Patagonia – Buenos Aires

15/16/19/20 Jan 2010 – Buenos Aires
With a population of 13.5 million, Buenos Aires is the 3rd largest metro area in Latin America

15th	11:00	Cab from hotel to airport ($13, 30 mins)
	14:00	Flight to Buenos Aires (Arg Airlines, 3 hrs, $128 + $10 exit fee)
	17:00	Cab to hotel (Lola House, $12, 30 mins).  We had neglected to get the address of the hotel and only had the name and GPS coordinate.  That got us close (showed the map to the cab driver), but the hotel doesn’t put their name on the building anywhere – making it fairly tricky to find unless you know the exact address.  The owner explained that in Argentina the word “hotel” has 3 different meaning, one of which is a type of government subsidized apartment.  To prevent endless queries from locals, they don’t have a sign of any type.
	20:00	Took the metro ($0.25) to downtown area and walked the open-air markets.  Had a hand-braided necklace custom made for us ($5) a tried out the Argentina version of Burger King.  The menu was nothing like the US.  I tried a steak sandwich that was very good.
16th	09:00	Spent an hour trying to leave the hotel this morning.  The hotel is a renovated house owned by two older sisters.  They were super friendly, and chatty, and gave us city maps, tips, suggestions for sites to see etc.  They highly recommended the tourist bus, but we opted to use the subway and our feet to explore the various sites.  It rained for a couple of hours in the morning but stayed clear for the rest of the day.  The various tourist sites were ok, but not especially noteworthy.  The city in general had a nice feel with lots of people, parks and green spaces.  Even though the city has a reputation for being somewhat dangerous, it didn’t feel any more so than any other city in the world – we felt safe and comfortable everywhere we went.
19th	9:00	Leaving Igazu and heading back to Buenos Aires (taxi, $26, 30 min).  10 AM flight was delayed and didn’t leave until 4 PM.
	18:30	Cab to hotel (Lola House, $12, 30 mins).  This time, we had the address but the taxi driver was pissed for some reason that the hotel wasn’t a “real” hotel.  We were hugged and kissed like long lost friends upon checking in by the owners.  This is by far the warmest hotel owners we’ve run into in our travels.
	19:00	Subway to downtown to stretch our legs and walk thru the market.  It’s well lit and bustling in the evening.
20th	10:00	Spent the day roaming the city.  Saw an amazing cemetery (Recoleta), took lots of photos of locals, and were amused to stumble across an official sun-bathing section of park.  There are some crazy-big rubber trees through out Buenos Aires.
	19:00	Pizza in an outdoor cafe
	21:00	Airport to catch our 11:50 flight (Continental, 14 hrs).  We didn’t realize it until we boarded an hour early, but the flight had been moved up an hour.  They’d sent me an email at 6 PM, but we hadn’t checked email since earlier in the day.  We’re lucky to have made the flight.

Patagonia – Iguazú Falls

17/18 Jan 2010 – Visit to CFalls: 1.6 miles of waterfall containing over 275 separate falls.  Iguazú is second only in single-fall width to Victoria Falls and 2nd in height to Angel Falls.

17	08:30	Cab to airport ($8, 20 mins) included this lovely Porteño offering a generous view of his latin heritage as a parting gift.  Something I know I will treasure forever.
	10:00	Flight to Iguazú falls ($131, 2 hrs) including a ham and cheese sandwich with a dulce de leche dessert.  We’ve decided, after 2 weeks in Argentina, that ham & cheese and dulce de leche are the two staples of any self-respecting Argentinean meal.
	12:00	Taxi ($26, 30 mins) to hotel (Rio Tropic, $64).  Hotel is on a dirt road about 5 miles from town and 20 miles from the waterfall.  There’s not much going on in town, so I suppose it worked out all right, but the internet here is dreadfully slow!!!!!
	13:30	There was a small “old tree” museum a half-mile from our hotel that we decided to visit.  It turned out to be more of a tourist trap with an entry fee than a museum.  What do you expect for $3!
	16:00	Ate an early dinner at La Rueda, (parrilla) in town based on the cab drivers recommendation ($10 round trip).  Niem opted for a Milanesa de Pollo Napolitana (breaded chicken with ham, cheese and marinara) which turned out to be a very good choice.  My rump steak was about as tender as you might expect, but hey, now I know what a rump steak is called in Argentina.
18	09:00	Took a cab to town to exchange dollars for pesos then from there to Iguazú Park ($20, 45 mins).  Discussed the incredibly tight security in Argentina with the cab driver – id required to exchange money, ID required to enter/leave a town, etc.  He says its been that way since 83 when the military government was replaced by the current democratic one.  He says its supposed to fight corruption and black market but it doesn’t seem to be working.  Makes Argentina feel very repressed.
	10:00	Paid park entry from cab ($23) then got dropped off near the train station.  Took the train to first stop then walked the next section instead of taking the train.  Saw quite a bit of wildlife on the walk: monkeys, toucans, coatis, geckos, iguanas and butterflies as thick as flies.
	11:30	Arrived at devil’s throat, a section where you are surrounded on three sides by falls.  The amount of mist made it very difficult to take a picture without getting the lens wet.
	12:30	Walked the upper and lower sections of the falls.  The devils throat is impressive, but we thought the views from these sections were even better.
	14:30	Took a 4 mile hike thru the jungle down the Macuco trail to see a swimming pool at the bottom of the Arrechea waterfall.
	17:00	Took a bus $(1.25) back to town and grabbed dinner ($25) at a parrilla – no, there really aren’t any other choices but parrillas ;)

