Every Day is Sunday

Visiting the Iguazu Falls is a visual experience, so we’ll let the pictures do the talking.  The National Park is made up of over 275 waterfalls, although sometimes the tourists made the most interesting subjects.

View from the Brazilian Side

They call this drop "Devil's Throat"

View from the Argentina Side

Even more spectacular than the Falls is the size of this tail… in which country is this stilll acceptable?

Apparently all you need to bring to Igauzu is your camera, boxers and man bag…is this guy for real?

From afar, the rush of a waterfall it is beautiful and even soothing.  But up close, it is a powerful reminder that nature is a lot stronger than you are.  Like when you take a boat to the bottom of the waterfall and the water slams you back into your seat like a rag doll. 

The transmission in our rental car was sticking, the air conditioning didn’t work very well, and the radio was broken.  The conditions were not ideal for our six hour drive into the middle of Uruguay.

Our friends Ehren and Jenny had visited an Estancia (Ranch) in Argentina last year and they highly recommended the experience.  A few weeks after they got back, the Washington Post Travel section ran a spread on Estancias in Uruguay.  We were convinced.  Erin saved the article and we made a reservation in what the Post called one of the best “off-the-beaten-path” Estancias in Uruguay: San Pedro de Timote.

It turned out that the Estancia is full of Uruguayans on the weekends, but doesn’t do much business during the week.  On the weekends they typically have 70-80 guests.  When we arrived on Monday night there was only one other couple staying at the Estancia.  So we had the entire place to ourselves – it was perfect.

With so few guests, the staff let their guard down and just hung out with us.  We sat around and drank Mate (see Entry 4 for description of Mate) with the General Manager and his family.  Things were so quiet, even the cows wandered down from the pasture to take advantage of the pool.

It was an amazing coincidence that the only other people at the Estancia were a couple from the UK who were five months into their trip around the world.  Pete and Alina’s spontaneity is truly inspiring.  They both worked in London at prominent banks.  One weekend they decided to escape the city and went out to the country for a little rest and relaxation.  On Saturday they decided that they wanted to quit their jobs and travel.  On Monday they submitted their resignation letters.  TWO DAYS LATER!!!!   They were on the road in less than a month. 

They are super fun and we were inseparable for three days.  We went horseback riding, ate massive lunches and dinners, and lounged around the courtyard.  Pete and Jeff engaged in a pretty epic ping-pong battle that ended 2 games to 2 (a tie for the good of the friendship).

One evening the four of us made plans to go fishing, but the staff said they didn’t want to lead the trip because there was a storm coming.  The skies looked fine at the time and so we decided to head out on our own.  Besides, it hadn’t rained in that part of Uruguay for more than 2 months.  We got directions to the local fishing hole, grabbed our rain gear and poles, and we piled into the rental car. 

It started raining a little on our way there, and then a lot when we got out of the car.  By the time we put our poles in the water it was pouring. 

Jeff distributed the beers he had brought.  They quickly filled up with water.    

Unfortunately we couldn’t take any photos because it was raining too hard to risk taking out the camera.  But you can imagine how silly we looked standing on the bank of a small river, leaning over the edge with bamboo poles (no reels), using steak as bait, with rain coming down so hard that we couldn’t hear each other talk.

Thankfully, Alina caught a fish quickly and so we could abandon the expedition but still hold our heads up high.  We snapped a quick photo when we arrived back at the Estancia.

Each day we went horseback riding with an old gaucho named Beto.  On the second day Beto let us take the horses galloping, which was both exhilarating and scary.  If you can find the rhythm and follow the movement of the horse, then it feels like you’re flying.  But when the horse really gets going and you’re out of sync, you feel like you could get really hurt.  We experienced a bit of both.

Beto the Gaucho

But the best part of the Estancia was the puppies.  If it were up to Erin, this entire entry would be dedicated to the puppies.  Forget the horsebackriding, the amazing food, the incredible sunsets – all Erin could talk about were the puppies.  There were 16 in all from two separate litters.   

