Getting Around Southbound

Just a quick note and a few snapshots from Ushuaia, where we will board the Hebridean Sky, our home for the next 20 days.  Jutta and I are excited to be on our first cruise, and going to Antarctica has been a dream for many years.  Our internet access will be very limited, but we will send messages/pictures when we can........slideshow to follow on our return......... Be good everyone and we will see you soon. On the way from El Calafate to Ushuaia End of the World.......right here baby. Nice hotel full of cruise people like us Looking up at the hotel Looking down from the hotel Our ship.........the small blue one in front, not the gin palace in the back Prison museum Ushuaia End of Route 3........ We're gone

Today was going to be a long day no matter what we did........on the schedule was a six hour drive from Torres del Paine, to the Helsingfors Lodge, a couple of hours outside El Calafate, Argentina.  This was a destination we had chosen some time ago, and we hoped the views were as good in person as they were online.  It was kind of pissy weather outside, so not a bad day to be in the van.  Everything was going along great until we reached the border between Chile and Argentina........took us an hour to get through.......this little fox below was the cutest little mooch you can imagine. The drive into the lodge was really stunning. Two ranches encompassed all the land from the main road into the lodge........the road went on for 55 miles, and the ranches were at least 10-15 miles wide covering two valleys beyond the one we were driving through. We finally reached the lodge If you plant it in a strong prevailing wind like they have in Patagonia.........

With the towers out of the way, the last part of the "W" hike left to complete was Gray Glacier........there are a number of ways to get to the glacier, or at least get a great view of it, and for days, we heard stories of cancelled trips, screwed up hikes, etc., and we didn't know what would happen when we booked the glacier for this morning.  We planned to do the easiest thing of the trip for our last day in the park, and drive over to the end of Lago Gray, get on the boat owned by Lago Gray Hotel, and cruise the length of the lake to get up close and personal with the wall of ice which is Gray Glacier, and an arm of the Patagonian Ice Field, the third largest such field in the world.  OK, so guess what.......too fu+*^#g windy.........this has been a problem all week with this boat not sailing because of wind.  So, our 45 minute drive to Lago Gray Hotel was a waste of time, but we thought we could get back to our hotel in time to tag onto the Gray Glacier hike schedule...