Patagonia – Moreno Glacier

14 Jan 2010 – Trip to the Perito Moreno glacier.  The glacier is one of 48 glaciers in the southern patagonia ice field.   It is one of only 3 glaciers in Patagonia that is not retreating.  It is 19 miles long, 550 ft deep and 3 miles wide at its terminus.  It is the worlds 3rd largest reserve of fresh water.

08:30	Japanese/Argentina style breakfast in the hotel
09:30	Picked up by van and transported to a tour bus.  Joined a bus full of people and left for a 2 hour drive to the glacier.
11:30	Was comfortably cool but drizzling. Spent two hours walking the catwalks that extend along the south face of the glacier.  Every couple of years, the glacier reaches the southern shore of the lake and completely dams the lake.  The water rises and eventually causes a portion of the glacier to collapse – I’d love to be there on that day!
13:30	Took bus down to boat and crossed lake in front of the glacier’s south face.
14:30	Hiked thru forest to the edge of the glacier where a camp was setup.  The guides put crampons onto everyone’s shoes and we climbed the glacier and hiked around for an hour or so.
16:00	Back thru forest to boat.  Boat to bus.  Bus to Calafate.  Transfer to van.  Van to hotel.
20:00	Had dinner at an all-you-can-eat Parilla (Argentina grill).  It was OK but nothing special.

Patagonia – El Calafate

13 Jan 2010 – Travel from Puerto Natales, Chile to El Calafate, Argentina

08:15	Boarded mini-bus ($22) for 5 hour trip to El Calafate
09:00	Driver agrees that it is time to go (30 mins late)
11:00	Get out and do the Chile immigration dance
11:10	Get out and do the Argentina immigration dance.  Argentina propaganda for renewing its claim on the Falkland Islands. –>
13:30	Arrive in El Calafate, walk to hotel.  Check in (Hotel Miyazato, $90) to a cute Japanese hotel run by a very friendly Japanese couple.  They were super helpful and even gave us a local jam as a parting gift
14:30	Walk to main strip and book glacier hiking tour for tomorrow ($120 + $20 park entry).  Town is very nice.  Feels like a resort town with nice shops and lots of parks and small, beautiful homes.
15:30	Eat lunch (Empanadas, chips, pastries, coke) on bench in small park we purchased from the grocery across the street
16:30	Find currency exchange and wait in line for an hour.  In Argentina, a passport is required to exchange currency and several forms need to be filled out and signed.  It takes about 5-10 minutes per person.

