2/21 - 3/3 - Antarctica!! We sailed the Lyubov Orlova out of Ushuaia for an amazing 10 day trip to Antarctica.The ship was actually named after a Russian actress & all of the Russian staff were great!They even did some traditional Russian singing & dancing for us!The expedition was run by Quark and their staff was also wonderful and very knowledgeable. During the 4 days of hell passing through the Drake passage (well actually only 3 days of hell - 2 on...

We stopped to see the actual windblown beach tree from the postcards.Unfortunately I got very nauseous on the winding road to get to the Harberton ranch (estancia).From the ranch we took a 10 min. boat ride to Martillo Island where there was a big colony of Magellanic penguins as well as a few Gentoo (Papua) penguins.It was so cool to be walking right among them!Of course we took a ton of pics and video.We stopped quickly on the way back to Ushuaia to see a beave...

Day 1 - On the way to el Chalten (part of the Nat'l glacier park) we stopped at a little place (the only place) in between el Calafate & el Chalten called Hotel Leona.They had pictures there of a wanted sign for Butch Cassidy.Apparently he had robbed banks all the way down there & was hiding out in that area before moving on to Chile and eventually getting shot in Bolivia.There was also a mini museum which had dinosaur fossils & aboriginal artifacts &...

Day 1 we just checked out the little town of el Calafate & got to listen to a group from Ecuador playing pan flute in the street!We also met a woman who weaves sheep's wool right in the store & hand embroiders shawls & blankets. Day 2 we went to visit the famous Perito Moreno glacier, but unfortunately it rained all day! LWe did take a 1 hour boat tour though (getting pretty close to the glacier) & walked along the pasarelas (walkways) to see d...

We took a tour to Laguna Esmeralda (Emerald lagoon) & a 25 year old guy from Buenos Aires named Gustavo was in our group.We had a beautiful walk through the forest until we got rained on really hard as we were walking through marsh.Our feet were muddy and we got pretty wet but it was a lot of fun and it was interesting trying to share our umbrellas with Gustavo.We walked along the river/swamp and finally got to Laguna Esmeralda.It was just as green (the sedim...