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"New Year's at the End of the World: the Geology of Southern Patagonia Including Tierra del Fuego" JR's Journal Buenos Aires to Río Gallegos
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| The hotel gave all a 6:00 wake-up call. Breakfast was at 6:15.
In spite of the early hour after the late night, everyone was upbeat and
ready to roll. The bus left the hotel promptly at 8:00 and we were
at Aeroparque by 8:20. The new construction is nearly finished and
the place looks great. The new design, however, is pretty stupid.
In the past, passengers boarded busses to the planes that awaited outside
gates on the ground floor. Now, passengers take an escalator upstairs,
go through the gate, and then walk downstairs to the bus that takes them
to their plane.
We had good views of the coastline out the right side of the plane all the way down to southern Santa Cruz province. We landed in Río Grande, on Tierra del Fuego, and refueled. The return flight to Río Gallegos only took 25 minutes. Our bus was waiting at the airport and took us to the hotel Santa Cruz. We had a large lunch and then hopped on the bus and headed north of the Río Gallegos toward Estancia Angelina. The road was good but long and slow in the large bus. We saw rheas, foxes, and flamingos but no guanacos. My hope was to get to the coast but just a kilometer from the ranch there was a rut in the road that would high center the bus so we were forced to turn back. I felt vanquished: a long trip for nothing. We arrived back at the hotel about 9:30 and Angel announced that he was going out to make a reservation for dinner! Naturally the Club Britanico could not handle us on such a short notice. I was pissed. We ended up eating pizza at the Quick Stop. I chewed out Angel a bit since I had requested the dinner at the club 6 months earlier. I was exhausted when I got back to the hotel around midnight.
I arranged for a 7:30 wake-up and 8:00 breakfast. I sat down on the
bed and fell asleep in my clothes.
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Division of Environmental Studies, Mathematics, and Natural Sciences |