Journey to World´s End

Our final southbound bus was the most interesting yet. First, we drove through at least 500 sheep being herded down the road by gauchos. Second, the bus drove onto this huge ferry to cross the Magellan Straight to get to Tierra del Fuego which I had forgotten about freaked out about sinking for a second. Bound to get sick if we sat on the bus we went out on the viewing deck to watch as we plowed over rough water and huge waves. It was windy and beautiful and as the captain changed course the waves hit broadside and sprayed us with a sheet of salt water. Thinking it was fun, or perhaps from having bus fever we stayed up there and were soaked before we knew it. It was a damp rest of the way. At our connection in Rio Grande Nate began talking to another American couple who have been fortunate enough to have been sailing around the west coast of the America´s for the past three years - Alaska, down to Ecuador for a year, out to Easter Island and are now traveling around South America. Somehow they still haven´t learned Spanish though which surprised me. They were nice and joined us on the final leg of the journey to Ushuaia, the supposed southern most city on earth even though 4 more towns are on the map south of here. And what a wild finale it was. Armed with a little collectivo and what we hoped was an experienced driver we drove right into a huge snowstorm. Over unpaved windy dirt roads, through thick sideways blowing snow and with 1ft visibility< /span> in front of us this guy was cruising down the roads, passing people, hitting the breaks just in time, sliding around - it was wild and crazy and fun even though we should have been fearful for our lives. We arrived unharmed and were left to hike around through town in the middle of the night in a snowstorm searching for a cheap hostel.