We gave Pete and Alina a lift back to Colonia, an old colonial town in Uruguay, where we spent one night (and saw a beautiful sunset) before heading up to the Falls Iguazu.

MORE URUGUAY PHOTOS

 After being tourists for nearly five weeks we finally had a chance to live like locals for a week.  Jeff’s friend Bret Rosen lives and works in Buenos Aires, and he graciously allowed us to stay at his five-star apartment for an entire week.  Bret speaks fluent Spanish and has assimilated perfectly into Argentinian culture.  Under his guidance we did as the locals do: we walked around the neighborhood, rode bicycles in the park in Palermo, checked out the futbol scene, enjoyed the nightlife, and (best of all) sampled the local cuisine.

As tourists, there’s no chance we’d choose to eat at a restaurant without menus (or prices for that matter).  But as locals, with Bret as our guide, we had three of the most amazing meals of our trip.

Perhaps the best meal of the three was our Saturday lunch at “Don Carlos” in La Boca neighborhood.  Carlitos, the owner of the restaurant, welcomed us and served us most of the food we ate that day.  At one point he walked over with a ¼ chicken on a big fork and dropped it on Erin’s plate without a word.  Erin was a little stunned – but then she proceeded to slice it up and dole it out to the three of us.  It was delicious.

We had pate, caprese salad, fried zucchini, two types of pasta, chicken, steak, a bottle of wine and dessert.  At the end of the meal, Carlitos brought us this bill: 

We took his word for it.

After the meal, we told Carlitos that we were off to visit the La Boca stadium (the most famous local soccer club in B.A. where Diego Maradona played) which was directly across the street.  He walked out the door and told us to follow him.  Carlitos had a word with his friend who runs the stadium, and he arranged for us to have a free tour of the museum and the field. 

Not that this is news, but the Argentinians are CRAZY about their futbol.  Bret informed us that if Diego Maradona (the Argentinian futbol star who played for La Boca) ran for president right now he’d probably win.

While in B.A. we also met up with Ben Stetler, an old friend from Washington DC.  Ben also helped us live like locals — taking us to great restaurants and checking out the B.A. nightlife.  He’s is an amazing story-teller and tons of fun.  Whether in Washington DC or Buenos Aires, Erin and Ben are like two peas in a pod. . . . 

Since we were living as locals, surely it would be inappropriate for us to post all the standard tourist pictures from B.A.  Of course we have the standard shots of the Pink House (where Evita addressed the workers in the square) and a Tango show at El Viejo Almacen.

But we decided to try to capture a little more of the local flavors of B.A.

We never felt more like locals than on Friday afternoon as we were walking down Avenue 9 de Julio and we saw this view. 

Apparently Washington DC isn’t the only city with cherry blossoms and a big phallic monument in the middle of the city.   

MORE BUENOS AIRES PICTURES

We have no plans to ever run a marathon.  But on the final day of our four-day, 43-mile hike, we think we discovered what finishing a marathon must feel like.  It is an exquisite mix of pride, relief, exhaustion, and pain.

If you like hiking — and want the adventure of a lifetime — we highly recommend visiting Patagonia and hiking the “W” circuit in the Torres del Paine National Park. 

 The Torres Del Paine (pronounced Pine-A) is an extraordinary place.  One reason we loved the park is that it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.  Only 128,000 people visit the Park each year (compare that to 5 million who visit the Grand Canyon each year).  Even in the busiest time of year you can hike for hours without seeing another person. 

That's Erin in the bottom right-hand corner

And the area is so pristine that you can drink the water directly from the streams and waterfalls created by the melting glaciers.We also loved the ruggedness of the W Circuit.  Even though there was a trail, you often had to make your own path.  The park service marked the trail with orange circles on trees and rocks, but at some points there was no obvious way to reach the next marking.  We deliberated over the best way to cross streams and had to test the security of the boulders as we climbed straight up toward a waterfall.

Can you find the path to the orange marker in this picture?

