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Last Pizza in South America
Villa Mansa
We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Villa Mansa. I wish I could grow lavender this big. We taught them to serve a pepper grinder to people from Estados Unidos.
Cooking class
We learned how to make enpanadas. And at this meal, we hit "max food." Personally, i felt full for 2 days.
Laundry
We had laundry sent out a few times, but Lisa always likes to stay caught up with clean clothes.
Olive oil tasting
While we were on our wine tasting tour, we asked if the trees we were seeing were olive trees. They are, and the tour leader was excited about our interest. She set up an olive oil tasting before our cooking class. It's an established oil-making farm with a new shop...
Pan America motorcycles
I was locked out of my blog for a few frustrating days. It said it didn't trust someone trying to log in from Argentina, so it wanted me to log in and approve the log in. But it wouldn't let me log in to approve it... because I'm Argentina. When I get caught up in...
Wine tasting tour
We visited two wineries a few miles from our hotel. The conversation, lunch, and wines were outstanding. We also discovered Mendoza olive oil! This is Durigutti winery.
End of the World Post Office
In the Tierra del Fuego National Park, we got our pasports stamped at the "End of the World" post office.
Ushuaia
We rented a car in Ushuaia to go in and out of the city twice. One of the rules on the rental car agreement was "cars going downhill or uphill always have the right of way for cars on the horizontal." That was very confusing to me, but it was always observed on the...
Last night in Ushuaia
We had pizza, Lisa got to sit in a church, and we had the world's most confusing hotel lock.
Beavers
Beavers were introduced to Tierro del Fuego in 1946 to attempt to start a fur industry. The effort failed for various reasons, but the beavers flourished. They are now creating massive destruction in the forrests, which can't recover like north american forrests,...
Museum of marine mammals
On the Harberton ranch, there is a museum of marine mammals. It was founded by the mother of the current owner, Aby. Some of these skulls are not marine mammals.
Estancia Harberton
In Tierra del Fuego, we rented a car and drove about 2 hours out of town, on to dirt roads, to the Harberton Ranch. It lies on the east mouth of the Beagle channel. Looking out of the channel, there is an island in the middle. To the left of the island was the...
Salads
we eat salads every day, even while waiting for the plane at Calafate Airport.
El Chalten
El Chalten is a quaint little town built for tourists, especially trekkers. We very much enjoyed our short stay. it was peaceful, although one day the locals burned tires on the bridge into town to protest the lack of affordable housing for the service industry...
Food
In El Chalten, we ate at a restaurant that serves traditional Argentinean food in a fixed menu. You eat what they serve you for 5 courses. It is very meat based. I had the best beef intestine I ever ate.
I found a truck for Daudi
This sweet vehicle is in El Chalten. A taxi driver told us Peugeots made in Argentina are better than those built in France. Although we were using Google translate and might have misunderstood him!
Money goes far
A salad, a pizza, and 4 drinks. $15 USD
Bus rides
Patagonia requires a lot of time getting there on planes, buses, and taxis. I thought we would like the doubledecker bus for the long rides, so we could see the sights, but we both found it a little too much like a ship. The side to side swaying made us both a bit...
Succesful trek to the base of Fitz Roy
Walking on the Perito Moreno Glacier
Viewing the Perito Moreno Glacier
Puerto Natales airport
It's always fun to walk to the plane.
Puerto Natales
We were in Puerto Natales twice. It felt like cold spring!
Money
One of my many worries was changing money in Argentina. the official rate is 350 Pesos to One US Dollar, but the "Blue Market" rate is higher. We went to the official exchange office in El Calafate, but they were out of money and told us to try the restaurant next...
Argentina
Dogs and spring are everywhere in Argentina!
11/21/2023
Today was a thrilling but physically exhausting day. We hiked to the base of Los Tores. One of our Australian hike-mates recorded 33,000 steps (he had real long legs), 22Km, and 315 floors climbed and descended,
Climbing to the base of Tres Torres
Here are way too many photos of our trek.
Santiago
We spent one dusty hot day in Santiago. We stayed at the Holiday Inn at the airport. We took a taxi in to town and rode the cable cat to the central lookout. Then we figured out how to use the subway and bus to return. That was our own little adventure!
Photo from BWI
Our flight out of Atlanta was delayed 90 minutes. Not too much of a problem, just a lot of waiting around.