We flew back to Buenos Aires from Calafate on Thursday and returned to the same hotel where we stayed two weeks ago. It’s hard to believe our time in Patagonia is over. But I’m happy to be back in Buenos Aires, a city that I love the more time I spend here. Return to Recoleta Once…
Glacier As Fede said when we departed this morning for the drive to Los Glaciares National Park, this is “the icing on the cake — literally.” I suppose it is literally “ice,” but there’s no literal “cake.” Still, Fede’s first language is Spanish. And lots of native English speakers get “literally” wrong. Anyway, we were…
Tuesday, November 21 We drove out of Torres del Paine this morning. We made a stop at the visitors center, where Kris showed us on a model of the park where we’d been and what we’d seen. And we had time for one final stop to admire the scenery of this stunning park.
Monday, November 20, 6:18 pm You have been on the go all day. Finally, you have a few hours in the evening to just relax. So you’re sitting in the bar of the lodge, staring at the spectacular view. You have hundreds of pictures yet to download from your camera from the last two days and…
Saturday, November 18 We flew SKY from Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas, a flight of a little over two hours. SKY is the budget airline of South America, and it felt like it. So it was good to get off the plane. We met Kris, our local guide, and got on our bus. On the…
Saturday, November 18 This morning we have a 10:30 flight from Puerto Montt to our southernmost destination, Punta Arenas (literally “Sandy Point”), on the Strait of Magellan. To get to the airport we have to ride the bus a half hour to get to the ferry, then the half-hour ferry ride back to the mainland,…
Thursday, November 16 Today was not about seeing beautiful scenery or learning about history or politics or economics or geology. Today was about people. Specifically, today was about the people of Pargua, a community of about 800 on the north shore of the Chacao Channel separating Chiloé Island from the Chilean mainland. We spent a…
Tuesday, November 14 As the crow flies it’s only about 80 miles from Bariloche, Argentina, to Puerto Varas, Chile, but to drive around all the lakes took the better part of the day. And that was to our benefit, because we got some beautiful scenery all the way. It was remarkable how quickly the terrain…
Saturday, November 11 It was about a two hour flight from Buenos Aires to Bariloche. We checked in to our lovely hotel about a mile outside of town, and after we got settled we went back into town for a brief orientation walk with Federico. One of the things Bariloche is famous for is chocolate,…
Thursday, November 9 By the time I got to sleep last night, I didn’t really get to sleep last night. I was still on island time, two hours behind Santiago time, and then I was just restless. Plus, with a 5:00 a.m. wake-up, I kept checking the clock to make sure I wouldn’t oversleep, in…
Sunday, November 5 We had a very early start this morning, departing from our Santiago hotel at 6:55 to get to the airport and fly to Rapa Nui. We flew on a 787 Dreamliner, my first time on this plane. Instead of window shades, they have buttons under the windows that allow you to darken…
Remember when I said I am a worrier? Two weeks before I was set to leave on this trip, I fell and twisted my ankle. For a day, I couldn’t walk, and I wondered if I’d have to cancel the trip. Fortunately, the ankle healed. Until I fell again last Monday on the same ankle.