March 15, Ides of March, from Colonia, Uruguay!

Another country, another stamp in my passport!! :)
Yesterday Betty and I left the wonderful town at the End of the World (to quote the new Argentinian Pope Francis I!), Ushuaia! We had a delightful time there, riding a long bus ride out to a 20,000 acre estacion (ranch) that has been in the same family since 1886 or so. It failed as a sheep/cattle ranch in the 80s I guess and is now used as a tourist site and a jumping off point to take a boat for 15 minutes out to a small island where 7000 Magellanic penguins, and some Gentoo penguins, and one lone King penguin (they don´t know why he showed up there this year!) were nesting. About 20 of us went around the island, trying to avoid the permanent nests there. The eggs were laid in October and hatched a couple of months later and now the babies were beginning to look like the adults. The adults were guarding the nests and molting, they couldn´t go into the sea until they were through molting and then they would swim out into the Atlantic and go north to warmer waters for the winter. They were very noisy with their loud honking. the guide said they honk to claim territory, complain, call their mate, just about anything, they honk! The pairs mate up and come back to the same nest every year. The males come first and clean up the nest and make it attractive. Then the females arrive and lay the eggs and they take turns guarding the nest while the other gets food. Skulking around are the skua, a gull like bird that preys on eggs and small babies or sick penguins. Up on the heights were turkey vultures hovering around for the same thing. It was amazing to get so close to them and you wanted to reach out and touch! But we were warned it´s not allowed!! 

After the boat trip we went to the small maritime museum that houses skeletons of many of the sea animals in the area, that wash up on the beach. I was pleased to see one of a leopard seal, a very ferocious predator that has no one that preys on them! We had seen a video of one ripping apart right at the shore some sea lions for lunch! They can be over 3 meters long!! 

We got taken by the guide in the back where workers and scientists were scrubbing skulls and bones and numbering and boxing them. An American scientist was back there, a woman of 70+ who had married into the family and lived on the ranch for over 50 years! she is supervising 6 doctoral students who are working on various projects relating to bones. One interesting project is with the teeth! I didn´t know teeth have rings similar to trees that can tell you all kinds of things like what they ate, how much they ate in a season, etc. They had a big tooth dissected to show! Interesting!

We came back to the hostel and met up with Ron, from Manchester, NH, who had hiked up to a nearby glacier for 6+ hours and had a great time! The mountains around there were gorgeous on a sunny day! Lots of skiing in the winter! Gabriel at the Antarctica Hostel and the other staff were so helpful! They let us do our laundry washing and then we took it down the street to dry it so we both have clean underwear!!!

The next day Ron left for home (he had spent 4 weeks trying without success to learn Spanish in immersion program in Costa Rica and then led a Appalachian Hiking Club group of 12 hiking through Patagonia, then spent 2 days in Ush. and now was headed home. He´s going to work for 2 months volunteering with the Masai in Kenya in the fall! Interesting people you meet!). We left later for our flight to Buenos Aires. It was about 2.5 hours and nice scenery along the way. 

I had bought some chocolates, a specialty in Ushuaia apparently - they said it keeps them warm in the winter months! - to give to May and something small for Ida. I was carrying it in a paper bag along with my water and a book! When I left the cart with our luggage when we got outside the baggage area, to cross the street to wait for Michelle and May who were on their way to pick us up, I realized in a panic I had left the bag with chocolates! I went running back across to the airport, frantically asked a policeman in sign language and he indicated I should keep going down the airport to the police!! After at least a 15 minute walk/run down the full length, feeling it was hopeless, I ended up in a small hallway with an office at the end. There a woman policeman sat with my bag next to her! I couldn´t believe someone didn´t just walk off with it!!! Now I grabbed it and hustled another 15 minutes back to Betty who I´d left with my phone (I´d been texting Michelle so we´d meet up!) and the luggage! There she was standing with May and Michelle had chased off after me. So I texted her to come back! How did we operate without cell phones!!?

It should have only been less than an hour´s drive out to Ida´s, but a stop at WalMart to get a birthday present for 4 year old Belli (and one for 2 year old Elli his sister) and LOTS of traffic and congestion later, we finally arrived at Belli´s birthday at Grandma Ida´s house. Talk about overwhelming family and children!!! Marie who lives in a house behind Ida had done all the many cake-baking and decorating for the party, maybe 40 little ones, some friends but mostly cousins of the birthday boy, were enjoying the blowup slides! And I met many of Ida´s 12 children and their spouses! May and Susie I had met in 1994 when they came to Sunset Beach in NC to my mother´s 74th birthday week party! And Ida, my brother-in-law Robert´s sister who is 83 I had met at Rob and then Christopher´s weddings out in Oregon. It was delightful to see them again!

We toured Ida´s house, from 1917, where she raised these 12 children, most of whom still live around her. One Katy is a nun a couple of hours away. Everyone was very excited about the newly elected Pope Francis I from Buenos Aires and some family members knew his brother and other relatives. We then left about 7 and stopped at another brother Pato´s house, a newly built home by him that was just gorgeous, brick, very spacious and Spanish hacienda style with a big yard and pool. Then we stopped also at Susie´s and met her daughter Sofi, a delightful 28 year old with excellent English. And then finally to May´s for dinner around 10 p.m. I could never get used to the hours here! Christian, her attorney husband, came in around 11::00 p.m. for his dinner so we visited and finally went to bed about midnight!!

May took us to the train in the am and we made the 12:45 pm ferry to Colonia, Uruguay. We needed to clear customs in both countries before boarding and ended up meeting, after a 1 hour crossing of the Rio Plata, very wide river dividing the countries, Mitch, an American from Long Beach, CA, who´s traveling for almost a year while deciding on his Ph.D. program in Philosophy when he returns. We are sharing a 4 bed dorm with him, and spent a delightful evening sharing travel stories (with me doing WAY too much story-telling!) during walk around the historic little Portugese/Spanish town here, then dinner, with lots of laughs and then more wine and mate, this thick tea everyone drinks all day, and some music (I bought the CD) from a lovely woman singer from BA. 

Off to bed and then another relaxing day in Uruguay before returning to Ida´s on Sunday for the WHOLE family get-together! Ciao!