thanks a lot for all the help Fabian. Meeting people like you is the real reason a trip like this is worth it!
In the airport I met Petter from Sweden. He left home a couple of days ago with his bicycle and was also heading for Ushuaia. Interesting cycling stories were soon exchanged. Petter had made another cycling trip from Sweden to Iran last year. A trip that came to a sudden end. He had been cycling in the dessert, apparently near some nuclear sites. The police had stopped him, opened his laptop computer, and found that his google map was zoomed in on a “classified area”. When he then told he was studying physics back home he was arrested for two weeks! At some stage I had thought about cycling through Iran as well. Now I’m glad I didn’t.
The three and a half hour flight to Ushuaia went by fast as I was mostly sleeping. The approach was quite spectacular. Welcome to the End of the World as they call this place, the southernmost city on the globe.
With a temperature of 5°C it was also much much colder than anything I have experienced lately. I was starting to doubt how I would cope with the cold, rainy and windy challenges ahead. On the other hand this was exactly why I had come here; to seek out a challenge that I’m frankly not 100% sure I can finish. Canada feels very very far away.
Petter and I assembled our bicycles and rode into town. It was already time to find the gloves and hat I had bought in Buenos Aires. We stopped at a pub for a bite to eat as the rain was coming down outside.
While Petter was planning to cycle straight into the wilderness and look for a campsite I had booked a hostel bed for my first night. I warm bed and enjoying a beer with fellow backpackers was just what I needed to acclimatize to the end of the world.
