15 Feb - Buenos Aires --> Ushuaia

On the seventh day, we (kind of) rested... 5am wakeup call... This was painful after being up past midnight for our final night in Buenos Aires. Ana met us in the morning and helped us get checked in then we parted and stood in line to check bags.

Once through security, Jill wandered around to find some post cards. She spoke in Spanish - at least for the pleasantries - to someone who worked at the shop. She will soon surpass me and I studied Spanish while she studied French. Hint: don't trust the US school system whatsoever regarding foreign language instruction.

He asked where she was from. She said Seattle. He said: Seattle Supersonics of the NBA? After some laughing she then had to try to explain to him that they have moved and no longer play in Seattle but rather OKC. She tried to geographically explain this. This goes down as today's "You can't make this stuff up."

The flight featured endless "Just for Laughs" Gags (Canadian) type of clips similar to Candid Camera and most were hilarious and needed no soundtrack to see the people set up and then laugh at themselves.

Our guide Gabriel picked us up at the airport and ran us by a place to get some sandwiches and then to the hotel. We changed in 20+ minutes and then went for a hike up Martial Glacier. He told us on the way to the hotel it was only a 3km hike, so we packed lightly. Then on the hike we realized it was 3km practically straight up from 1100 feet to 3000 feet to a glacier and we had the return hike too (another 3k down). In addition, it was COLD and blowing like crazy as well as sprinkling on us at about 40 degrees which neither of us really prepared for given the 3km "hike".


On the plus side, the views were outstanding. We also now know to prepare for anything down here so close to Antartica when it comes to weather and terrain.


We went to dinner just a 12 minute walk up the hill from our hotel. Jill had a Centolla Crab (King Crab of the Southern Hemi) and we both had "Chez Manu" items although Jill had the seafood version and I had the lamb (cordero) version. We sat next to an aquarium that had some great stuff in it including a huge crab and something they call a "Fish Frog" which was huge and goofy looking.