Today, we sailed through the Seno Chico area which took us to where the Gunther Pluschow Glacier is. This was the first glacier discovered by an airplane by Gunther Pluschow. He also took the first aerial photographs of the Darwin Mountain Range. We visited the Piloto and Nena Glaciers. We also visited the Aguila Glacier. At the end of the day, we left the Beagle Channel and entered the Straight of Magellan.

Happy Birthday Brad, now 20 and no longer a teenager. We started our day in the Avenue of the Glaciers where we sailed close to 5 different glaciers. We then went to the Pia Glacier in the Pia Fjiord. This is the only glacier in Patagonia that is still advancing. We took a short walk near the glacier and then went on a longer walk up to a higher viewing point. Again, it was muddy but we managed to keep on the boots that the ship lent us. Good thing, all expeditions are from a zodiac with a beach landing of some sort.

We were lucky. Although it was raining a bit, the weather was good for a landing at Horn Island and Cape Horn, the southern most part of South America and the world excluding Antarctica. We climbed 130 wooden steps that Magellan must have made back in 1520 and proceeded to the top, mostly forging our own path versus chancing the broken, rotted wood. There we saw the Albatross monument. This is dedicated to the sailors who lost their lives in shipwrecks off Cape Horn. This area is where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet and is very treacherous water. 800 ships have sunk in this area. We are now at southern latitude 55 degrees. In the afternoon, we sailed to Wulaia island and bay for a short trek. We obviously missed the advertisement like Shackelton had before his voyage to Antarctica- “Safe return doubtful”. Actually the trek was about 2 hours straight up a muddy hill to see beaver tree cuttings and a small dam. Since the beavers work at night and sleep in the day, they were not there to greet us. Wulaia is the place where Captain Fitz Roy abducted 3 Yamana natives and took them to England for three years to educate them in the ways of the white man. It worked so well that when they returned 3 years later, one of them led a revolt and killed 8 new missionaries/settlers. We hope they refunded the school tuition. We hiked from about 6pm till 8pm. We were greeted with hot chocolate laced with whiskey at the beach which was a nice surprise. It still looked like 2 in the afternoon when we returned to the ship. This late night daylight is fun.

We boarded our ship, the Via Australis for a cruise through the Beagle Channel and up to Punta Arenas Chile. We stopped in mid water near Puerto Navarino for Chilean customs agents to check our passports. Around 2 am we entered Nassau Bay and were at the mercy of the open ocean for the remainder of the trip to Cape Horn.

Ushuaia is the native word for ‘West Facing Bay’. The explorers discovered this area in the 1500’s, and when Magellan saw all the fires, he named the area Tierra del Fuego, but what he did not realize was that there were native people that had lit the fires to keep warm as even in summer it is cold. Temperatures range from 32-57 degrees Fahrenheit. Later when the explorers began to inhabit the area, they of course brought their missionaries to convert the native people and unfortunately provided them with clothing, which obviously would be a good thing, but since the natives did not have immune systems like the Europeans, they died from bacteria in the clothing. The very last native descendent passed away 2 years ago. From 1902-1937, the political prisoners were sent here to be imprisoned. The current population is 53,000 and growing due to the tourism. Other industries are fishing and electronics. Ushuaia is the Capital of Tierra del Fuego, the entire island has a population of 90 thousand. In July and August there is only 7 hours of daylight, so we are glad we are here now, with about 20 hours of daylight. Good we have block out curtains. We do not have internet at the hotel as we do not have dial-up. We were also unable to use our calling card here.

