Keith's travelogue

Greetings again,

Well, after a week of sleeping in and staying up late in Buenos Aires, it was time to make a move, lest it became a habit. It was nice not to have to get up before 6am and not to to have to face a full day´s drive, but the feet do get a bit itchy. Buenos Aires, being a lçrge city (13m or so) had lots to see and do. I was able to see many of the beautful buildings (such as the Casada Roja where Evita waved from the balcony) and monuments (such as the Obelisk) and also had time to catch a Tango show, and see exhibitions of works by Marc Chagall and Salvidor Dali, so it wasn´t as if I was doing nothing.

I packed up my bag and headed by ferry across the famous Rio Plata (River Plate, of WWII Graf Spee fame) and went to Colinia de Sacremento in Uruguay. This town is hertiage listed by UNESCO, and is very laid back, a great contrast to the bustling Buenos Aires. The laid back pace of Colinia was a good way to ease back into travel. Colonia is very South American, with the traditional siesta from 1-3pm in full force, and people wandering around with their mate cups and thermoses of hot water. I stayed at a little B&B that was only 10 minutes saunter from anywhere in the historical part of town. I wandered around the old fort, walked across the drawbridge walls, had a peek in some museums (some beautiful colonial ere ceramic tiles on display, was well as cannons etc).

Then I hopped on a bus and went to the capital, Monte Video. The countryside was remarkbly green, good for the cattle and dairy industries. The weather is fairly hot and humid, being the middle of summer, but the air-conditioning was icy cold, requiring my polar fleece. The green pastures made a nice change from the brown, tussock like pampas on the trip up from the south of Argentina. In MV I stayed in the centre of town, close to all the tourist sites in the old city. But the old city isn´t really touristy, as there didn´t seem to be many Western tourists around (unless a cruise ship was in the port). Uruguay and places east on the coast are very popular with porteños (from BA) but it seems not to many Europeans get there.

My Spanish got a work out, although the accent here is different again from what I have been used to, so it takes a little while to get the ears tuned into what they are saying. Eg pollo = chicken, it is pronounced po-yo (to rhyme with yo-yo) in other parts of Sth Am, but here it is a "J" sound, so pollo grille (grilled hicken) is "po-jo gree-je". Anyway, M.V: was also very pleasant and the slowest and most laid back capital I´ve been too. It´s only 1.3m and the old part of town is on a peninsula and well away from the hustle and bustle of the main urban areas.

After four days there, I caught a bus and ferry back to BA, and headed to the airport for my flight back to Ushuaia, where I am now, to pick up my Antarctica trip. As I was at the BA airport early I was able to get a window seat on the right side, so I had great views of BA after takaing off, and of the coast all the way down to Rio Gallegos, a stop-over, and then over the Straits of Magellan and, best of all, over the Beagle Channel as we flew into Ushuaia. The snow on the mountains behind Ushuaia that had fallen when I was here 3 weeks ago, had melted and it was fine weather, so perhaps a good omen. The plane had to circle the area three times to lose altitude before it could land, so there were wide sweeping views, stretching many kilometers in any direction. It was breath taking.

So there I was, back in Ushuaia. Then yesterday, late in the evening my ship for the trip to Antarctica arrived in port. This was sooner than I was expecting, so they must have had good weather on the crossing of Drakes Passage. Another good sign. I don´t care if I´m as sick as a dog when crossing Drake Passage on the way down to Antarctica and again back up, as long as it is reasonably good weather while I´m there. So this morning I checked my bags onto the ship, and have a couple more hours to kill before embarking. Can´t wait!

Regards,
Keith