Welcome to our blog! We were recently married and are now preparing for a year-long, around the world trip. This blog will feature our preparation and, of course, reports from the road.
Here is our current itinerary:
- October 16: Quito, Ecuador
- December 5: Lima, Peru
- December 21: Buenos Aires, Argentina
- January 28: Santiago, Chile
- February 23: Queenstown, New Zealand
- March 28: Sydney, Australia
- April 5: Bangkok, Thailand
- June 22: Hong Kong
- June 26: Shanghai, China
- July 19: Johannesburg, South Africa
- August 15: Barcelona, Spain
- August 18: London, England
August 21: Denver
Those are just our major stops for our RTW plane ticket. Within each of those regions, we will use local transport to visit many more countries. You can see a more detailed list of some of our potential destinationshere.
As our itinerary becomes clearer, we will post updates!
Patagonia is one of the places we had on our "must visit" list. Actually, over two years ago we tried to plan a trip to Patagonia for a week's Thanksgiving vacation. Realizing that was way too short a time for a trip to Patagonia, we ended up in Panama instead. It was during that planning the seeds of what would become this year-long trips were planted. And now we have made it to the southernmost city in the world: Ushuaia.
After the ferry from Uruguay at noon, we had a nighttime flight down to Rio Gallegos from Buenos Aires and got into the Rio Gallegos airport around 2:00 AM. The bus station did not open until 6:00 AM so we tried to catch some sleep on the floor of the airport with about 10 other travelers who were in the same predicament. Patagonia has a short season where the weather is passable (meaning there is still rain, wind and sleet, but that is a good day!). However that also means that buses and hostels book up early. We arrived at the bus station to find out that there were only two direct buses to Ushuaia and both were booked for that day. After about an hour of waiting and slight pleading with the guy at one of the bus companies, he got us on a bus to Rio Grande and from there we were to take a minibus into Ushuaia. We were very lucky to get on a bus, as when we were leaving the bus station we saw a couple who did not get on the bus making a cardboard sign saying "Ushuaia" to attempt to hitchhike!
Going from Rio Gallegos we crossed the Strait of Magellan into the archipelago Terra del Fuego by ferry.
When we arrived in Ushuaia at 1:00 AM the sky was still slightly glowing from dusk as Ushuaia is so far south (Latitude: 54° 48' 0" S). It is the southernmost city in the world, and calls itself "El fin del Mundo" (The end of the World). It is the jump off point to most Antarctica trips as well. It is still quite a ways north of the Antarctic Circle, however, and therefore, doesn't ever get 24 hours of sun. It is probably comparable to Juneau, Alaska.
We were ecstatic to be in bed as we had been traveling 40 straight hours since leaving Montevideo. We met some folks in the hoste, and all agreed to head to Laguna Esmeralda the next day for some hiking. We had a pretty fun group. It was a muddy trek as it has been raining a lot here, but there were only a few wipe outs.
Near the lake it started raining and some ladies from Buenos Aires who were camping invited us to have some coffee and sit by their fire. They were asking us where we were from and we explained: Germany, Holland, Israel and the U.S. They gave us a puzzled look, and said.... "and you guys are all friends?"
On our last day in Ushuaia we took a zodiac out to see the penguins on Martillo Island. The island is dominated by Magellanic penguins, but there are also some some Gentoos, larger than the Magellanic and with orange-red beaks ending in black. It is a huge colony, and the penguins are almost as curious about humans as we were about them and they would waddle up right to you to check you out.
The babies had been born about a month and a half ago, and were just starting to molt and lose their fluffy feathers so they can go into the sea to fish. I think our favorite part was watching the penguins swim, jump out of the water, then shake themselves off. They all start with their top, and down to their little tails. It was one of the cutest things I have seen.
We only had a few short days in Ushuaia before heading to El Calafate, El Chaten and Puerto Natales where we are hoping to be doing a lot of backpacking/trekking around Fitzroy, Cerro Torre and Torres del Paine!
SO COOL!!! I want a Penguino!
ReplyDeleteThey are so cute!! And you guys look great too :)
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