ushuaia

so we´re finally down here in ushuaia! couldnt believe it when we rolled into the town on the bus. took us 9 days to do it but we finally did it. the mountains and views from some parts of the town are absolutely breathtaking. they have 3 ski areas here and i was surprised to see that several of the mountain peaks surrounding the city had a light dusting of snow from last night, it is summer here after all. yesterday we opened our bike boxes. to be honest i was scared because we´ve carried them so far, on the plane from seattle to miami to bogota to santiago. on buses and taxis and in our arms through the streets, but everything turned out ok and we were both riding our bikes around town by the late evening. the town is a true alpine town. very reminscent of photos i´ve seen of swiss mountain villages. the architecture appears to be very similiar as well. the hostel we´re staying at is very rustic and homey. i like it. the argentinian exchange rate is not very good and most of the touristy towns tend to be much more expensive. but today we bought groceries and food enough for 4 days of riding without access to a town or restaurant. we´ll be bugging out of ushuaia tomorrow morning and heading over our first mountain pass right off the bat. i wonder how tomorrow will go since we havent been practicing and ive never been good at climbing hills on my bike. im excited to get out on the road. hanging out, waiting i think has been tougher. i wonder how it will be riding for 5 hours everyday. what will i think about? where will my mind be? will i be able to take time to look at everything around me? i guess we´ll have to wait and see. seems like we´ve been here longer than 11 days but thats it. its the first day of february so thats means we´ve got about 3.5 months to get to machu picchu. it will be exciting. we´re at the end of the world. unsure of when i´ll be able to post again. its about 240 km to rio grande from here and thats what we´re pushing for in about 4 days. hope everyone is doing well on the home front. guess i´ll talk later. take care.



zach