Whenever I have to write a new post for my #travelgoal section I get very excited to see how close I am to finally finish it. My country is very, very large but I think that now that I'm close to the end, visiting all the provinces of Argentina seems to be not so difficult (if you have the time and money to do it, of course). This goal started for me when I was 17 years old since I made my first trip, and since I started writing on this Hive blog, I was able to move much faster on my bucket list goals. This time, I was able to visit province #19 for me, one that I really wanted to visit because people said it was beautiful, and luckily I was able to go and see for myself that this is indeed the case: it is the province of Catamarca, in the northwest region of Argentina .

Visiting the province of Catamarca can be quite a challenge if you don't have your own vehicle. Although this province is said to be beautiful, its tourism is not as well developed as in other places, so there are many beautiful places that cannot be reached by public transport. As my travel goals are rather humble, I was content with just visiting the provincial capital, which I could reach by long-distance bus without any problems. Although I had read that all the beautiful landscapes were in the interior of the province, visiting the capital city didn't seem so bad either ._{Location of San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca, 1100 km from the city of Buenos Aires.
Ubicación de San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca, a 1100 km de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.}

As I had enough time to do so, I arranged a work-for-housing exchange here. There are not many hostels in this place that work in this way, but I just got one that did and had room for me on the dates I wanted. Getting to know this new province had already excited me from the day I knew I was going, but I didn't plan my itinerary so much because I wanted to see what I would find. When I finally arrived, the first thing that surprised me was to see mountains near the city, something I thought would not be possible, so that put me in a good mood .

In total, I stayed for three weeks exchanging work for accommodation in that hostel and in that time I was able to travel a lot, even more than I wanted to. The location was very good for me who travels without a car, because it was in the city centre, very close to all the shops and the main square, so several times I went for a walk in those surroundings. The capital of this province is called San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca and for being not very popular for tourists, it is very beautiful. Its main attraction is the Cathedral Basilica of the Virgin of the Valley, one that steals all eyes with its colour .

This is a typical cathedral full of architectural details and beautiful details. You can enter freely and walk through its corridors, always with the respect due to a place of worship. The whole history of this city revolves around the appearance of a wooden virgin 400 years ago in the valley area of this province, which later led to the construction of this beautiful basilica. This province is quite religious and there are many churches around it, so its tourism revolves around that, at least in this area. It is also possible to find many museums of the virgin, merchandising, holy water and everything related to the catholic religion .

I am not a great devotee of religion, but I love to see how beautiful these cathedrals are. A lot of people were going to visit this place and the main square. In the surroundings of the church it is possible to find other squares, a shopping promenade, restaurants, bars, markets and everything you need for life in the city. For my convenience, there was also some public transport that took you to various beautiful places near the city, so I could do a bit more than just stand around admiring the cathedral .

I fondly remember my trip to San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca. This trip lasted a total of three weeks and I made it in August of this year. This is the 10th province I have visited thanks to my Hive blog and I couldn't be happier to have made it. I loved visiting this place, meeting its people, visiting its landscapes and wandering through its streets. Fortunately, once again I was able to take another step in my travel goal, which is slowly coming to an end. We will see how long it will be until the next province, but in the meantime, I am grateful for my trip to the last new one I visited .

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One thing that struck me about Ushuaia the first time I came here, and continued to do so this time when I stayed much longer, was how late it gets dark. This phenomenon is ideal to enjoy nature, because there is so much light that you can do very long treks that if you have enough energy you can do them in the same day. But for more relaxed walks in the city you can also take advantage of this, as visiting the waterfront with the Beagle Channel reflecting is always magical and you don't need to go that far to appreciate it .

When I had just arrived back in Ushuaia to do my job exchange for hostel accommodation in October, I was assigned to cover a receptionist shift from 1 to 5 PM. I found this timetable a bit controversial at first because I was in the way all day to go to the mountain, but as the days went by I made the most of it. As there are no guests in the hostel at that time, everything was very quiet and I could use that time for my Hive work. That way, when I finished at 5 PM I had all my homework done and I still had enough day ahead of me to go for even a short walk .

