On our first full day, we take a Jeep tour through tangled forests and sparkling lakes, which send an unexpected flash of longing for home through me. There’s a couple on our tour—half Argentine, half American, one speaking Spanish, the other speaking English with our guide, and Cali and I pivoting between the two. The couple has been together two years; he’d just been to visit her family in one of the northern provinces. “Good thing I speak some Spanish now,” he tells us in English. “He doesn’t speak any Spanish,” she tells us later in Spanish. I ask how they talk to each other. She flicks the cigarette she’s smoking. “We don’t!” she says cheerfully, and the three of us laugh and laugh. Lunch is served in a tiny tent that we come across, seemingly by magic, in the forest where there’s a burly cook who serves us bloody, delicious steak and quotes Borges.

On our second day, we take a cruise through the accessible parts of the bay and spot sea lions and penguins on the harsh, barren shores of the island.

Though there isn’t much to the town itself, the views from the bay are spectacular, and we spend a long afternoon wandering around. There is a large sign in the classic Argentine fileteado that reads USHUAIA: FIN DEL MUNDO. The end of the earth.

“Liz, go hop in there and I’ll take a picture!” Cali says.

I’m standing next to the sign smiling broadly when I hear her.

“Katie?”

The sound of my name, which I haven’t heard in months now, is immediately disorienting. I turn in the direction of the woman who says it. Cali is watching, bemused, thinking that this stranger has mistaken me for someone else.

“Katie Cleary!” Now she’s only a few feet from me and I process her face.

“Kjersti!”

I wrap my arms around her: my rival, my friend. Fresh off her gold medal win.

“What are you doing here?” she says. “Where have you been? You dropped off the face of the earth, and now I find you at the end of the earth!” I’m not sure if Kjersti is as adorably corny in Norwegian as she is in English, but if not, the Norwegians are missing out.

“Oh, um . . . I’m living in Buenos Aires right now. I’m just here visiting with my friend, Cali.” I look over to see Cali standing apart from us, looking confused and reticent. I wave her over with a look that I hope says that I’ll explain later.

“Kjersti Larsen, Calliope Ford. Cali, meet Kjersti, my old friend and newly minted gold medal downhill racer.”

“Oh shit,” Cali says as the two shake hands. “That’s incredible, congrats!”

“Thank you, and nice to meet you. I love Buenos Aires. San Telmo,” she says, clutching her heart, “my favorite.”