Although the trip to Chile had passed more quickly than I wanted it to, its end meant no great sorrow for me either. This was because instead of returning to my home in Buenos Aires, I had planned my return to Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego. Summer was approaching, the best time not to feel so cold at the end of the world, so I wanted to return to take advantage of the pleasant weather and enjoy the mountains a little more. When I got back, there still weren't that many guests in the hostel where I was volunteering, so if I wanted to socialise a bit more, I had to resort to my trusty tool Couchsurfing. Once again, it worked perfectly .

Having returned from the neighbouring country after my trip with M brought me back to the reality of what it was like to travel alone. This is no problem for me because I love socialising, but the problem is when there are no people around to do it. But thanks to knowing how Couchsurfing works, I was almost always able to find occasional friends to go out with. And as I like diverse groups, where it is possible to exchange many anecdotes, I made sure that we were at least four people per outing (incidentally, to share the taxi to the trailheads).

For those who are not familiar with Couchsurfing, this is an application for travellers whose main purpose is to obtain temporary accommodation in private homes. In this app, there are people who offer a place in their home and travellers who can request this type of stay for free. The main purpose is to share a good time with the hosts while getting to know the place you are passing through, and also to save on accommodation. But as I never need this, as I have my stay at the hostel where I volunteer, I just use another section of the app called ‘Hangouts’. This function allows you to make your profile available for a walk at that moment: it's like a ‘Tinder’ for travellers, in which if you match with another person or persons, a chat is generated so that you can chat and plan a casual walk.

Throughout my stay in Ushuaia, which lasted almost six months in total, I used Couchsurfing Hangouts dozens of times. This allowed me to meet many people from all over, with whom we shared treks, pub crawls, walks in the city and even meetings in the hostel I was staying in. The first Couchsurfing meeting I did after returning from Chile was with three guys, one from England, one from Turkey and one from Argentina. We decided to trek to the Cinco Hermanos Lagoon, where we first went to the Bridal Veil Waterfall. I knew it but the boys didn't, so we stopped there for a moment to take pictures.

The stretch to the waterfall was short but quite steep, but the four of us were experienced trekkers so it was no problem for us. What was a problem was communicating with the guys from England and Turkey, as my English is very bad. However, I gave it my best shot and I think we exchanged some good ideas in the time we shared together. They were also able to practice their Spanish with me, although their level of the opposite language was much better than mine.

The outings I organised on Couchsurfing were always fun, and in the process saved us a bit of money, as well as having a good time. A taxi to the start of this trail and back to the city cost $20, which is not much for four people. By the way, we all took away a language lesson, as well as having seen a nice place. When I told my friends that I was going to the mountains with people I'd only spoken to for a few minutes in the morning via an app, they were quite worried, but after all the time in Ushuaia doing that, they relaxed. Now I have Couchsurfing contacts all over the world: I just have to get on a plane and go visit them ❤️.

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If there's one thing Ushuaia has plenty of, it's places to go trekking. Most of them can be done in the same day, but there are some others that are worth taking the trouble to bring a tent to spend at least one night. It wasn't in my plans to go camping at the end of the world where it's so cold, but one day everything worked out perfectly and I jumped at the chance. That's how I was able to visit the Caminante Lagoon, one of the best trekkings I've ever done in this place ❤️.

Si hay algo que sobra en Ushuaia, son los lugares para hacer trekking. La mayoría de ellos pueden realizarse en el mismo día, pero hay algunos otros por los cuáles vale la pena tomarse el trabajo de llevar la carpa para ir a pasar al menos una noche. No estaba en mis planes ir a acampar en el fin del mundo en donde hace tanto frío, pero un día todo se dio perfectamente para que así sea y no dudé en tomar la oportunidad. Así fue como pude ir a visitar la Laguna del Caminante, en uno de los mejores trekkings que hice en este lugar ❤️.

The trekking to the Caminante Lagoon is one of the most requested by the tourists that come to the mountains of Ushuaia. There are two ways to get to this place, since it is located within a circular route: you can choose to do half of the way and retrace your steps, or go all the way around. In total, there are 32 kilometres of trekking with a high level of difficulty, and even though there are people who do it all in the same day, the best thing to do is to camp to rest a little and appreciate the place better.

