General

Hola from Buenos Aires!

Well, our first night was short but punctuated by thunder and lightning, as the heavy humidity we encountered upon our arrival at the airport in BA turned into a night-long storm. We woke up to more rain, but by early morning it was dry, if cloudy. We met up with Zoe, Harry’s friend, for lunch (she’s studying spanish here for six weeks). Then Dad and I went about planning our last week here. We booked a boat to Montevideo, Uruguay, where we will spend a couple of days. I plan to swim in the Atlantic ocean, thus beating my record of two oceans in a single trip which I did last year. I expect that this will be a slightly warmer dip than the Antarctic.

Then tonight Dad and I were making our leisurely way back to the hostel trying to find a restaurant on the way, and we stumbled across a great little family-run place. Dad ordered chicken and I ordered a steak “muy jugoso”, meaning “rare”. When the food arrived, I had two pieces of meat, neither of which was rare, but it was obvious they had tried (rare is not something normally done here; despite their great reputation for steak the argentinians like it well done). So as often happens when in a country where you don’t always know what you’re ordering, I didn’t say a word, ate what was given to me. Fine and done. Except that a very strange thing happened… the waiter came to the table, looked at the meat that I hadn’t eaten, and said,’this isn’t juicy, this is dry, I’ll bring you some more’. And sure enough, a few minutes later a brand new steak was brought to me, much thicker cut than the last, very juicy. Without me saying a word! Or even thinking of it! As I said before, in a place where I don’t totally understand the language, sometimes even I don’t know what I’m ordering, but I don’t mind when I get myself into a situation where what I ordered may not be what I *expected*, but who am I to say that the waiter made a mistake? This time, I did know what I *tried* to order, but from previous experience knew that rare steak is a rare thing in Argentina (haha). And the cost for this feast? Two bottles of wine, 1/4 chicken, fries, salad, and what came out to three steaks… including a generous tip, under twenty dollars.

Anyways, it was a rare (again, haha) display of extraordinary customer service in this lovely country that makes this small familly restaurant stand out in this six-week trip. People and places in this wide world of ours will never cease to amaze me. No wonder this bug is catching.

Got here about 1 in the morning, very warm and humid, what a difference for this trip. Finally got to the hotel and encountered a glitch with the computer booking but Morris, in fine style, got us a bed. Right now I’m waiting for her to wake up and this part will start.

Well, we’re in El Chalten, about to catch the bus to Calafate then fly to Buenos tonight. This town is right on the edge of the Andes with glaciars around and is known for some really good trekking. Sweet place. I can’t believe that so far there has been no rock climbing on the faces behind the town. When we came down from yesterdays hike we spotted a restaurant with ‘Hoy, curantos’ so supper was chosen. We got to see the preparation and all. This looks easy to do. Really enjoyed the meal, they basically kept putting meat on your plate until you said stop.
Well, starting tonight, finally warm weather, I just can’t see it being any better than what we’ve been doing, just additionally interesting.

We leave Ushuaia later today by plane for El Calafate to hike and see glaciars, as if we didn’t see lots down south. Basically, it’s all north from here on. One thing to remember if you ever do a similar trip, Ushuaia can be troublesome to get out of, try arrange your exit ahead of time as we did. Some people get stuck here for days or have to chose a different direction of exit then they planned.
The staff on the boat were fantastic. Our fellow passengers were great to spend time with, lots of friendships were started. We have a destination in Bogata and already Morris has intimated that we might be able to squeek in a trip next year before Russia. They, Diego and Ingrid, might come up and visit us first, you would all enjoy them. Simon, I have someone to visit in Moscow too.
Other than that, I just can’t remember all the details now so updates will be ongoing.

Moi: First, the bad news (for Simon). We may be co-authors on a published scientific paper before you, HA HA HA.

Mir: By the way, this is a day earlier than all of you expected because I messed up on our return date, not because of anything going wrong

Moi: Well, we started across the Drake passage for a two day crossing and had a real easy sail. Quite the rock and roll on the swells though, people walk at a slant.
Then there was icebergs, just a couple the second night but we woke up in the middle of a flock of them, wow are they beautiful.

Mir: Who knew there was so many shades of blue.

Moi: Day 1, we stopped on Paulet Island where the Nordsomethingorother expedition over wintered in 1903, personally being greeted by penguins, lots of penguins, skuas, cormorants, fur seals and weddell seals. You should see the small hut that 28 men stayed in. We then went to Base Esperanza and actually set foot on the continent, not just the peninsula.
By the way, did I mention the great food and lots of it on the boat.

Day 2, Hanna point. Again, greeted by gentoo (genpoo-poo) penguins, this gets to be a common theme of this trip. Then came Deception Island where we saw the remains of a whaling base. Oh, and by the way, went swimming in the Antarctic Ocean followed by a dip in a hot (well, tepid at least) pool heated by digging a hole near the tide line so that some ocean water seeps in and is warmed by heat from underground volcanic activity (Deception Island is classified as dormant, not dead). Then, leaving there, WHALES. Orcas chasing penguins, Orcas chasing seals, Orcas chasing humpback whales, fin whales and minke whales. My guess is over 20 Orcas, 3 humpbacks and the others. Most of the action occurred within 30m of the boat. In fact, Morris stood on the bow and was able to watch them swim right underneath her. Our staff said they had never seen so much activity so close before.

Mir: In fact at the beginning of the trip I asked what our likelyhood of whale sightings was and was told that we would most likely see humpback, minke and fin, but it’s not common to see orcas. Go figure. We kept on asking ourselves how it could get better,… and it just did! Read on!

Moi: This was our first delay due to whales, putting us off schedule. As the chef and all the kitchen staff were out taking pictures, supper was delayed by about two hours.

Day 3, Neko Bay, where I got about an hour of good tanning in while Morris and everybody else hiked up the glacier to the viewpoint. Again, penguins. Then Paradise Bay, a zodiac cruise. Morris took on the Armada Argentina in a snowball fight, foolish girl. We finished by cruising the Lemare Channel and overnighted on the boat at our southernmost point, 65 09 south, and no, we cannot really say who was furthest south.

Day 4, Port Lockroy, with first a stop to follow two pods of about 5 Orcas, but never closer than 50m. Amongst the other penguins we saw our only king penguin of the trip. Sailed off through the sea ice to Cuverville Island, a penguin colony and zodiac trip where we played hide and seek with a fur seal.

Day 5, WHALES EXTRODINAIRE. I happened to see the blows so let Morris know in the dining area and emptied the room again. This was the most extraordinary experience. Three humpback whales played under the bow of the boat where we were standing. They were so close you may notice in the pictures that people could not get the whole whale in the pictures, look at the size of the blowholes in the pictures. This was unbelievable. Again all the staff were out as this was new to most of them too. Then to Half Moon Island, guess what, penguins but this time with lots of fur seals. I got in some juggling with Florencia. Lastly, Barrientos Island with the crazy penguins. Get Morris to tell you about having them play around her legs. Saw one being eaten alive. I had three of them following me thinking I had food or something. Back on the boat and start home. At the day end summary meeting, Sebastien said he´s never been on a trip before where someone calls “Whale!” and people stand up and say “Aww that’s too far” and sit back down. We really did see a lot of whales, do not expect me to get very excited to go on a whale watching trip anymore.
Two return days on the Drake with about half of day two on large swells and high wind, fun, except for all the sick people. Finished with a great party last night.

This was a great, stupendous, fantastic voyage.

Mir: Not enough adjectives in the thesaurus to truly say what it felt like.