Our hostel is about 10 blocks from the city center, which makes it a bit out of the way but close enough to quickly reach the waterfront. Everywhere you look, Ushuaia is beautiful, thanks to its aesthetics and its location between the water and the mountains. As the afternoon progresses, the sky changes colors and the landscape seems to transform. No matter how many times you go downtown, it always seems like a different place .

I took these photos on October 23rd at 9 PM, in the middle of spring in Ushuaia. You can see how the sun was just setting, but there was still a bit more to go until the sky turned completely dark. For the summer solstice, on December 21st, the city held a celebration like every year. That day, sunset was scheduled for 11:05 PM, truly incredible. However, on that date and on some of the following days, the night was never completely dark. If you looked at the horizon, you could still see a band of light in the distance. The sun never left this part of the planet, and I loved witnessing that ❤️.

At this time of day, my favorite place to go for a walk is the Tourist Port. While boats are moored along almost the entire coast of the Beagle Channel bordering the city, this is where the catamarans that take boat trips are concentrated. Seeing the reflections of these boats is beautiful, even more so when there's no wind, like on a day like this. If you're wondering about the cold, in October the average temperature was 10°C, but since it's a dry climate, wearing two layers of clothing was fine. I'm a team summer, but I like the cold in Ushuaia .

In addition to the beautiful landscapes to see, I like this city for how peaceful it always is. It still retains its small-town spirit without losing its functionality. Deciding to spend all this time here (so far) was a great decision. I can take advantage of the entire season of long days and do a lot of trekking, of course. Currently, the sun rises at 8 AM and sets at 8 PM, unlike summer when it was only "dark" from 11 PM to 4 AM. The weather is still pleasant, but it doesn't compare to all the fantastic amounts of daylight: luckily, I was able to see both ❤️.

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Staying in a hostel makes you meet a lot of people from all over and sometimes they can become great friends who inspire you to do great things. In all this time living in Ushuaia I met a lot of people who helped me to discover things I like to do that I didn't know about. One of them was going for a run, something I did very rarely in the last time. After having my legs quite used to trekking, I decided to go further and sign up for a race in the city. Everything went well that day, but I can't say the same about the next day .

During my stay in El Bolsón, a fellow volunteer and I had signed up overnight for a small 3 km street race. This was totally impulsive and not at all premeditated, but we still went and managed to run without stopping for a bit. But in the following days, the muscle pain in my legs lasted for almost a week and it was horrible. Once in Ushuaia, I met Diana, a guest at the hostel who came with the idea of running a 3 km race similar to that one. I thought it would be a good idea to do it, but this time I took care to train a bit earlier .

This race was ‘easy’ in terms of Diana, who runs up to 12km in the mountains, so that also encouraged me to go. It was a free race organised by the municipality of Ushuaia, with a ‘night race’ theme because it was at 9 PM. However, in the spring at the end of the world at that time it's still daylight, so ‘night’ was just a figure of speech. But it was great that it's so late and everything is so clear in the sky, I loved that .

As for the race, there were two modalities: 3 km participative and 8 km competitive. The one we chose was the lower category and included a 30-block circuit along the main avenues of Ushuaia. Although I had trained a little, this was not enough to sign up for the longer section. I hike and walk up to 30km a day all the time, but I know that running takes a different kind of training, so it's best to take it one step at a time .

My run was smooth and it took me about 18 minutes to cover the 3 km of the race. It was very exciting to run all that way with the race people while the Ushuaia sky was just starting to get completely dark. When the whole event was over, with the 8 km course also finished, there was a prize giving and raffle. I'm not a very lucky person for these things so obviously I didn't win anything, but I stayed until the end to see if I could make it .

As this time my preparation before this race was different from El Bolsón, I thought I would come out of it with no muscle pain, but I was wrong. The muscle pain after this race also lasted a few days until I was able to recover properly. It is obvious that my trekking legs are not the same as my running legs, so I have to be careful. After this, running even a little bit per week became a habit for me: I don't know if I will ever run 12 km in the mountains like Diana, but at least I keep myself in shape in case the opportunity ever arises .

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