Off to the Patagonia for our mountain adventures

Monday, December 28, 2015
El Chalten, Patagonia, Argentina
Mon Dec 28
-6:30 AM brought the final "ding-dong . Good morning. Good morning everyone" announcement from Shaun. We groggily got up and put our packed bags outside our cabin.
-I snuck in a quick workout and then caught the tail end of bfast. Finn was kind enough to come sit w me. Then it was back to the cabin to gather the final items and leave cabin 308, our home for the past 11 days. 
-Finn maneuvered so that the kids all ended up on the same bus and off we went to the Ushuaia Maritime Museum that is housed in the old prison building. It had decent content but my stomach was a little wobbly trying to read the small print. Funny as it felt like I was still rocking. 
-the kids tired of the museum relatively quickly and decided to walk into town on a lovely sunny day. We ambled to the hotel meeting spot and as usual the kids created a kids table. One last time. :-)
-shortly it was time to walk to the buses n we took a few pictures along the way. We said our goodbyes n grabbed our luggage and headed up the hill to the airport transfer company
-after a bumpy and slightly unpleasant walk uphill we dropped our bags and went out to use the two hours that we had in town. 
-first stop was to exchange some dollars for pesos at the blue market rate. Pretty simple and painless. Next we made our way across town to return our rental snow pants. Again painless. Finally we went to our favorite hole in the wall rotisserie shop and the proprietor was glad to see us again. Using our mutual pigeon Spanglish we got our order and took it outside to eat
-we found a bench overlooking the Beagle Channel and munched away there. Then we headed off to find a refrigerator magnet for Uncle Rob. We struck out so decided to go use the transfer office's Internet and check in with the world. It was nice to catch up on emails and blast out some quick "we are alive" emails and pictures. 
-we had 30 mins left so decided to make one more go for a frig magnet. With advice from the office staff we found one and then returned back and were whisked off to the airport
-amazingly our flight said it was on time and bag check and security were pretty painless. We played some cribbage and then hopped on the plane with crossed fingers that it may actually depart on time. Miraculously it did!
-Finn snoozed while I watched the landscape below. In an hour we landed in the middle of this flat plain with scrub brush. Not exactly what I was expecting. However to one side was the huge Lake Argentina that is aqua blue because it is filled from glacier melt. So we must be in the right vicinity
-our guide picked us up and we began the 2.5-3 hour drive around the lake to the mountains. We stopped for a few pictures but mainly Finn snoozed and the landscape looked barren. We could see the mountains in the distance
-we finally arrived in the small town of El Chalten. It was approaching 6 and the streets were full of hikers returning from their day hikes. Obviously a tourist hiking mecca and an active place. Plenty of gear shops and restaurants. 
-we checked into our hotel and found out that our guide would meet us at 8. So we had a little under two hours and motivated to explore the town. I was hungry but couldn't find a spot with quick food. We tried the empanadas from the yummy smelling bakery but they were served cold and were not very tasty
-we returned for our briefing and also went over our gear. The briefing was pretty short and simple but we were very glad to hear that we would have good weather. 
-we returned to our room and I was still hungry. Finn missed his friends so I volunteered to go to the take out place we had seen and order a pizza and bring it back to the room . That worked out pretty well and he sketched to cheer himself up and we had a nice simple dinner
-we got ourselves psyched up for another early morning and a long hike tomorrow and then read and went to bed
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