Patagonia – Torres del Paine

12 Jan 2010 – Tour of Chile’s Torres Del Paine national park

07:30	Boarded van along with 8 other passengers for a day in the park (Tours Alacazar, $55)
08:30	Stop at “Mylodon’s Cave”.  A Milodon is a giant sloth, and apparently was first discovered by someone with nothing better to do then look for pieces of skin embedded in cave wall.  It’s raining really hard as we shuffle thru the ticket booth ($10), up to the featureless cave, pose for a picture with the cement sloth and enjoy a big ol’ slice of mother nature.  Did I mention it’s really cold?  The guide says you have to be brave to enjoy Patagonia.  Or at least I think he said brave, it might also have been stupid or tourist – the word for stupid is the same as tourist in Spanish so it’s hard to tell.
10:00	After stopping a half-dozen times along the road for “photo”, we eventually make it to a park entrance.  A passport, $31, and two queues later and you too can enjoy cold rain at 35 mph, Chilean style!  Apparently some days the wind is so bad, you can’t get out of the van – lucky us, this was a “good” day!
10:30	I don’t think I enjoyed this part of the day nearly as much as the driver, so I’ll share it from his point of view: drive 10 minutes or so on a road that circles the park, stop van at random spot, give rambling unintelligible speech on how rocks grow, kick the tourists out, giggle as they struggle to put their cold weather/rain gear on in the 40 mph wind and rain, laugh hysterically as they attempt to take photos of the same lake/mountains they’ve been seeing all day while being beat senseless by the wind, pretend those tears rolling down your face are from the beauty of the landscape while cranking heater as they climb back into van so they are forced to take off their cold weather gear, rinse and repeat.  It’s not easy to take a 1 hour circuit of the park and stretch it into 7 hours, but for you, mister tourist , it can be do!  There were two stops worth mentioning, a lake with icebergs that had broken off from the glacier above, and a small waterfall – only of note because a waterfall in a 40 mph wind is something to see.
19:00	Niem says I have a bad attitude and have to go to bed early with no dinner

Patagonia – Puerto Natales

11 Jan 2010 – We disembark the ship today and head north via bus to Puerto Natales, Chile.

08:00	Awakened this morning by the PA announcing tender ticket pick-up locations.  As we were expecting a sea day, we were a wee bit alarmed.  Since we needed to catch a 10 AM bus from an unknown company at an unknown location we were, to say the least, unprepared.   I’m still sure it’s Niem’s fault, somehow, I just can’t quite figure out exactly how – yet.  We packed in a rush and headed down to the pursers desk to “check-out”.  The pursuer initially insisted that we couldn’t disembark without prior notice and spent 10 minutes going thru the ships records to see if we’d given “proper” notice.  Eventually I managed to convince her that she couldn’t stop us from leaving the ship and she begrudgingly began the paperwork.  I got the feeling she thought it would be a lot less work on her part if we just stayed on-board.  The staff, in general, were dumb struck that we were leaving the ship mid-cruise.
09:00	Passports in hand, we hurry to queue for the tender.  We had tickets for an earlier tender, and were afraid they’d make us get new tickets and re-queue, but we sailed right thru the line with no problems.  As we boarded the tender we noticed that it was raining hard – not good since we were on foot and clueless about our destination.  Using a GPS, in the pouring rain, is sometimes not as fun as it sounds.  You can image our relief when we discovered that there was in fact a bus company in town, they were open and selling tickets to Puerto Natales and they’d let us on! (Buses Pachecho, $10, 3 hrs)
10:30	Boarded the bus for an uneventful 3 hour ride to Puerto Natales.  The buses are well maintained, clean and not crowded – a pleasant trip
13:30	Arrive at Puerto Natales and asked for directions to the hotel (Hotel Alacazar, $55).  I have no map for this small town (cause neither does google) so we stumble around for 30 minutes or so before finally finding the hotel about 7 blocks away.
14:00	Check in and immediately get directions to the bus that goes to El Calafate, our destination on Wed.  We get a map and make our way there.  There are 5 seats left but a passport is required for the purchase.  I convince the lady to let me make the purchase and allow me to come back with the passports after.  I’m feeling more relaxed now as these two bus tickets were the only piece of the trip I hadn’t been able to pre-book.
15:00	Walk around town to sight-see.  The town is not very nice – dirt streets, shacks for houses/stores, high prices.  The exact opposite of Ushuaia.  After checking out 5 or 6 restaurants we settle for buying a roasted chicken from the grocery and eating it back at the hotel.

Patagonia – NCL Sun

11 Jan 2010 –Disembarked from the NCL Sun today.  Below are some stats and photos of the shop

Built	2001 at a cost of 400 million US dollars
Size	106′ W x 194’ H x 853’ L.  Draft 26’  Weight 78 tons
Capacity	958 crew, 1936 passengers
Decks	15 (13 passenger), 2 pools, 5 Jacuzzis
Food	10 restaurants, 5 galleys, 14 bars

  

Patagonia – Ushuaia / Beagle channel

10 Jan 2010 – Made port in Ushuaia, Argentina today, called the “end of the world” by the locals and the southern most city in the world.  The only settlement farther south is the military base Puerto William, Chile.