Today we went on what we were told was a boat trip of no more than 25 people to observe the glaciers and then go on a 2 hours flat walk through the forest at Estancia Cristina. Wow were we told wrong. First of all, the boat holds up to 120 passengers. Then, the trip was a four wheel drive trip to an observation point for the Upsala Glacier. We then started walking about 30 minutes to get close to the glacier for a good view. We have finally found a place where the winds are stronger than Chicago. We were almost blown off the mountain several times. We saw how the glacier has changed positions over the last 80 years. The landscape was barren rocks but was somehow beautiful surrounded by all of the mountains and the glacier. Our two hour walk turned into a four hour climb up and down. While it was mostly down, there were many times we had to hike up or just had to fight the wind. We did fine but are now sore. We ate a picnic lunch in the shelter of some large rocks on a small lake enjoying the amazing scenery. On this walk we saw a herd a wild Guanacos, wild horses, a flying Condor and a baby in the cliffs, and a red fox. The walk was only us, Michelle a nice man from France and a guide for the trip. The climb down was described on the boat to reach the area as a walk down a steep area, a flat area, and then another steep walk down and was intermediate and easy. We sure do not want to know what advanced is. The walk took us to parts of the mountain that had been the sea floor of the Pacific Ocean in the distant past. We saw remains of squid and shells in the rock formations. One was the petrified remains of the squid that we are told were 165 million years old and also squid shells. Our guide told us that this area was not Jurassic Park but was Cretassic Park and that we were walking on the sea floor with all its remains. Really neat to see iron rocks, sandstone and volcanic remains. The shale and slate formed a snow like surface and was like walking down a mountain in powder. We saw slate that was polished to a high gloss by the passing glacier and also that had been polished by rolling stones (they were even older than Mick Jagger.) Before the walk, the boat we took to get there stopped at Upsala Glacier and we got a really close up view. Lots of icebergs had broken off and they looked like an ice sculpture contest. All in all, this was a really good day even though it was totally different than we thought we were paying for.

We toured the Perito Moreno Glacier today. It was named for the explorer Francisco Moreno who found and explored Lake Argentina. He never saw the lake but as he was referred to as Perito (Expert) later in life, when the glacier was found near Lake Argentina, it was given his name. The glacier extends over 200 meters to the floor of the lake and 60 meters above the surface. It sometimes extends to create a dam between Lake Argentina and the North Branch or the Rich Branch of the river. When this happens, eventually the power of the water destroys a part of the glacier creating icebergs and ice flows. The last time this happened was 2004. It currently has created a dam and they are waiting to see when it will erode. In 2004, it took 4 days and it was televised world wide.

The glacier is the 3rd largest in Argentina. The first is to the north near Fitz Roy Mountain, the second is Upsala glacier which is to the north of Perito Moreno, the glacier we saw today. There was so much ice that we could not believe what we were seeing. There was much blue ice. This is caused when the ice is more dense and the light refraction is changed. The fact that it had been raining there made the blue coloring more pronounced. So we were lucky that it rained. I will stick to being unlucky. We also saw people climbing on the glacier but were glad to be in the bus or on a covered boat instead of in the rain. We walked on so many broken wooden boardwalks that resembled Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that I thought I saw Harrison Ford in the distance. We also saw a person who fell and appeared to have broken an ankle from walking on the bad boards or from missing a step on the hill. Bad place to get hurt. 1-1/2 hour ambulance ride in from town just to look at you and then the same distance back. We took a boat ride to within 100 meters of the south face of the glacier. The boat was a large boat that held about 200 passengers. The close up look at the glacier and the ice flows in the lake was breathtaking. The wind was a bit strong but it was worth it to be so close to the glacier. Tomorrow we take a much smaller boat around the lake and glaciers to Estancia Cristina to go hiking in the forest near the glaciers. After 3 weeks in Argentina we not only can ask where the bathroom is but we are now able to order appetizers and desert. Wow, are we fast learners!

Flew to El Calafate today. The area here has little rain and looks much like the high deserts of America. El Calafate is named for the plant that grows in the area and has small berries. We tried them and found that they taste OK but are full of seeds and have a bad aftertaste. In the early evening we took a city tour and also toured the Walichu caves. Walichu is a local Indian name for bad spirits. There are original cave paintings from 8-9000 years ago. They have also reproduced cave paintings from other areas of Patagonia on the sides of these caves and cliffs.