Perhaps the best part about the park was the incredibly different and equally stunning scenery we saw each day.  We hiked past glaciers, forests, lakes, valleys, meadows, beaches, and waterfalls.  It was difficult to keep up our pace when we wanted to stop every 15 minutes to take photos.

An unexpected bonus was hanging out with all the other hikers in the Refugios.  There was an palpable sense of camaraderie that developed at the end of each day on the trail.  Most of the people were hiking the same Circuit and through this difficult common experience we formed fast friendships.  At night we pooled our money, bought a box of wine from the Refugio, and sat around sipping wine and swapping stories from the trail and from our lives.

On the first night we met Maikael and Liz – two Americans from New Mexico who also left their jobs to travel the world.  Maikael and Liz told us about their search for the most happy places on Earth.  For example, they decided to visit Bhutan after reading that the people there are among the happiest in the world.  In 1972, Bhutan’s newly crowned leader decided to make his nation’s priority not its G.D.P. but its G.N.H., or gross national happiness.  Although the program is still a work in progress, the percentage of people in Bhutan who report that they are happy is staggering.  We liked Maikael and Liz’s idea about searching out happy places, and we might have to find a way to add Bhutan to our itinerary.  Their blog www.kindnessofstrangerstravel.com is a cool chronical of their adventures. 

On the third night we met Derek and Carrie.  They were a fascinating couple (he flies F-18s for the Marine Corps based out of San Diego, she is an English Professor at Boston University).  We talked politics, the military, war and what its like to live 3000 miles away from your spouse (he said its like having a honeymoon every other weekend!).  We appreciated the fact that they were different people who totally complented one another.     

Here’s a quick synopsis of our days on the W: 

We arrived on Day 1 and hiked 6.8 miles north to the base of the Grey Glacier (the western side of the W).  As we got closer to the glacier, we saw more and more mini-icebergs than had broken off from the huge glacier.  Although six miles isn’t that much for one day, it was very difficult hike because the wind was fierce and blowing straight into our faces.

We awoke early on Day 2 and hiked another 2.5 miles north in order to get the best view of the Grey Glacier.  We found an inlet where ice that had calved off the glacier had collected and took some cool photos.  We then re-traced our steps and trekked 9.3 miles south down the western side of the “W” Circuit.

The Earth's Future Melting in Jeff's Hands

Day 3 was our longest and most difficult day.  Unfortunately it rained most of the day.  We hiked 4.7 miles east to the base of the Valle Del Frances, 3.7 miles rountrip to visit the Mirador Valle Frances (the middle of the “W”), and then 3.4 miles east to Los Cuernos.  Although the constant rain made it difficult to enjoy some of the sights (you can see it in our faces in the first two photographs), in the end we prevailed and still won the day. 

We had a beautiful day and a beautiful hike on Day 4.  We trekked 6.8 km northeast across the Rio del Arriero and Paso de los Vientos.  We were lucky enough to see some gauchos riding over the stunning meadows. 

Erin set the alarm for 3:45 am on Day 5.  We hit the trail at 4 am and hiked for two hours (about 2.5 miles) in the dark so that we could reach the famous Torres del Paine rock formation for the sunrise.  The last half mile was straight uphill over boulders – Erin took the lead and kicked it into high gear as Jeff tried to keep up.  We made it with 15 minutes to spare and watched the sun come up over the horizon. 

Then it was 6 miles out of the park to catch the noon bus out of the park.

It was an amazing four days.  All in all we hiked about 43 miles with all of our gear on our backs.   It was demanding on our bodies (we left out a picture of Erin’s foot covered with blisters), but that made our last few steps even more sweet.  We left the park with big smiles on our faces.  Bring on the next mountain! 

MORE TORRES DEL PAINE PICTURES

Antarctica was an exhilarating and draining experience.  When we returned to Punta Arenas we popped a bottle of champagne and then slept for 12 hours. 

