After a short few days in Buenos Aires in January, it was already time for us to pack up and head on a plane to the very southern tip of the world: Ushuaia.

When we first got to town and to our very basic airbnb, I was a little worried if it had really made sense coming allll the way down south. At first glance, the town was pretty underwhelming, quite cold compared to Buenos Aires for “high summer”, and I was worried that there wouldn’t be much to do considering how little we had researched this place before hastily booking flights in our December madness. Thankfully, it was definitely worth it!When we woke up the next morning and went to breakfast with the other guests, we realized they were Swiss. Yep. We traveled all the way to the bottom of the world and the first people we met were Swiss German. Go figure.They gave us a couple tips though, and before we knew it, we’d grabbed our daypacks and some supplies and headed off to Glacier Martial.Boy, after all the stress, STRESS, of Kay’s graduation, moving back home, packing up our whole life, haphazardly planning a trip of a lifetime, and a whole lot of computer stress, it felt GOOD to get out there and hike. It heals the soul.The glacier also gave us the first taste of just how stunning Patagonia is. I was instantly gratified and Kay, who hadn’t really thought about going to Patagonia before my insistence, was impressed. He was also simply a very, very happy boy to be out in wilderness again.We found the hike to be very easy going and a great reintroduction to our long hiatus while Kay was in school. The hardest part was bearing the freezing glacial wind at the top for photos and a snack.While we did not have a hard time with this hike, it somehow tired us both out a lot. We were pretty out of practice, and the next day I was actually really sore and fatigued. But with real backpacking coming up, I needed to get ready for some serious hiking both physically and mentally!