We took the tour to Punta Tombo today to see the largest colony of Magellanic Penguins in all of South America. There are 250,000 burrows so as each family has two eggs each year, there are at least 1,000,000 penguins living there. In addition, as the juveniles all come back for 5 years until they are ready to take a mate and breed, the total number is really higher. The penguins are not afraid of humans and the babies are so curious that one kept pecking at the pants of a tourist today. They come to Patagonia in September, breed and incubate for 40 days and then it takes another 2 months for the babies to lose their feathers and get final sea water resistant feathers and be able to go to sea. They all leave between February and April each year and spend the winter at sea. They do not return until September. There are only 17 varieties of penguins in this part of the world and this breed travels from Antarctica to upper Brazil. There are many more penguins than humans living here in this part of Patagonia. This area has 10 people per square kilometer living here.

The weather got significantly warmer today and we were able to shed jackets and long sleeve shirts in the afternoon. We also toured the Paleontology museum today and saw dinosaur bones from the largest dinosaurs in the world and also the largest to be found in Argentina from 65 million years ago. We ended the day in a little town called Gaiman. This was another Welsh settlement and we had afternoon Welsh tea and lots of snacks. The Tea House is well known as Princess Diana, the Princess of Wales had visited the Tea House. Her picture is on many walls. The food was wonderful. No room for dinner tonight. Each year on July 28, everyone gathers at the tea houses to celebrate the first settlers to Gulfo Nuevo. We had dinner last night at a little restaurant on Puerto Madryn called Placido. It was great. Argentina has been an adventure in good eating. We leave for El Calafate tomorrow morning early.

We took a tour of the Peninsula Valdez today. This is the area just outside of Trelew and Puerto Madryn where we are staying. It is known for lots of Cormorants, Sea Lions and Elephant Seals. We saw all of the above including the birth of a Sea Lion. Well, we think we saw a birth. Our guide told us that when the seagulls congregate around Sea Lions that there is usually a birth. We saw the birds, something red that looked like an umbilical cord but could not see a baby. That is because the proud dad was busy keeping all other sea lions away but so many were in close proximity and so many pups were there that we could have been looking at a newborn and not known it as so many babies were all wet from the water. Anyhow, we will always think we saw a live birth today.

This area all started as a Welsh settlement in 1865. Tre is the Welsh word for town and Lew is the first name of the first Welsh settler Lewis Jones. Thus the name Trelew (pronounced treleu). The Spanish did not stay here due to lack of a good drinking water source and Indian problems. Puerto Madryn is today a town of 80,000 people and several factories. The main industry is the aluminum factory which processes 270,000 tons a year. They also export fish, wool, granite and ceramic. The whole area is called the Patagonia Steppe. It is a dry, semi-desert area. They mostly raise sheep on the grounds which somehow survive on saltwater from 80 meters deep and the bushes they eat.

Patagonia has several native animals. We saw the Guanaco (a Llama like animal), Nandu (an Ostrich like bird), the Antarctic duck, the Tian Petrol bird, the royal and rocky Cormorant birds. We toured a small museum and saw the reconstructed bones of a two year old Southern Right Whale that beached itself and died. We took a boat ride around Gulfo Nuevo in Puerto Piramide and saw the rock formation that looks like a pyramid. We also saw a small colony of Sea Lions. We looked for the whales that are usually here from May to December and sure enough, they had all gone to their other home in January.

