Looking Back – Discussing Ushuaia with Someone Born There

One of the things I enjoy most in life is storytelling. Most of the time when I’m writing a blog post, the first paragraph takes the largest amount of time and rewrites. As weird as that sounds, this paragraph that you’re reading right now is where I set up my story from beginning to end. This post aims at sharing a bit about why I travel, why this blog came to be in the first place, and it will explore some of the human underpinnings that make travel so rewarding for me. At the same time, it gives the change to be a storyteller not only to you as you read this, but to a new acquaintance I met through work contacts named Ernesto.

 

Last August, I spent some time at a corporate event in Las Vegas, and mention to a friend (and long-time work colleague from one of our partners) that I wrote and maintained a blog of my travels here at Free Range Hobo. He said he would take a look, I gave him a business card, and I didn’t think too much about the exchange until a little later when he called me to tell me that not only had he read the blog, but that he noticed I had stopped in Ushuaia, Argentina, and this was the hometown of one of his coworkers. He forwarded the blog information, and soon I found myself emailing back and forth to Ernesto regarding his time growing up in Ushuaia as it was doing some growing of its own.

 

Yep, that’s Ernesto with his father in the National park just outside Ushuaia, Argentina.

 

 

And here’s a picture of Ernesto’s Brother (I had originally thought this was Ernesto himself, but I stand corrected!) Ushuaia has changed a little since then. Here is a photo in 2016 which I think lines up behind him:

 

 

 

Comparing these pictures during the email exchange got me thinking about Ushauia, and living there. It was one of the things I couldn’t get out of my mind when Jen and I had visited Antarctica… the gateway to Antarctica on this side of the world is Ushuaia. When it’s the right time of year (with the Antarctic ice melted), explorers fill the town as they gear up to head South. Those not headed further South have likely just completed a trek down the Pan-American Highway which completes just out of town, a months-long (on the short end) commitment. Though Ushuaia feels very much like a tourist town today, there is one serious caveat that is hard to explain without experiencing it. People don’t go to Ushuaia casually, the ratio of true “tourists” is pretty low. People travel to Ushuaia as explorers, as wanderers, seeking the edge of the world, or maybe the edge of their endurance, and they find it in, South of, or along the way to “Fin del Mundo”.

 

 

 

 

I wondered though, as we walked the streets only a few years ago, what it must be like to live there and watch all the travelers making their way through the city and beyond. Meeting Ernesto was my chance to find out, my chance to tell stories, and hear his. Over a few emails, Ernesto and I discussed where I had visited in Ushuaia. I’ll tell anyone and everyone about my deep love and affection for the coffee/ice cream shop Freddo, and talked about walking the town. Ernesto shared that his father had built their home when they arrived in Ushuaia (pictured is one of the first iterations, though it would change over time), and that he and his brothers had grown up as the town was dynamiting and grading to put in roads.

 

Preparing to build the house:

 

 

 

Ernesto’s brothers, about to head off to school

 

And headed to school… once again in a MUCH smaller Ushuaia.

 

I shared a picture I took from the hotel where we stayed the night before our voyage to Antarctica, and he shared the reverse from the town looking up the mountain. In the early 1980’s, there wasn’t a hotel on the ridge… but at the same time I wasn’t around yet either! I’m including the picture he sent me for context, it sure has grown a lot over the years and we’re not even focusing on the vast industrial side on the bottom-left of this picture:

 

 

 

 

 

The red circle marks the location of the picture just below this one. The red line was the “edge of town” while Ernesto lived in Ushuaia

 

 

Life in a much smaller Ushuaia, taken from within the red circle above (Also, if you look closely, you can see the black-roofed building present in the second picture on this post near the top).

 

We would go on to talk briefly about the fact that Ernesto was expecting his first daughter any day (it’s been a few months now and I hear they’re all settling into the new routine!), and that Ernesto did in fact grow up to travel himself and bought a motorbike to travel around Europe after seeing all of the visitors. At some point, he dreams of doing the same in South America, and mentioned the bikes arriving from Alaska specifically, completing one of the longest possible treks from North to South in the world.

 

 

 

 

I should mention that typically when I’m talking to the company where Ernesto works… smiling isn’t in order. Ernesto works for a data recovery company and though they are very good at what they do… if you’re talking to them you’ve likely had a bad day already. During our email exchange, though, I couldn’t help but keep smiling like an idiot. Each picture fed the smile, each bit of story and life exchanged reminded me of why I enjoy sharing stories in the first place. Out of all the things in the world we might have in common, it was a little town near the Southern tip of the world that connected us and had us talking. It’s interactions like this one that drive me to post on this blog, and why Jen and I founded and built Free Range Hobo in the first place. Name a continent, and I have story. Traveling to San Jose, Costa Rica? You should try the steak at Lorenzo’s in Plaza Itskatzu. Cape Town, South Africa? Hit the wharf, grab some coffee, and maybe enjoy seafood at Harbor House. Visiting Colorado? Try the sushi at Hana Matsuri (I know right?!? We’re land-locked and that’s crazy, but it’s amazing.) My Ushuaia stories include coffee shops, walking the streets, having some amazing seafood, and climbing aboard a ship that would take me on the wildest adventure of my life. Ernesto has stories too, and I can’t wait to hear more. I plan on following up with him from time to time from now on, and maybe meeting him one day in person.

 

Ernesto’s family home, Ushuaia

 

 

 

Cynics say that when you first start traveling and broadening your cultural base, you come to the mistaken conclusion that regardless of culture and upbringing everyone is “the same” at a human level, and that eventually you are forced out of this opinion as you travel and see more of the world and its people. I disagree with this… at least to some degree… and always will. I think there are always connections that we share even at our most-diverse… and this is just one small example of threads connected, of shared interest and shared human experience. It’s part of why I enjoy speaking to those that travel as much or more than I do about their travels, both to hear about their life and relate it to my own. I’m very lucky to have a broad experience base to choose from, and a lot of stories left to tell. I hope I never lose this opinion of the world and its people.

 

 

Below is Ernesto’s father, chopping wood in Ushuaia. I grew up in a small town in Colorado, and this picture could have easily fit in there as I grew up… we even had the flannel! (though I do remember a log splitter… eventually)