A weekend in Lima and a week in Ushuaia, Argentina

Well, now that I am traveling again, life is much more interesting.

On the 6th of January, I flew to Lima, Peru. I got there at 11:30 in the evening. Customs was very slow and I did not get out of the airport until after one in the morning. In Lima, they schedule all of the international arrivals between 11:00 pm and 2:00 am. The next day in the newspaper, there was an article about how bad the line is at the airport. Of all the flights, they picked mine as the single worst one to arrive in. But, I eventually made it out of the airport and my friends Luis and Karem were waiting for me.

Luis had to work the next morning, so I spent the time arranging his books by subject and author. That makes it easier for me to borrow them. We all met at the ceviche restaurant for lunch and I was reacquainted with my favorite Peruvian food ?raw fish. Also, a few hours of being in Peru was enough to remind me that this is my favorite country to eat in in all of South America. I did not have time for all of it on this visit, but I will return in April for some more food. I will eat more ceviche, as well as lomo saltado, chicha, chicha morada, cuy, and papas huanavelica. For desert, Karem and I went to my favorite ice cream place in the center of the Miraflores district.

During the weekend, we saw some movies, went to the beach, ate some more good food and hung out. I also listened to Luis?new Cd. He is the group Ruido and his album is La Lentitud de la Luz. The chorus of the title song is catchy and I have been singing it ever since.

On Sunday night, they took me to the airport. I got in line a bit after ten and waited. The line was not too bad and I eventually made it to the front. I was using one of these fancy new e-tickets, so that meant that I had no paperwork with me. The woman behind the counter put my name in the computer and told me that I was a day late for my flight and that I should wait until everyone else was helped before she could deal with me. Since I had a magazine and did not really care where I waited, I moved aside.

When they were done helping everyone else, it was my turn again. The man behind the counter looked at my passport, typed into his computer and told me that my name was George Fox and that my flight was on the 26th. Eventually, I convinced him to try again. Finally, he decided that my name is Avram Fox and that I actually had reservations for this flight. He gave me my ticket and told me to run to the airplane.

So, I ran. About 50 feet. Then I got in line to pay my airport departure tax. This line looked to be about 30 minutes long, so I went back and told the man at the counter. He cut to the head of the line, paid my tax and told me to run to the airplane.

So, I ran. About 200 feet. Then I got to the line for customs. This line was incredibly long and slow. Nobody seemed interested in letting me cut to the front, so I waited. Eventually, the man came back and told me to hurry. I hurried as fast as I could, but I still finished one magazine and started the next before I had even moved much. Several people from the airline urged the customs man on, but he did not seem to feel any sense of rush. When it was finally my turn, and he new I was in a rush, he took a moment to stretch and clear his mind before he got down to the big job of putting a stamp in my passport. Security was quick for some reason and I was escorted to the gate. There was a pick-up truck waiting to whisk me to the plane and I was the last one on board. I got on at 12:45 am for the 12:35 flight. Now that I was ready, we were on the way.

The Aerolinias Argentina flight landed in Buenos Aires early the next morning. I took a bus to the other airport and checked in for my next flight. Then, I had a few hours to wait, so I took a bus downtown and wandered around. Buenos Aires does not feel like any other Latin American city I have ever been to. Besides being very clean and having the world's widest avenue, the people were not what I expected. I guess I had read about the origin of the population, but it never really sunk in until I walked their streets. Argentina did an even better job of eliminating their native population than even the United States. Most of the people in Argentina are descended from immigrants from Italy, Germany, Spain and other places in Europe. Just from looking at he people, I could have been led to believe that I was in Omaha or Denver.

The fact that almost everybody is white means that I can't just walk up to a counter in a store and have people assume that I don't speak the language. So now there is always that moment of confusion as I struggle for words and the person I am talking to begins to realize that my Spanish is very limited.