Travel to Trelew. Wow, what a problem. First the airline calls us as we are about to walk to breakfast to tell us that our flight to Buenos Aires this afternoon has been cancelled and the replacement flight will get in too late to get us to Trelew. Norm then told the representative that he expected to be put up in a hotel by the airline because the change was theirs and we had no advance notice. After a long time on hold and her speaking to her supervisors, she told us that we would be transported and put up in a hotel at the expense of the airline. We then went to the lobby to make new airport transport arrangements and then came back to contact the tour company to re- arrange our transports and hotel. As soon as we finished that call, the airline called again to say that they had found a way to get us to Buenos Aires earlier and would hold the plane to Trelew for 30 minutes so we could make the connection. I guess they really did not want to pay for a hotel room. They made all of the other passengers wait 30 minutes just so we could connect. The transfer worked great and we finally made it to Trelew late this evening

We mostly nursed our sore muscles after the horseback riding yesterday. It was a really windy day and we had to forget the pool because everything including our lunch blew away. We took the afternoon walk around the outer grounds and local homes with a view. We saw some great homes for rent with killer views of Lake Moreno and of the Llao Llao Hotel. We had great dinner that evening with our new friends Lupe and Fred from San Diego at a little Italian restaurant close to the hotel.

Today we went for a 3 hour horseback ride through the mountains and forests of Patagonia. Wow. In the past we only thought of Patagonia as a brand label and not as a part of Argentina. The ride was very fun and very dusty. Cindy had the slowest and most gaseous horse. Everyone had to wait for us to catch up. The scenery was beautiful. We also rode along the shores of Lake Moreno and through several streams and rapids. The only problem was our sore bottoms and muscles after the ride. I have seen vasectomy patients who walked better. The days here have been beautiful. Sunny skies, a bit of a breeze and very nice people. We could easily spend a week or two here.

We spent the afternoon in the sun and then Cindy had reflexology and a massage treatment. We skipped archery as the afternoon wind was too gusty. Maybe tomorrow we will be feeling ok and can make it to water aerobics again. We did it yesterday and then did the horseback riding today. Wow.

Up early for our morning tour of this amazing park, Nahuel Huapi. We started our tour by visiting the Saint Edward’s Church. This church was built in memory of the son of the builder of Llao Llao resort who died during the time the building was constructed. They built a church and named it for the boy. The church is visible from the hotel and sits on the mountain. The front of the church has a person with a Saint Bernard with a keg around its neck who wants to sell you picture of you and his dog. This seems to happen at all churches and cathedrals here. We saw Lake Moreno, named for the man who convinced the government to set this land aside as a national park. Moreno managed to get this created after Yellowstone Park, and Banff Canada and Moreno is compared to Teddy Roosevelt for his conservation efforts.

We took a chair lift to the top of Cerro Campanario and saw the most incredible view of the area. The lakes are at a very high level now so some of the islands are submerged and the trees swamped. After seeing the area, we are glad it has been preserved as a national park. We were lucky to have an English speaking guide just for us as we sat in the middle of a tour conducted in Spanish. Gabriella had been a British Airways Stewardess for 14 years before becoming a tour guide. She was very informative and friendly. We saw the beaches that were crowded with people and even a few went in the water. The water temperature is only 14 degrees Celsius. The area here is cool in the morning and then up to 80 degrees in the afternoon. We had lunch at a Swiss/German restaurant in Bariloche. Talk about a small world, Norm met a man who told him he was from San Antonio Texas too. He had recently retired and moved away and is thinking about moving back. Who thought we had to travel this far to meet future neighbors.

Bariloche is the name of this area of 100,000 people. It got its name from the native Indian people who called the people who lived here Bariloche which means “the people on the other side of the mountain”. Its full name is San Carlos de Bariloche and is named after a man named Carlos who was of German descent who had the local general store in Bariloche in the early days of settlement. One of his friends sent him a letter and addressed it to San Carlos instead of Don, Senior or Mr. by mistake. He was so amused at being called a saint that he changed the name of his store to San Carlos and the name stuck on the town as well. The town is named for a mistake!

January 16- Another day of travels. From Montevideo to Buenos Aires for a connecting flight to Bariloche. All was good until attempting to recheck our luggage, as we already had our boarding passes for Bariloche, but found 12 lines out the doors for Argentine Airlines. None of the information/security men spoke English, but they told us to wait in line, even though our flight was leaving in an hour. Cindy waited to the side with the luggage and observed Norm getting more and more uptight as he only moved about 10 feet in 45 minutes. Finally they called our flight and we were able to go to the front of the line. Good thing we had rescue remedy with us. Our Llao LLao resort is located in the National Park of Nahuel Huapi in the mountains with snow covered peaks and winding lakes, another paradise on earth.

