The Wilderness and Beyond - Part 1

How nice to sleep in and leisurely leave for the airport at 9:00 am! LAN airlines was very nice, with a great entertainment system. We flew from LAX to Lima where we met 3 other people who would be in our group of 20 travelers. I sprawled out on 3 middle seats for a nice nap on the 5 hour flight to Buenos Aires.

We explored the area within a few miles of the hotel, on foot. We had lunch in the oldest café in Argentina: Grand Café Tortoni. The ham/olive/red pepper pizza had no red sauce, it was covered with one full piece of ham, it had one olive with a pit in it in the middle, and had 3 strips of red pepper on it. I ordered a “Dr. Lemon” to drink, later finding out that it had vodka in it.

Today was a special day with demonstrations, parades, and firecrackers, in memory of 30,000 people, missing and killed by the military coup in 1976. There is an organized group of grandmothers who are still searching for the infants and babies who were kidnapped and given up for adoption around the same time. There’s a debate whether people should be forced to be DNA tested to see if the now 30-34 year old people are related to their parents or were perhaps taken from parents who were killed and adopted out. One hundred of the 400 adopted kids have been found and reunited with their biological families.

We had a bus, subway, and walking tour of Buenos Aires. I learned so much about the tumultuous history of Argentina, from revolutions, fighting for independence, military coups, and financial problems. Graffiti and posters are everywhere, stating political views. They’re all over the government buildings.
We went to the President’s home, where Evita and Juan Peron lived.

Argentina has a 15-17% poverty rate. In the 1890’s, Argentina was the wealthiest country in the world. The world economic crash in 1930 was only the first of its problems. In 2001, the peso declined from a 1:1 ratio with the dollar to 3 pesos to a U.S. dollar. Bank accounts were frozen and millions of people in the middle class lost everything and now live in shanty towns. During the evening and night, people are collecting cardboard and other recyclables from the trash that is on the street. What a mess! There’s lots of corruption, world debt and an unofficial 27% unemployment rate.

We visited the old Boca neighborhood in Buenos Aires. It’s where the Italians first immigrated from around 1870-1920. The prostitutes settled here, too. While waiting for the prostitutes, the sailors originated the Tango. The Boca and the River soccer teams are the major rivals in Argentina. We heard all about them from two different guides; each one supporting one of the teams!

We visited the Recoleta district which has an amazing cemetery of old mausoleums, including the crypt of Eva Peron. The mausoleums are 30 feet down into the ground so each little “building” has a narrow stairway leading down to the bodies inside.

Six of us had lunch at the apartment of a middle class family. We enjoyed the homemade food, the conversation, and sharing how we live. They pay 21% sales tax!

We hopped off the bus a few blocks from Congregacion Israelita of the Republic of Argentina, the first synagogue in Argentina. We had a private tour of the synagogue and the attached museum. Our guide told us all about how her family and her husband’s family came to Argentina and explained what Jewish life is like now. It was a highlight of our trip.

Eight of us went to the Norton winery for wine tasting and dinner. We played a ring toss game; throw the ring over wine bottles. I got 3 rings over the bottles and won a bottle of wine. Melbec is our new favorite type of wine.

We flew from Buenos Aires to Calafate, in the Patagonia area near Argentina’s border with Chile. We stayed at a nice mountain-lodge type of hotel. We walked along the main street, buying homemade empanadas and gelato. We also walked along the bay in beautiful, unusually pleasant weather.

At night, we went to an Argentinian BBQ which featured local dancers and entertainment.

Ahhh, the next day we went to Los Glaciares National Park. During our bus ride, we saw so many forests, sheep,indigenous birds, guanacos (like llamas), and rheas (like ostriches).

The National Park has nearly 50 large glaciers, fed by a giant ice cap (the largest continental ice extension after Antarctica) that begins in the Andes and comprises 1/3 of the park’s total area. We got up close and personal with Perito Moreno Glacier. We thought it would be colder; temperatures were in the mid 60’s. The constant, cyclical movement of Perito Moreno’s ice mass forces the glacier to “calve.” This means that smaller chunks of ice fracture and break off from the glacier, a “birthing” of icebergs that’s accompanied by thunderous noises. We walked on a cat walk all around the glacier so we got a really good view of it.

We had dinner on our town at a nice restaurant, ordering a lamb and cheese pizza and flan. None of the flans on the trip tasted as creamy and smooth as the flan we get at home.

After breakfast, we traveled by bus through the Patagonia area, westbound from the flat lands to the Andes Mountains, learning about the landscapes and history of the area. Along the side of the road, we saw a “shrine” for a “saint” of the cowboys (gauchos). We left a bottle of beer at the shrine, to ensure safe travels.
The roads are paved in Argentina; gravel in Chile.

We arrived at Torres del Paine National Park at 5:30 and went for a 1 ½ hour hike past a waterfall and toward the mountains. These beautiful jagged-peak mountains are only 15-16 million years old. The Andes further north are 65 million years old. Torres del Paine is renowned as one of the most remote, beautiful, and unspoiled places in the world. It has several distinct ecosystems, from the wind-bent grasses of the plains to the sheer, frozen cliffs of the Andes. Driving to our hotel in the National Park at sunset was gorgeous. Others on our bus said it was the most beautiful sunset (360 degrees all around us) they had ever seen. More than 40 mammals make their home in the park and some of the world’s rarest bird species (including the Andean condor) are found here as well.

The next day we went for another hike, along Grey Lake, exploring more of Torres del Paine National Park. We heard and saw icebergs calving.

Driving the the Estancia (ranch) for an overnight stay, we saw sheep-ranching and pampas (grasslands), and lots of rheas, condors, and guanacos. Half of the guanaco population is caught and killed by pumas. We passed by a shrine to a woman who died of thirst. Her baby survived by nursing even though she was dead. So we left a bottle of water at the shrine. There were hundreds of bottles there.

We arrived at the Estancia in Rio Verde and had a nice BBQ lunch, including more lamb. The full moon was gorgeous. The next day we drove to Punta Arenas, the port overlooking the Straits of Magellan. It’s a lovely little town. By 6 pm, we boarded the 125 passenger boat, our home for the next four nights as we cruised the legendary waters of the Strait of Magellan around Tierra del Fuego, Beagle Channel, the Darwin Mountain Range and Cape Horn…

I'm hommmmmmmmmmmme

Eight airline flights later...I'm back in the good ole USA, safe, and the sound part is questionable. We had a wonderful trip, seeing awesome sights and spectacular scenery. We made a first run-through of our pictures, attaching the camera to the TV, so we could see them in huge living color. We're both tired, a little under the weather with colds, but were able to go through most of the mail and do 7 loads of laundry. Lots of people in our group of 20 have made between 15-25 major trips. They travel 3-4 times a year! I don't know how they do it, physically or financially, but they love it. Every hotel had free internet so I managed to stay connected with "the box" a few times during the trip. It's so good to sleep in my own bed, shower in my own bathroom, and love my kitty who missed me so much. Now whenever I leave the house, I tell her, "I won't be gone for 3 weeks this time, just for a couple of hours."