How do you follow an amazing trip to Antarctica?   Well, as Mark explained, the Estrechos de Magallanes (Straits of Magellan) is one of the most important waterways in the history of the world.  Since Punta Arenas was founded as a port town on the Estrechos de Magallanes, we were perfectly situated to dip our feet in the first natural passageway from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

You should have seen Mark’s face when he discovered that we could sail on the Estrechos de Magallanes (which, as he explained, was one of the most important waterways in the history of the world).  Even better, our destination was a island that had 150,000 penguins on it.  The combination was almost more than he could handle.

We sailed for two hours to reach Isla Magdelana, and arrived to find an entire island completely covered with penguins.  Yes, all those dots in the second picture are all penguins.  

It was a little overwhelming to see penguins as far as the eye could see.  Even more arresting was the sound that 150,000 penguins make.  At any given moment there were tens of thousands of penguins tilting their heads straight up and screaming into the air.  It sounded like 150,000 people were blowing those little kazoos that they pass out on New Years Eve.   

The penguins were not afraid of us, and they let us get so close that Mark thought he might be able to get a bite to eat.

The penguin island was the last stop on our Punta Arenas tour. 

Unfortunately, this meant it was time to say goodbye to Mark.  We had an amazing two weeks — packed with rafting, kayaking, ziplines, gravel runways, and penguins.  It was hard to say goodbye.  He was an amazing travel partner and we will miss him terribly.

MORE PHOTOS FROM PUNTA ARENAS

THE AIRPORT.  The voice on the other end of the line had a sense of urgency: “The van will pick you up tomorrow at 7:00 am to drive you to the airport.  Please be prompt – this is not 7:00 am ‘Chilean time.’”  True to their word, the airline’s van driver was waiting for us in the lobby of our hotel at 6:50 am. 

We were uncharacteristically quiet on the van ride as we grappled with the uncertainties of the day.  Would the weather hold?  Would we get on the plane today?  Would we land safely?  Would we make it back?  Our concerns gave way to excitement when we saw “Antarctica” listed on the big screen. 

Ten minutes later we got some bad news: the weather had deteriorated and the flight would not be leaving until at least 1 pm.  We settled in for a long day at the airport. 

Which left us too much time to think about what we were doing. . . . 

Most people don’t fear commercial air travel anymore.  Notwithstanding the occasional crash landing in the Hudson River, everyone agrees that flying is the safest way to travel.  But flights to Antarctica don’t have the same safeguards as normal commercial flights.  For one thing, the runway in Antarctica is made of gravel.  More importantly, there is no air control tower in Antarctica.  The pilot cannot rely on instrumentation on the ground that usually helps a pilot land a plane and instead must make a “visual landing.”

We had an unspoken agreement not to talk about the dangers of this trip.  What was the point of talking about it, right?  Not so fast. 

Erin became involved in a conversation with a woman from New York who was waiting for a flight to Santiago.  The woman was aghast wehn she found out that we were flying to Antarctica and we didn’t have a will.  Since she was a licensed attorney and Notary Public, she offered to notarize our will and send it to our parents in case the plane went down.

Mark politely declined.  Jeff ignored the woman.  Erin took a piece of scrap paper from her notebook and started to draft her last will and testament.  

Erin was scribbling madly when the announcement came — our flight to Antarctica was boarding.  She only had 7 minutes to get it all down.  We laugh every time we think about what was on that piece of paper.  One particularly memorable instruction: “Remainder of money in ‘trip abroad fund’ to be used for a party in our honor in Washington DC.  Brin and Melanie to host.” 

THE FLIGHT.  It was quite a scene as we walked out on the jetway to board the plane.  We found ourselves in a sea of Chinese scientists all dressed in matching red jumpsuits with “Antarctica” written in English and Chinese across the back.  We paused just before getting on the plane.  Antarctica here we come!

“In case of loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop,” the flight attendant said in Spanish and English.  Despite the absurdity of our destination, she gave her safety speech in the same monotone as if we were flying from Washington DC to Chicago.  Mark commented that this was the first time in about 15 years that he listened intently to every word of the safety lecture. 