January 15- We were picked up by our tour guide and driven to Montevideo. It continued to rain. Upon arrival we yes again ate lunch, sampling the local cuisine of Chivitas, which is beef or chicken with ham, cheese, bacon, egg, vegetables, and with the platter comes fries and potato salad. A gastronomic treat.

Then we toured the city. We began at Independence Square where a statue of Jose Artigas (general who liberated Uruguay from Spain) stands along with his mausoleum, then we walked to the old city area. The main street is 18 de Julio, which is date of first constitution in 1830. The city was originally built with a wall around it, and a small section still remains. The Cathedral was over 200 years old. We saw the Solis Theatre, from the 1800’s, toured a French Gothic church, passed the current President’s residence and also their version of the White House, the Presidential Palace, complete with a guard in a turret. The soccer stadium was built in 1930 and was the first World Cup Stadium. The contemporary telecommunications building was designed by Carlos Ott, who also designed the hotel of sails in Dubai.

There are 4 parks inside the city all with renowned sculptures. One sculpture commemorates the last 5 native Charruas Indians that were taken to Paris and displayed as savages. The legend is that they all died of loneliness in France. The other bronze sculptures were the covered wagon and the stagecoach, by artist Joseph Bellini. Sycamore, Jacaranda, and Paradise trees line all the streets in Montevideo.

The Congress Building was built from 1908-1925, and is made of over 50 different colored marbles, and 12 types of wood. Of course it was Sunday and the building is closed on the weekends. So, I guess we will have to return someday to tour the magnificent interior.

Since it is still raining we opted to stay at the hotel for dinner. Did you know—that in Uruguay elections are every 5 years and the President and Vice President can not renew a sequential term. There are 30 Senators and 99 representatives. The new term began last March 1. Their 3 primary issues are poverty, education, and healthcare. The main exports are beef (it’s what’s for dinner!), timber, leather goods, wool products, rice, corn, and wheat. Soon, the timber will be processed at a paper mill in Uruguay.

Rain, rain and more rain. So, we spent the day in the room updating our pictures, reading, movies, and log. At 10pm went to our hotel restaurant Medzzo, for all you could eat pizza and listened to what they called Jazz, but was more easy listening music, which was also wonderful.

Since up late again another late morning. We were able to catch the 11am bus to the town of Jose Ignacio. After many conversations with Norm, who wanted to go on the guided tour, Cindy won out with being adventurous on own. This is a small old fishing village with a beautiful beach. We stopped at the local tourist info building to find out that they recommend things to do all over and there is nothing to do in Jose Ignacio. We did have a lovely lunch (yes, food again) at Los Negros, up on the cliff, and our table was in a prime location overlooking the beach and the lighthouse. There were sea lions swimming past while we ate. We arrived back in Punta del Este mid afternoon and on our walk back to the hotel, the same gypsy woman came up to us again! We were in a totally different area of town, and this time we do not think she was sending us love. Then it began to rain, so we watched a movie in the room and relaxed before another early bird special. Amazing that we go to dinner at 8 and still do not get back to the room until 11pm. We are obviously still on Fiji time, which of course is very good.

Slept in and just made it to breakfast at 10:30am, but turns out that everyone else meandered in even after us, but they appear to be used to it here as breakfast continued to be served. Then we just walked around the main street, full of shops and restaurants, and while the city has about 8000 full time residents, our tour guide said that there are about 500,000 tourists. Well, not quite, but it was very busy and congested. There was a gypsy woman who walked up to us sending love and good luck, but we said we did not speak Spanish and just kept walking. The truth is we could not understand everything she said and after 4 bookstores we were able to find a small Spanish-English, English-Spanish dictionary. We have been studying and looking up many words as there are not as many people here who speak English as we would have thought. In fact, many more people in China spoke English than we would have imagined and more than South America so far.