   
 

08:00	Ship docked at 07:00 but we decided to wait an hour to let the crowd disembark and give the town time to stir to life.  After reaching the main strip, we couldn’t help but notice that we might need to give the town more than an hour to wake up – not a single shop was open.  After another fruitless half-hour, we gave up and headed back to the ship to grab some breakfast.
09:30	Went to the buffer for breakfast and were surprised that we were allowed to serve ourselves.  The ship had an outbreak of “cruise virus” on their previous cruise and has been in full sanitizing mode all trip.  No self-service is allowed and passengers are required to sanitize hands on entry to the ship and each time they enter a dining room.  We’re disembarking in two days, so we won’t benefit much, but the rest of the passengers are hoping the self-service will stay.  It’s time to leave when an entire ship is excited about servicing themselves.
10:00	Headed back out after removing a couple of layers of clothes but kept our rain jackets.  It ended-up raining some while we were out, so this marks a first for us – it rained and we were prepared. Ushuaia was quite a bit larger than we expected and the town was very well kept.  It feels very similar to a ski-resort town; lots of shops with cold-weather gear, ski gear and Antarctic expeditions.  We walked thru the shopping strip and into the residential portion of town.  The houses were small and well maintained with lots of flowers, decor and a large variety of home designs.  I’m not sure I’d want to spend a winter here, but a summer would be very pleasant.
13:00	After wandering the streets for 3 hours, we head back to the ship to make the 1:30 departure.  We head up to the observation deck in anticipation of the glacier viewing at 5:30.  We claw our way thru the crowd and over the bodies of several cane-wielding senior citizens to successfully lay claim to window-side seats for the show.
17:30	We’ve been cruising the Beagle Channel since leaving Ushuaia and around 5:30 we cruise past a series of glaciers lying on the north side of the channel.  The view is very scenic and one of the main reasons we chose to cruise the first leg of our trip.
22:20	Sunset, finally. These 18 hour days are killing my beauty sleep.

Patagonia – Cape Horn (sea day)

9 Jan 2010 – We cruise round around Cape Horn today – the point where the Atlantic, Pacific and Antarctic oceans meet.  Cape Horn is famous for bad weather, rough seas and sunken ships –  a notoriously difficult and dangerous sea voyage.  We make port in Ushuaia tomorrow. 
 

09:00	Hit the gym early in hopes we’d beat the rush.  It was busy but not packed.
10:00	Began the turn around the horn with calm seas but limited visibility.  We’re hoping it clears up sometime today, but don’t have high expectations as Cape Horn is know for its foggy weather
12:30	Fog lifts.  Niem sights dolphins and sea lions, but no photos
16:30	Reach the southern tip of cape horn and circumnavigate the island.  The island has a albatross statue as a memorial to lost sailors on it’s north point.

Patagonia – Falkland Islands

8 Jan 2010 – Stanley, Falkland Islands (UK) today.  Population ~2,300.  

09:00	Anchored just off of Stanley island.  It took two hours to shuttle everyone to Stanley in two tenders.  The weather was foggy, windy and chilly.  We wore most of the gear we brought, including rain coat, in anticipation of a rainy day.
11:00	Walked the two roads that make up the town of Stanley – twice.  We didn’t eat in town, but the half-dozen pubs we saw all offered fish-n-chips – just so you remember this is UK territory I guess.  The town stretches along the bay for about a mile and is 2 streets deep most of the way.  Almost every single vehicle we saw is a 4×4, the majority of them older Land Rovers.   We saw quite a bit of animal life on our tour of the town.  It never did rain on us, so we’re batting 0 for 3 on the rain gear.
14:00	Had hoped to get good internet access here, but the connection was satellite (slow), so we opted to use the ship’s internet instead.  Decided against the 15 minute drive to Gypsy Cove to see the penguins – once a week apparently is our penguin limit.  Besides, the cove is littered with land mines from the Argentina war and peoples aren’t allowed to help deactivate the mines, so we’d have had to settle for a view from a distance.  Couldn’t come up with anything else to do so we headed back to the ship for lunch.
16:00	Waved goodbye to the Falkland Islands from the ship.  Had an early dinner at the pizza/pasta bar.  We had some pizza and pasta from the cook-to-order pasta bar: Linguini, marinara, ham, garlic, onions, crushed red peppers & parmesan cheese – yum!
17:00	Hit the casino to continue our “hot” streak and managed to lose our winnings to-date in 5 consecutive bad rolls!  Damn those greedy gambling gods!
18:00	Stopped by the tapas bar to see what was on the menu and sampled the calamari, empanadas, sausage & kraut, potatoes & onions , nachos, chicken wings, and lemon meringue pies.  I might have gotten carried away somewhere in the sampling excitement and had one too many dishes and two too many pies.  Once I was able to move again, we waddled away to give up our chairs to those who’d come for Canadian folk night.