 The flight from Punta Arenas to Antarctica was about 2 ½ hours.  It was a smooth flight.  We each made “Antarctica mixes” on our ipods and passed them around to fill the time.

Before we knew it, the landing gear lowered and we started our descent.  Erin’s heart almost leaped out of her chest when we bounced down on the gravel runway.   

 WELCOME TO ANTARCTICA!!!!!!

The normally staid Chinese scientists rushed excitedly down the stairs of the plane – their enthusiasm was contagious.  

We bounded down the stairs after them and started to explore.    

It wasn’t as cold as we expected.  In fact, it was 28 degrees Fahrenheit - a beautiful summer day in Antarctia.  It was colder in Madison, Wisconsin.

We were struck by how quiet Antarctica is.  Technically, Antarctica is a desert because it gets less than 10 inches of annual rainfall or precipitation per year.  There are no paved roads, no overhead power lines, and very few vehicles around to make noise.  It has no trees, no bushes, its largest land animal is an insect, and ninety-nine percent of Antarctica is covered with ice.  Execept for the gravel and dark rock at the end of the penninsula, there was a lot of white nothingness as far as the eye could see.

We walked past the Chilean, Russian and German scientific research stations on our way down to the sound.  There is no Antarctic government and no individual country owns the land.  In the early part of the 20th century, seven nations (Antarctica, Australia, Chile, France, Great Britain, New Zealand and Norway) all made territorial claims to parts of Antarctica.  In 1961, these nations and other signed the Antarctic Treaty, which put aside these territorial claims in the interests of international cooperation and scientific research.  Most of the buildings were very basic, with the notable exception of the Orthodox Church that the Russians built on a hill.

Since we were flying with a Chilean company, we were able to tour some of the structures on the Chilean research base.  Here is a picture of the gym, which we guessed was used more for soccer than for basketball.

Our Antarctica guide was Alejo Contreras Staeding.  Alejo had been to Antarctica more times than he could count, and he looked exactly like what we thought an Antarctica guide should look like.  His genuine enthusiasm for the adventure made us even more excited to be there.

Alejo gave us waterproof jumpsuits and we boarded a Zodiac boat.  “Weather conditions are ideal for a trip out to the Collins glacier,” he explained.  After 20 minutes we reached the vast Collins glacier.  Moving toward the glacier we started to hear a crackling sound under the boat.  “No need to be alarmed,” Alejo explained, “the Zodiac can withstand the glacial ice.” 

Alejo pulled the boat within 100 yards of the tremendous glacier and cut the boat’s engine.  Our brains worked overtime to process everything we were experiencing – we were in Antarctica, on a tiny Zodiac boat, staring at a wall of glacial ice 60 stories high.  This is freaking wild!!!

The next stop on our Antarctic tour was a penguin rookery.  After another 20 minutes on the boat we approached a beach filled with penguins and seals.  Alejo paused about 50 feet from the beach, and for a second it didn’t look like we were going to be able to dock the boat and walk among the penguins.  Our hearts sank.  Mark took it especially hard because he has a soft spot for penguins.  When Alejo turned the boat and headed straight for the dock, Mark’s face lit up like a kid in a candy store.

We saw two types of penguins in Antarctica (the Chinstrap penguin and the Gentoo penguin) and two different types of seals.  They didn’t seem to mind us walking around.

 Alejo was carefully monitoring the skies.  “The weather conditions are deteriorating.  We must return to the plane,” he announced suddenly.  

As quickly as we arrived, we found ourselves engaged in a mad rush to get back on the plane.  Alejo let out the throttle and the boat screamed back toward the Chilean base.  We boarded the plane and – before we knew it – our Antarctic adventure had come to end.

We spent an amazing day in Antarctica and, best of all, Erin finally got to visit her seventh and final continent.  It was the experience of a lifetime. 

Click HERE FOR MORE ANTARCTICA PHOTOS

They said the weather in Antarctica was “ominous” and our chances of leaving as scheduled were slim.  But the weather changes quickly in Antarctica, and so we were instructed to wait in our hotel and be ready to go within 15 minutes if the call came.