At the tourist info we met a lovely woman, Lucy, who recommended this evening’s restaurant, Il Baretto, a lovely Italian cuisine. Again, early bird special for us with 20% discount here, and prices already reasonable. Prior to dinner we took a taxi to the Ralli museum in the Beverly Hills area which has a collection of Latin American Modern art and includes many works by Salvador Dali. Ralli museums also exist in Santiago, Chile, Caesarea, Israel, and Marbella, Spain.

Picked up at 6:30am for our 3 hour boat trip on one of the Buquebus hydrofoils. It was like going to the airport for check-in, going through immigration as we were on our way to Montevideo, Uruguay, and waiting at the gate for boarding. We were lucky, we thought, to get seats by the window, but soon realized that there would be nothing to see but water, water everywhere. So, we slept most of the way in the straight seats that did not recline in the tourist section. We were met by our guide, Maria and taken to the car for our trip to Punta del Este, which is about 140 kilometers away where the River Plate and the Atlantic Ocean meet. We stayed at the Golden Beach Resort, which did not end up being on the beach, but several blocks away. All was good, since mostly rain and cool, so no sunbathing for us. It turns out that while it is middle of summer, they are experiencing unusually cold and rainy weather. Our tans are fading fast!

In the afternoon, while it rained on and off, we toured Punta del Este visiting ‘Beverly Hills’, Maldanado, La Barra, and Casapueblo, which is the home and museum of Carlos Paiz Villaro. While his artwork was interesting and Picasso was his friend and mentor, his casa is exceptional, displaying his protest of straight lines. This amazing man is the father of one of the survivors from the plane that crashed in the Andes in the 1970’s that the book “Alive” is based upon. He is the reason that searches continued after months as he knew his son was still alive. The Playa Brava (beach near our hotel), has several sculptures including an enormous hand rising up from the beach. With everyone surrounding it, it appeared to be a main attraction. The island across from the beach has over 200,000 sea lions.

We were extremely hungry by 7:00pm and walked to one of the restaurants recommended to us, Blue Cheese. Turns out they do not open for dinner until 8:30pm. So, we continued to the next recommendation, Lo de Tere, which opened at 8. Since it was another ½ hour at that point, we went to an internet café to check our mail. Turns out we made it for the early bird special for a 40%discount (first 4 tables seated between 8-9pm). A little different than our early bird times. It seems that we have spent most of our time in South America so far in restaurants eating amazing meals, so good thing we are also doing a lot of walking. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the plaza de artisans where local art and handicrafts are exhibited and for sale each night.

We have experienced another 8th wonder of the world, Iguassu Falls (termed by the Guaranies 2500 years ago meaning ‘Great Water’). We are staying at the Sheraton located in the Argentine Park overlooking the beautiful falls. While it should be extremely peaceful, the construction in and out of the hotel is quite a deterrent. Yesterday afternoon we were picked up by our tour guide at the airport and taken with 2 other gentlemen, Michael and Jose direct to our hotel. Promptly after change of clothes, suntan, bug spray, we were swept off for our walk, stairs galore, and boat with baptism in the waterfalls, 4x4 jungle ride through the Yacaratia trail, and train ride to the catwalk overlooking the falls. After about 4 hours we returned to the hotel exhausted. Our guide, Alex then had to take Michael and Jose to their hotel on the Brazilian side. We were happy to plop on the bar patio, have a drink and appetizer and watch the sun set over the Devil’s throat area of the waterfalls. We were unable to observe the falls from Brazil as we did not have visas for that country. We were told and later saw in a book that that falls are even more spectacular from the Brazilian side (apparently like Niagara Falls and the Canadian side). Anyway, as you all can see from the photos, we saw plenty of beautiful falls and scenery.