On the subject of my Spanish language ability ?I still have a lot to learn. During my first day in Lima, I tried to have a few conversations in Spanish. I was talking in Spanish with the doorman in Luis's building and doing a fine job of it. I was looking at his face and could see that he was understanding me. Then he started looking confused. I reviewed what I had just said and realized that I had effortlessly switched to Japanese and did not even notice. I quickly apologized, but that came out in Japanese also. I needed a moment of quiet to re-orient myself.

Now, each day, there is less and less Japanese in my Spanish. Also, as I hear people speak, a lot of the vocabulary is coming back to me. I should be back to my old fumbling level in no time.

On the afternoon of the 10th, I boarded my flight for Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. The view from the plane reminded me of flying over Kansas. Big rectangles of agriculture divided by narrow dirt roads.

I landed at The bottom of the World at 8:30 and it was still light. I sure do like the ratio of daylight to darkness down here in the middle of summer. Sunset was at 10:07 and twilight ended at 11:00 pm. The next day, twilight started at 2:21am and the sun rose at 3:14 in the morning. I consider myself solar powered, so this all makes me pretty happy.

Ushuaia is one of those end of the road towns where the streets turn to dirt within a few blocks of the main drag. It is also a port town and the big cruise ships make day stops here. I heard a couple of fellow fresh off the boat Americans walk into the tourist information place and ask for directions to the golf course.

They have some great information centers here and I was quickly directed to a place to sleep. Single hotel rooms start at about $35, so I opted for the $7 dorm room. They are cheap, but I never seem to sleep well in them. There is always the couple of Israelis that stay up late talking. At least they politely switch to Hebrew when they realize that some people are trying to sleep. Also, there are always some Germans who have to wake up really early and crinkle all of their plastic bags before heading out for the day. Then there is the random person who snores. All of this means that I could not wait to leave town and start camping. But, there was one thing to accomplish first - booking a trip to Antarctica.

I spent the day of the 11th visiting all of the travel agents and asking about trips. I quickly learned that there are two types of boats ?luxury cruises and converted expedition ships. The big ships hold about 800 people and are super expensive. The expedition ships are former scientific research vessels and take about 100 passengers. They don't have swimming pools or putting areas, but they are much cheaper and better for what I want.

I found one that leaves on the 18th. Unfortunately, the travel agent does not accept credit cards and I did not have $2500 cash on hand. I started taking money out of the ATMs, but soon realized that because of the daily withdrawal limits, I would not be able to take out all of the money in time.

On the 12th, I ran around all day to the banks and did not make any progress. But, I was eager to start camping, so I loaded up my gear and headed for the hills. I took a mini-bus a few miles out of town and hiked to a river for the first night in my new tent. The next morning was spent slowly making my way across some very soggy tundra. During the afternoon rain, I climbed a mountainside and camped under a pass, well above tree line.

The 14th was snowy and I did not feel like getting all wet and cold. I spent the day in my tent and read a book. By the 15th, the weather had cleared and I was ready for some more walking. I climbed up to the nearby pass, Paso Belen, and was rewarded with a nice panorama of the surrounding snow capped mountains and valleys. In the afternoon, I followed a stream down towards the road. The valley floor was a series of beaver made lakes. Beavers are an introduced species here and have no predators. I was amazed by how much change they are capable of causing in the landscape. There were big stands of trees that had been killed by beaver created lakes. Every piece of wood had gnaw marks on it. The dams themselves were very well constructed and I often used them as bridges to help me across the valley.

After getting back to the road, I hitched into town and found another loud and cheap dorm room for the night. On the 16th, I went to Tierra del Fuego National Park and camped in the cold rain. But, I sleep better in my tent than I do anywhere else. And, with my new warm sleeping bag and well-constructed tent, I am happy to spend time camping. In the afternoon, I took some short nature strolls.

I came back to Ushuaia yesterday and went to Western Union to see if my money was waiting for me. Unfortunately, the Internet was down in all of Patagonia and they could not help me. I went to a movie in the evening and decided to see what could be done the next day.

Today, after a few hours of waiting and standing in line in two different places, my money came through and I finished paying for my trip.

I leave in about thirty minutes to begin my 10 day cruise to Antarctica. I hope to see a hot spring and maybe some other things as well.