So we sat in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel in Punta Arenas and we waited.  And waited.  And sent Jeff out to pick up some lunch.  And waited some more.

The best thing about waiting around all day was meeting an Israeli named Gad.  “It’s pronounced God,” he explained, “the other guy spells it differently.”  Gad was traveling through South America and came down to Punta Arenas for the opportunity to visit Antarctica.  There was only one problem: he had only one day left in his trip.  If we didn’t leave as scheduled then he’d miss out on Antarctica.

If we were going to be stuck in a hotel lobby with for seven hours, thank God we had Gad to keep us company.  He was a modern-day renaissance man and a wealth of knowledge on travel, architecture, gardening, and world affairs.  The man seemed to have about a million hobbies.  Oh, and his day job is building computer processors for Intel. 

We talked with Gad about everything — his extensive travels through India, his older son’s military service in the Israeli army, his visits to Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses in Wisconsin, and his favorite Israeli television commercials.  At 4 pm – after seven hours of hanging out and swapping stories – they officially cancelled the flight.  It was terrible news for Gad.  

We really enjoyed his company and so we spent the rest of the day with Gad.  We visited the Maritime Museum, had some coffee, and grabbed dinner.  Unfortunately, this exhibit in the Maritime Museum was the closest Gad got to Antarctica on his trip.

But Gad showed us that he is an adventurer in the truest sense of the word: he simply shrugged it off.  He told us not to worry — he’d make it to Antarctica some day.  We believed him.

For as long as she can remember, Erin has wanted to visit all seven continents.  This trip was her chance to visit the most elusive of all the continents: Antarctica.     

There are two ways to get to Antarctica: by boat and by plane.  For a boat trip, there are several companies that have converted scientific research boats into tour boats and run tours to Antarctica.  But these trips are very expensive and usually last about two weeks.  Jeff doesn´t do well on boats under good circumstances, and so he had no desire to spend two weeks on a boat across the Drake passage (famous for its rough waters) to get to Antarctica.  Besides, these boats have a tendency to hit icebergs and sink.  

The other option is to fly there.  Erin found a company called Victory Cruises that advertised a flight to Antarctica.  You fly out there in the morning, spend a few hours on the White Continent, and then fly back in the evening.  It was PERFECT!  

Unfortunately the flight was very expensive.  Because Jeff did not share Erin´s life-long dream of visiting Antarctica, he decided not to buy a ticket.  Instead, our friend Mark Waner (who shares Erin´s passion) said he would meet us in Argentina and fly with Erin to Antarctica. 

The folks at Victory Cruises told us that we needed to allocate five days in Punta Arenas, Chile.  The weather conditions needed to be perfect for the flight, and they said it was very possible the flight could be delayed several days due to weather. 

Just as Mark was set to join us in Argentina everything went haywire.  Exactly two weeks before the Antarctica flight, Erin received an email saying that the flight had been moved UP by one day.  This was a big problem because we had to change our travel plans (by boat, bus and plane) to get to Punta Arenas a day early.  Exactly nine days before Erin´s scheduled flight, and after Mark had already boarded a plane for Argentina, we got an email saying that the flight had been moved UP another day. 

Yes, you read that correctly - our flight was moved UP from January 24 to January 22.     

Erin was furious.  She spent the morning on the phone with the Victory Cruises people and the folks from DAP (the Chilean airline that owned the plane).  They explained that our flight had actually been cancelled, but that they were letting us hitch a ride to Antarctica on a plane chartered by the Chinese Government to transport 45 Chinese scientists to their research base in Antarctica.  Erin tried to get the company to reimburse us for the cost of the flight changes, but they balked. 

If they wouldn’t reimburse us for the cost of getting to Punta Arenas two days early, Erin reasoned that Jeff should get to travel for free to compensate us for the money and inconviences.  They AGREED! 

So on January 21st, all three of us (Erin, Jeff and Mark) arrived in Punta Arenas for our one-day roundtrip flight to Antactica on a Chilean plane chartered by the Chinese Government.