Depending on water levels there are between 150 to 250 waterfalls in total, estimated to be 150 million years old. The subtropical climate is hot and humid, and while the jungles originally occupied 386,000 square miles, only 22,390 remain today, and the Unesco site and parks represent 5.7% of it. Legend tells of the snake-shaped God (MBoi) who ruled the world and maintained balance, selected the daughter of an Indian Chieftain to be consecrated. When the ceremony began with caium and mandioca (corn brandy and bitter cassava), the Indian girl ran away with a young warrior in a canoe. The disappointed God squeezed the earth which created an insurmountable canyon opening hundreds of cracks for the lovers to fall in. Legend keeps their names, Naipi, Taroba. She was turned into a rock ever lashed by the waters and he was turned into a palm tree always stretching outward to reach her. And thus, during times of Guaranies and Caiguaes, the falls were born. The center of the park is where the Iguassu and Parana rivers meet. Nine miles up on the Iguassu River is where the great amphitheatre (semi-circular front 8858 feet long) is where it runs down an abyss of up to 295 feet. The park was created in 1934 based on 290 square miles acquired in 1928 from Senior Domingo Ayarragaray for 3.2million pesos. In 1984, it became a Unesco site. Over a million people visit each year.

Had an early afternoon flight back to Buenos Aires for just one night as early travel next day. Evening dinner at La Posada de 1820, recommended to us by our friends Suzanne and Jim in Riverwoods. We had an excellent steak dinner again, with of course Argentinean wine.

January 6-8 was spent in Buenos Aires, the capital of the Argentina Republic. The first afternoon, since we were unable to locate the restaurant recommended, we happened upon a lovely little restaurant called El Salmon II. We had a delightful, extremely reasonably priced meal with a wonderful waiter, who did not speak any English but who we were able to communicate with just fine with our limited Spanish. The afternoon was spent walking and exploring the shopping areas of Florida Ave. and the Gallerias Pacifico. That evening we did find a different restaurant recommendation, Tancat. When we could not communicate with our waiter, he asked the hostess to assist. A very romantic meal with Argentinean wine and wonderful ambiance.

The next day was a half day bus tour of the city which included sites of the Northern neighborhood, Palermo, the Obelisco, the enormous Floralis Generica which is a sculpture of aluminum and steel petals nearly 66 feet tall weighing18 tons designed to open in the morning and close in the evening by architect Eduardo Catalano, the Colon Theatre, the “Pink House” (Government Building), La Recoleta, La Boca which was the original center for Italian immigrants, and Puerto Madero (the modern port area). Unfortunately the month of January is holiday for the Colon Opera house, also holiday for the soccer season as it is considered too hot. We got off at the Puerto Madero area and decided to find a place for lunch. Stopped at Xcaret and had gnocci and spinach crepes. We walked across the suspension bridge, Puente de la Mujer, which did not seem to have much suspension. Then past the sailboat (Frigate Sarmiento- sailed 1 million nautical miles from 1899-1961) that is a museum on our way back to the hotel. Since we had such a spectacular dinner the night before, we returned to the same restaurant.

Then it was Sunday, and while we had planned to go to the Plaza Alvear for the weekend market and music festivities, it unfortunately rained most of the day. So we had a day of rest and good thing as we were out very late that night. We went to the dinner and Tango show at Senior Tango. It was a marvelous evening and the food was also exceptional. We had the steaks that Argentina is known for. Here is a picture of the stars of the show! NOT! We could have been the stars if Norm actually danced, and Jeanine says if Arnold can tango, so can her Dad, but Cindy had no luck with him. Anyway, we were not allowed to take pictures during the performance, so none to show.

Happy New Year to all! After being home in the States for a mere 19 days, we were off to South America. Our short time at home was extremely busy with appointments, visiting with a few friends in Chicago, visiting with family over the holidays, unpacking most of the 200 boxes that did not get emptied in July, reorganized our suitcases and included winter gear for the glaciers and Antarctica. The holidays were spent in San Antonio, with beautiful 80 degree weather.