Ushuaia - the end of the world

Today has been an unpredicatable, yet one of the most fulfilling and amazing days where I managed to climb Cerro Guanaco, which as it turns out is a 'Hard' hike on the rating scale and takes 4 hours to reach the summit. I've never before now known my true physical limits to up and back in 5.5hours, but apparently that's great time and I was feeling 80% well (still). The hike is so diverse that it has so many extremes it can be hard to comprehend at first. Not all of this was clear at first, and as I was climbing I started to think if I'd perhaps bitten off more than I can chew, as I can have a habbit of doing. The extremes are absolutely polar out here where you start the hike (me and 2 others) walking beside a beach at the base of a mountian valley (I though was the Andes, but apparently they haven't started yet and it's some other range) with green and crystal blue rivers and lakes, before you hike past waterfalls with ice cold water through the forest and enter clearing to get one of the best view you'll ever see in your life! Then it turns into broken angle territory with a jungle of twisted trees like Fangorn forrest from LOTR - Two Towers, then a savanahh with mud pits (not boiling) when you can easily put your foot in almost knee deep mud (fun), then all the way up this intensely cold and windy baron rock face for a couple of kilometeres, which some parts almost leaving you on all fours as it gets that steep, until you reach the summit that has patches of snow up there, and I had a play, as I'd never seen or touched snow before. The top was the best view taht money can't buy, postcard stuff and there's lots of photos, but with 1.3mb jpeg files I have to find a way of scaling the pics down via an internet site perhaps, so stay tuned. In other news, we camped out in the Patagonian desert the other night, with some of my travel mates playing football (soccer) with the locals, and the old local spanish fossil man showing me his ancient axe and spearhead and artifact collection and wanaco (liek a llama) skins, so something interesting there, but I don't think he understood my Spanish very well as I barely do. The next night we were in Chile and found this great little hotel which was like out of a movie of a haunted house or could even maybe pass for the Rocky Horror house, but it was cool, with creaking hallways and heatinrs in the lounge rooms, it was one of the best places I stayed all trip so far, and all for $12USD and to escape the freezing Chillean wind, it was a wise move. Greets go out to all and hope things are well. Mike, I hear you're making trhe move to Liz, so it only Leaves you Stu as the original man on the block in the department. Hope you guys at DET are all doing well. Mike, I think I added her email to my list, thanks for the email though. Irasema, how's uni going? Miguel, been keeping out of trouble still mate? :-) Hasta luego todo! Adam