Ushuaia

Bike sorted! What a relief. This was the thing that was not letting me feel happy and excited yet. I spent quite a few hours on a terrace putting it all together. Some good people helped me with a front rack as (possibly stupidly) I left one important thing to sort in Ushuaia. I needed to get some holes drilled in metal plates of a rack – and it’s now done! Someone from the hostel took me to a building site, the guys there couldn’t help me but told to go somewhere else so we drove there and the guy said he could do it. They delivered the rack back to the hostel and someone brought it back to my room – what a service!

Luckily my bike survived the trip. Handlebar and all the cables are fine and this is the thing I was worried about the most after I had noticed the box had a hole.

I now have a ‘pole’ fitted on my bike to attach a flag to (yes, I do have a flag). How cool is that! I really feel Polish now :)

By the way, quite a lot of French here in the hostel. Germans too.

Ushuaia (pronounced by Argentineans ‘usuaia’) is a beautifully located town. Beagle Channel on one side and impressive mountains everywhere else. It is very touristy though and more expensive than London. Can’t really wait to leave.

My dream for the trip is to get to little villages (but big enough that they would have a café, decent shop etc.). There I can spend a whole siesta time. Over here in Ushuaia it all seems to be a bit too ‘posh’ for me. Too ‘I am at the end of the world, I have to do this and that, see this and that, I have wallet full of money’. I don’t want to be nasty to anyone, they have all the right to do it, I am just not in that state of mind now. Maybe just because I will soon start cycling I’ve already detached a bit from standard tourists? To them I am a freak I guess. So be it, I don’t mind. But then at the same time I can’t find many links that connect me with them either.

Moby now in the common area in the hostel. Oh, I love this music. I think it’s from the album ‘18’.

I don’t know what to feel really. Don’t yet quite comprehend what I am about to start. I am separated from my big expedition. Still. I think it will really get me tomorrow, when I press ‘Play’ in my i-Pod, clip my shoes in and off I go. Wind in my hair, cold wind, I guess, mountains, swearing on the climbs and free-wheeling to Tolhuin. 100km for tomorrow. I have to do it though it is not ideal for the first day. They have a nice campsite in Tolhuin, by the lake – and if I don’t get there I will need to camp somewhere in the mountains. Rather pointless. Second section – about 130km to Rio Grande. Even bigger task but then I thought that if the wind allows me to cycle normally I should do it and then rest for a day in Rio Grande. There is a hostel there that apparently has a facility for long-distance cyclists to lock their bikes. Sounds pretty cool – I mean I guess there is a big chance I will meet there someone who is about to finish their tour. Otherwise I’d need to do this 130km in two days. Technically there is no need for me to rest after 2 days of cycling but if I do 230km in 2 days I suppose it’s more than enough.

I am falling asleep so I’d better finish it.