Airlines in foreign countries are always interesting. Each place I go , customs agents and security is diffeent. One place you take your shoes off and another you don't...
In Argentina..... they xray your hand bags and you get on the plane. Easy! I was glad, because at 5AM after an entire day of meetings and tango shows and birthday songs...I was too tired to worry about figuring the whole thing out . All I wanted to do is sit in my seat and sleep
I'm glad I did because on arrival in El Calefate it was off and running again for my little group.
First stop the outdoor clothing store as even the folks from Chicago hadn't brought enough warm clothes to keep warm on the glaciers. Thankfully we could rent" and not "buy" because I don't think I will need artic outerwear in Palm Coast Florida ....ever!
Second stop was for Argentine pizza and wine. In Argentina...almost every meal is accompanied by wine. Only at breakfast it's not offered. So after pizza and a great Malbec.. we climbed aboard a giant dune buggy to climb up the mountains surrounding the town. From the top we could see for miles across the plains of southern Patagonia from huge Lago Argentino (3 times the square miles of the city of New York)...to the snow capped mountains....to the glaciers that had formed this valley thousands of years ago.
Standing on the precipice was difficult because of the 45 mph winds that blow on a regular basis. Thank goodness for those Arctic clothes I rented.
Hiking in the wind was even more fun but there was no other way to see the plants and small animals that survive in this cold windy desert area! It is truly hard to bellieve that the entire area was covered with small flowers and colorful plants. After all, it was spring in Argentina !
Even here where the summer brings temps no higher than 50 degrees Farenheit!
At the end of the hike, there were two domed tents which we could crawl into to get warm. A cup of hot chocolate also helped to take away the chill. then back into the big dune buggy for the trip down.
Why is it that the grade and angle of the land never looks bad on the way up.....but the way down....well..how does a vertical drop of 1000 ft in 5 minutes at an angle of attack 0f 35 degrees sound? Yikes...that is super steep!
What no one noticed was that we were doing this at 8PM.
In Patagonia, the sun comes up at 4:30AM and doesn't set at this time of year until 10:30PM.
How great is that? Look how much time it gives you to”play”!
But today all I want is to return to our beautiful hotel, Los Sauces, built by the current President of Argentina for her officials and weekend guests. Mrs.Kirchner and her former President husband live next door and originate from this area of Argentina. Needless to say, the series of cottages and homes (large and small) are filled with the best of everything.
All I could think about after 36 hours of work and fun..was to take a hot shower and get into my beautiful bed.
And that is exactly what I did!
No comments:
Post a Comment