17 Feb: Ushuaia --> El Calafate / El Chaltén
A welcome sleep past 8am, which is a luxury, followed by breakfast downstairs & packing for the airport. We took our first Aerolíneas Argentinas flight on the trip. It has been all LAN since we landed since we landed in Santiago. Jill was hoping we could get a LAN flight from Dallas to Santiago but, alas, we were stuck on American Airlines. LAN is better than either one but both are better than American although Aerolineas was marginally better than American.
We collected our bags and met Muti, our guide for the next 11 days in Patagonia, just outside of the baggage collection area. We also met the driver, Daniel. We then hung for lunch at the airport waiting for the remaining 10 folks we'll be joining to get to El Chaltén from Buenos Aires.
We met our group for the next 11 days as we got on a small bus to go to El Chaltén. They had all spent @ least a day together in Buenos Aires and several of them already knew each other from previous travel. So we were the "newcomers". They even split us up at dinner to (1) interrogate us and (2) force us to chat with new and different folks.
They all seem nice from what we can tell and several are very accomplished individuals. While we are the youngest, we are hoping we can keep up on the hikes.
We collected our bags and met Muti, our guide for the next 11 days in Patagonia, just outside of the baggage collection area. We also met the driver, Daniel. We then hung for lunch at the airport waiting for the remaining 10 folks we'll be joining to get to El Chaltén from Buenos Aires.
We met our group for the next 11 days as we got on a small bus to go to El Chaltén. They had all spent @ least a day together in Buenos Aires and several of them already knew each other from previous travel. So we were the "newcomers". They even split us up at dinner to (1) interrogate us and (2) force us to chat with new and different folks.
They all seem nice from what we can tell and several are very accomplished individuals. While we are the youngest, we are hoping we can keep up on the hikes.