El trekking hasta la Laguna del Caminante es uno de los más solicitados por los turistas que llegan hasta las montañas de Ushuaia. Hay dos formas de llegar hasta este lugar ya que se encuentra dentro de una ruta circular: podés optar por hacer la mitad del camino y volver sobre tus pasos, o dar toda la vuelta completa. En total, son 32 kilómetros de caminata con una exigencia alta, y a pesar de que hay gente que lo hace todo en el mismo día, lo más recomendable es acampar para descansar un poco y apreciar mejor el lugar.

It was an ordinary day and I had already finished my morning reception shift at the hostel, so I had the whole day off and the next day my schedule was in the evening. That's when I heard that a group of guests was organising to go to this lagoon, with camping included, as the idea was to go all the way around. It was the owner of the hostel who suggested me to go with them, taking advantage of the fact that they were a big group, and that I should not worry about the tent as he would lend me his. It didn't take me ten minutes to accept the proposal and I already had all my stuff ready to go to sleep in the mountain.

The issue then was that this ‘big group’ that had proposed the walk was not well organised, because some had to do things earlier or were taking too long to leave. So one of the hostel guests and I decided to go alone, with the idea that we would meet at the lagoon and walk at our own pace. The big spoiler was that this never happened: we never crossed paths with any of the other guests so we did the whole walk just the two of us.

Actually, this is not exactly a circular route, but makes a ‘U’ shape, starting at one end of the city and ending at the other. You can start the walk on either side as the lagoon is almost in the middle, so my companion and I decided to take the easier option. This was to start in the Andorra Valley, where we would go through the forest on the first day and on the second day, when we were rested, we would climb up to a big mountain pass to finish our descent to the city. The walk through the forest was relatively easy because it did not have many climbs, we only had to cross several bridges over the river, built with great ingenuity which made them very picturesque.

The second interesting thing that we saw in the forest was a beaver tree at close quarters. In Ushuaia there is currently a plague of artificially introduced beavers in these ecosystems, which have been responsible for modifying the watercourses and destroying the trees around their burrows. Having no natural predator, these animals have spread freely throughout the island, forming these spaces that are always seen as shady. We did not have the opportunity to see a beaver live that day, but the marks of its presence were clear.

Two hours and 7 kilometres into our hike, we finally emerged from the forest and came across some signs indicating that to the right was the lagoon and to the left was the road to the city. Taking the right path, a big climb awaited us, which we could see from there. It had been almost a year since the last time I had hiked with a heavy backpack, but it was the first time I had also carried a tent, so my physical condition gave everything to successfully complete this climb.

Although the day had started out sunny and beautiful, by the time we reached the Caminante Lagoon there was no longer any trace of that weather. However, the beautiful colour of this lagoon is independent of the sun, as you can see in the pictures. The sky had turned grey, but the emerald green colour of the lagoon was intact, contrasting nicely with its mountainous surroundings. It was indeed a very beautiful place ❤️.

Before starting the hike, we had investigated that just 900 metres further on there was another lagoon. This was the Caminante Superior Lagoon, for which we had to cross a river barefoot to get there. This lagoon was nice too, but not as nice as the first one we had seen. We had considered camping there, but as we had nowhere to shelter from the wind, we went back to our main idea of camping with everyone else back there.

By the time we returned, we were still hoping to see some of the other guests at the hostel, but this was not to be. We stood for a long time at the viewpoint of the lagoon waiting for them, but no one showed up. We didn't complain about this because the view was beautiful, but after a while, the cold and the wind forced us to go down to the shore of the lagoon where we camped. In total, it took us 4 hours to get to this place, and after having walked 16 kilometres with our backpacks on our backs, I was grateful for the decision to spend the night there.

