Highlands, North Carolina

Just a quick note to announce our safe return home to Highlands. Spent the last day in Buenos Aires stroling around San Telmo, with it's huge Sunday flea market and tons of street performers, ranging from Tango performers to Jamaican Reggae bands etc. After buying a few selected souveniers we returned to the hotel to regroup and catch our ride to the airport.
Our flight left at 11:30 pm and we were happy to get on and start our journey home. One stop in Miami and we got to Atlanta where Colin picked us up. Pretty uneventful flight, even our luggage arrived this time.
So, after I download all my 593 pictures I will post a few of the best.

Buenos Aires

Sad to leave the beautiful mountains and glaciers behind, we flew off to Buenos Aires. Took an early bus ride from El Chalten to El Calafate and caught a 12 noon flight. An amazing sunrise along the way, including our first sighting of the native Guacamos (SP ?) an animal that looks half kangaroo, half deer.
Arriving in Buenos Aires we got major city shock, what a huge city! Also the weather was different, very humid, cloudy and warm, opposite the dry sunny days of the mountains.
We were adventurous and managed to find the right local bus to get us to our hotel. Quite an accomplishment with our luggage, only cost us 50 cents each including the good views. Today we took a city tour, a three hour deal, touching on the major sites. Walking was not an option, too many sore joints and blisters.
In the afternoon we went and visited Eva Peron´s museum, that was very interesting, she was a fascinating woman. Now we are ready to go out for our last dinner and some Tango!! Tango is very big in this city, it´s in their blood and I can´t wait to see it for myself. Got a little glimps of it on a street cafe already. Just hope Tony behaves and doesn´t cut in !!
So, this may be the last blog until we get home, leaving late tomorrow night. I must say after three weeks we are ready to get home, living out of a suitcase isn´t always fun, but hey, I am not complaining, every minute of it was well worth it.
Argentina and Chile are both beautiful countries with equally nice and friendly people. They don´t always like it each other, but that is a whole other story.
Just heard on the news that there is some snowstorm in the east, I guess that will be our welcome back home.
Off to dinner and Tango.

El Chalten - FitzRoy

Arrived in the small but booming new town of El Chalten, in the middle of the Los Glaciares National Park. A four hours busride, half of it on gravel roads, but the scenery made up for it.
Today we went hiking for 7 hrs. amidst beautiful forests at the feet of Fitz Roy Mountain, the biggest mountain in Argentina at a mighty 12,000 feet. There were glaciers in the distance and it was a magnificent view. If the feet hold up, we will go on another hike tomorrow before heading out on Friday morning (6 am) to drive back to El Calafate to catch a flight to Buenos Aires for our last leg of the journey.
We have been so lucky with the best weather. Sunny, warm but windy. Hope it will last another day.
Got to run, more next time. Best to all of you.

El Calafate - Perito Moreno Glacier

After a quick flight to El Calafate, we checked into our Hostel "America del Sur" and proceeded to rent a car for the afternoon to head out to Perito Moreno glacier, since all the tours were full. We joined up with a Canadian back packer and drove west through some desert like scenery, spoted with huge azur blue lakes. Then, after entering the national park, there it was, coming around a curve, the magnificent view of the huge glacier. It is amasing, 2.5 miles wide and some 150 feet tall. I never imagined it to be this breath taking. Not just the size and view of it, but hearing it, was even more amazing. It is called "calfing,¨the breaking off of chunks of ice, splashing in the water below. An unbelievable sight! The weather was perfect, relatively warm and calm. I think this was the best part yet of our trip, even better then the ferry trip! Tomorrow we are going on an organized boat excursion, seeing more glaciers, especially the biggest one of S.America, the Upsala glacier. We were supposed to go to the ¨"Torres del Paine¨national park, but could not find a seat on a bus. That was disappointing, as we really looked forward to this. But the glacier tour should be great too and maybe we come back one year to go to Torres. The season here is about to end, but there are still lots of tourists here. We are enjoying our hostel stays, meeting lots of wonderful young back packers, always fun to be around with, better then the stuffy old folks you meet in your avarage hotel.
Anyways, time to get to bed, had a long day. Thanks for all your great comments, we love hearing from you!

PS Yesterday I spemt an hour downloading pictures at an internet cafe, only to comeout with one picutre on the blog, oh well, I am learing. I promise to post tons of them when we get back. And I meant Naval not Navel Academy!! It was 1 am and after a good bottle of Malbec!!

Ushuaia, Argentina

After a great hike up Cerro Banderas mountain, with view over the Beagle Channel and a fun night at the Puerto Williams Yacht Club, mingling with sailors from all over the world and hearing their stories, we then got a ferry (Zodiac type inflatable!) to cross the rough channel to Ushuaia. This is a big town with lots of tourists coming from cruise ships. The claim to be the town at the end of the world, but it really is Puerto Williams, being even further South, but in Chile. We found their is not much love lost between these two countries, as they would not exchange our Chilean Pesos here for Argentine $. But they are happy to take USdollars!!

We had fun touring the harbor, looking at boats and checking out the Argentine Navel museum.

Off to El Calafate tomorrow, catching a 10am flight. Well I finally managed to get a picture on. This the "Italia" glacier we passed by in our ferry boat, it was just breath taking! We saw at least 6-8 glaciers in a row !!

Tierra del Fuego

a 36 hr voyage through unimaginal beauty! I am sitting here in a little internet cafe literally at the end of the World, the town of Puerto Williams. We had a very memorable ferry trip all throught the Magellanes and Beagle Chanels, seeing more glaciers and fjords then we ever dreamed of. The sheer beauty of which took our breath away (the cold wind too). We were lucky to get our cabin with the bunkbeds, otherwise there was no comfort, just lots of freight and only about 20 passengers. We had to fight for our cabin, as they gave it to someone else, because we did not come by the day before to pay in cash, not knowing that they were not going to use our credit card that held the reservation. So, we were super glad we got on, it was the best part of our trip so far.
The boat often was accompanied by lots of seals, sealions and orcas.
Regarding the pix, they won´t let me download stuff on their computers here, because of virus scare, so you have to wait till we get home.
Off to explore Isla Navareno. !! (Also need to find out how we get across the Beagle Chanel to get to Ushuaia tomorrow, to catch our flight the El Calafate , Argentina. More from there next time. Adios. (no time to hit the spell check!)

First Rainy day !

Just a quick note, we´re about to get on the ferry to Puerto Williams (Terra del Fuego). We are so excited, especially since we almost did not make it. They gave our seat away to someone else, there was some misunderstandings with the payment. After much arguing, they let us on and we are ready to sail into the cold waters of the Magellanes Channel, hoping to have great views of the glaciers on the way.
We are willing this rain to stop and the sun to accompany us.
Got to run.