The long wait…

After our burst of sightseeing in BA, work took over a bit and we spent a fair bit of time making plans for the first couple of weeks of the trip.  The biggest issue was the arrival of the truck, due in on 12th of November originally, the date kept slipping and changing, no information from the shipping agents, our stress levels increasing, eventually we received an email from the port in Montevideo saying that the ship was due in on 30th November.  3 days after the trip was due to start!  Ah, the best laid plans and all that…

So we looked into hiring buses (too expensive), changing our route (too difficult because we have bookings that can’t be changed), and eventually settled on booking everyone onto a bus for the journey south.  Basically, instead of 3 days of driving in the truck we would be doing one big hop down to Puerto Madryn on an overnight coach – the buses in Argentina are amazing, business class seats, meals and drinks served to you and movies etc.  All quite luxurious.

We met up with some of the group on the 26th, the day before the trip, and it was great to see those that we have travelled with before, and to meet some of the new ones.  The next day we met the whole group, did the pre-departure meeting and then headed out for a group meal.  Seems like a great group, and looking forward to travelling with them.

The next morning (Wednesday), Pete headed off to Uruguay to start talking to the port as the truck was due in on the Friday.  Graham (our trainee) stayed with me and the group in BA to help me get them all into taxis and onto the overnight buses the next day.  As we had changed our itinerary and so added an extra night into BA, we tried to book everyone back into the same hotel, but unfortunately they didn’t have enough rooms, so we walked around the nearby streets to find another hotel, Graham found a great hotel with a fancy foyer and a lovely pool for a reasonable price.  Happy days!  So a couple of us moved across to the fancy hotel and all was going well until we went up to the room…  and discovered we were staying in a hotel whose motto was “walls are optional”.  That included the bathroom – the shower was a glass cubicle, visible from everywhere in the room…  apparently we had managed to book into an alternative lifestyle hotel – suffice it to say that the usual “don’t disturb” and “please make up my room” notices that you hang on the doorknob were supplemented by a “please disturb” sign which would means “any guest is invited to knock on the door”.  Ohhhh kaaaay.  Not quite what we had in mind!

Getting everyone into taxis and to the bus station was quite an adventure, so really quite relieved to have everyone on the bus for the 18 hour journey south!  Even managed to get all the bags on board as well which was a bit of a miracle.

Puerto Madryn was great, our tour to the Valdez Peninsula couldn’t have gone better – amazing whale watching on a boat, fantastic weather and managed to see the other famous Patagonian wildlife as well.  Happy days.  Managed to get quite sunburnt the next day on a walk around town with some of the group, but so pleased to see the sun that it was all good!

Meanwhile, in Uruguay, Pete was going nuts waiting for the truck to arrive.  Friday 30th came and went.  No sign of the truck.  Graham managed to find a website where you can real-time check the location of ships, only to find that our ship was in Buenos Aires!  The port that we had wanted to ship to but had been told by our shipping agent that they didn’t ship to!!!!  Frustrated doesn’t even start to cover it.  To cut a long story short, eventually the ship arrived into Montevideo port on Monday afternoon, Pete had snuck into the port and managed to get a couple of photos of Ithaca FINALLY arriving on South American soil!  He sent me some photos by email which I was able to get while I was on the next overnight coach south, this time towards Rio Gallegos and on to El Calafate, and after a few tears of joy and relief, I showed the photos to the group who were all super excited to see the truck finally arrive.  I needed to temper their enthusiasm slightly by reminding them that the truck needs to drive 3,000km to get to us (about 45 hours or so of driving), but the idea of the truck finally meeting up with us was a big hit with the group!

So, it looks like by the end of the weekend, we will all be reunited!  We both can’t wait!!!  Until then, I have some glaciers and mountains to see, and Pete has a shed-load of kilometres to drive.

PS - Promise there will be more photos in future updates!