Going to Caminante Lagoon and camping there is completely free, so we only had to pay $8 for a taxi, split between two people. The truth is that enjoying the mountains of Ushuaia is very cheap, which makes up for the fact that getting to this place on the map can be expensive. I was delighted to have seen the lagoon and to have someone to go there with: we may not have been as large a group as I had hoped, but at least we had a good day of trekking .

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Since I understood how Couchsurfing worked for casual rides, I used it until my last day in Ushuaia. So far, I had always organised trips with up to three people from the app, but then I saw that there is a section to organise outings further in advance. There, people suggest different types of activities to do as a group, such as going for walks around the city or going out at night. But on one occasion, I saw that someone had suggested a trek to a lagoon that I hadn't visited, and it seemed like a good opportunity to go and see it with someone else .

This trek was about the one to Laguna Celeste. This hike was indicated as being of medium difficulty, with an estimated duration of 8 hours and 12 km round trip. In this part of the application you can confirm your attendance to a walk, and for this weekend outing, there were 11 people confirmed. We had agreed to meet at noon in the city to go in different cars of the participants and luckily, almost everyone was on time.

We split up between the different vehicles and drove to the start of the trail, about 25 km from the city of Ushuaia. We were relaxed about the timetable because there was plenty of daylight in the summer in Ushuaia, so we started the hike at a leisurely but safe pace so that the whole group would be united. We were a very diverse group with different levels of mountain training, but we wanted everyone to make it to the end.

The trek to Laguna Celeste has wonderful views because all the time it passes through incredible corners of the mountains. It also passes through different panoramic points where you can see the whole valley and also the effects of the beaver forests in the landscape of Ushuaia. As soon as the hike started, the trail had quite a steep positive slope, but as there was no snow at that time of the year, the difficulty was not so high.

Of course, the idea of keeping the group together didn't last that long. As the walk progressed, some fell further behind us, while others quickly overtook us. I decided to form a group with two other girls and it was with them that I walked the whole way. One of the girls even walked only a kilometre and decided to turn back when she saw that the climb was so steep. Those are the risks of big groups, but it was still fun.

This trail has several interesting things to see: the Celeste Lagoon where we were going, the Alvear Glacier, above the Celeste Lagoon, and on the other side, the Alvear Lagoon. The trail to Laguna Alvear is a detour from the road to Laguna Celeste, which if I had been alone or with less people, I would have taken the trouble to go and see, taking advantage of the fact that I was there. But as this outing was more for Couchsurfing recreation and not so much for the mountaineering ego, we only went as far as the lagoon we agreed on.

After a little more than three hours of walking, we finally reached the Celeste Lagoon. My small subgroup of three was in the middle of the group and once there, we expected to see four other girls who had gone ahead of us, but they were not there. There were other people who had arrived before us, but no one we knew. This seemed strange to us, but we knew they would show up sooner or later.

About half an hour must have passed, when these four girls appeared behind us. It turned out that they had got lost, because they hadn't correctly followed the small stone turrets on the road. Luckily, they realised that they had taken the wrong path before they went too far. About fifteen minutes after them, the missing group of three appeared. Finally, we all arrived safely at the lagoon.

Once we were all together, we took the opportunity to have our lunch and rest for a while. This lagoon was very beautiful, with a very contrasting light blue colour to the surrounding mountains. It was also accompanied by the glacier behind it, which added a little more charm. In addition, you could see a lot of small waterfalls coming down the mountain, and even a perfectly cubic shaped rock. That was very rare.

As all the snow had melted and the pass was clear, it was possible to walk around the lagoon without any problems. We were able to get up to a high point, where we had a good view of the whole lagoon. We also saw another small lagoon on the side, which is probably part of the main lagoon. I always like to find a high point to get a better view of the landscape, and this place was perfect for that.

After that crowded Couchsurfing trip, several of us continued to see each other on subsequent trips. In fact, we all already knew each other but separately, as we had used the app before. Of all these people, there were some travellers and some locals, so we were able to exchange with them their experiences of what it's like to live in Ushuaia on a permanent basis. I loved this outing and the trekking experience as a whole, and above all, I'm glad that we all (or almost all), managed to complete it ❤️.

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