Who wants to go to Antarctica with me? Any takers? No? Too bad, I’ll have to take my wife and leave the rest of you behind!!! If you haven’t “Followed” my blog yet, do it now! You’ll see some superb photos, I hope! Go on and ‘follow’ it now! See you all soon! I’ll be incommunicado for the next several weeks!

DAY ONE (Saturday, Feb 16)

Okay, here we are again, heading for the airport for a new adventure.  We’ve spent the last 6 months acquiring just the right items to take us south.  Far South.  So far south that no one lives there.  Well, no towns or cities anyway.  Yes, you guessed it, we’re off to visit Antarctica.  Not a typo, Antarctica.  That place at the ‘bottom’ of the world.  Why?  Good question.  Because.  Because we can.  And because we love to see things with our own eyes that can only be imagined otherwise.

So it’s off to the airport with huge bags full of warm fluffy clothing and hand warmers.  Lots of hand warmers.  Foot warmers too.  Oh, and Body Warmers.  Lots of Warmers, so many that we had to pay attention where we packed them so no one piece of luggage is too heavy.

Waterproof gloves, Fleece lined pants.  Sweaters.  Double lined jackets and hats.  So many unique and special items that we have spent such a long time finding.  This trip will be our most special yet!

And my cameras, you may ask.  What am I bringing?  Well the answer is all of it.  Every last lens and camera body.  Wait, all that won’t fit in my camera bag/carry on.  Hmmm, have to leave something behind.  Ok so I want wide angle and telephoto but can’t fit it all in.  What to do, what to do.  Time to go shopping and find something new.  What’s that, we plan to kayak?  That’s going to be an issue with the big equipment.  Can’t kayak with an EOS 5D and 400mm lens.   Hmmm, what’s this on Amazon, a point and shoot that zooms from 20mm to 1365mm?  No, that kind of thing doesn’t exist.  But wait, here it is, right there on that page.  Okay, I’ll try it, what do I have to lose?  And it’s made by Canon, can’t be bad!

Wait, Elee needs a new camera also?  Ok, find her one.  Here’s the perfect camera for her!  Place the order.  Gotta love Amazon Prime!  New stuff arrives in a day or two, from clothing to cameras.  Okay, cameras packed and ready to go.  All fits in my carry on too!  Don’t forget the waterproof housing for kayaking!  Got it.

Here’s the shuttle to take us to the airport.  Right on time.  A welcome change from our Cuba trip.  Arrive at the airport with plenty of time to spare.  Check our bags in.  What?  There’s a delay?  Not to worry, delays happen all the time.  What do you mean, we’ll miss our connection in Atlanta?  There was only 45 minutes for our first connection and we’re delayed 35 minutes?  Oh man, our first problem and we haven’t even boarded the first plane!  What’s that, the airline will take care of everything.  Not sure we like the sound of that, when has an airline ‘taken care of everything’?  Oh well, it will be what it will be.  Let’s get on the plane and get going!

Eventless first flight, except we left 35 minutes late.  But as we approach Atlanta, we hear that we are arriving on time!  WhooWee, the pilot ‘stepped on the gas’!  We’ll be fine after all.  So we disembark and head for our connection, only a few minutes late from the original schedule.  We waste no time getting to our connection.  Wait, what’s that?  The gate door is closed?  But we’re here on time!  There’s still 20 minutes before the plane leaves!  What’s that, the plane is full?  How can that be, we have tickets?  Our seats were sold?  We weren’t scheduled to make it on time?  But how can we get to Buenos Aires?  We have another connection from there!  Oh this is bad.  Very bad!  What do we do now?  There are no flights to Buenos Aires tonight?  So what do you suggest we do?  Go to Customer Service, they will take care of you.  Hmmm, this is not good, not good…

We walk across the terminal to find Customer Service.  Oh there it is, over there.  So what happens now?  You’ll put us on the first flight in the morning to Miami?  We don’t want to go to Miami, we want to go to Buenos Aires and then to Ushuaia, Argentina.  How does that happen?  The earliest flight to Buenos Aires is via Miami?  Okay, I guess.  But what do we do tonight?  You’ll give us Hotel Vouchers?  I guess we have no choice.  But what about our luggage, we need to get those.  Our luggage is in the system?  It will follow us in the morning?  This is not sounding like the best idea.  But our luggage is big.  Maybe the airline is right, after all they do this sort of thing all the time.  We need to pick up our luggage in Miami and check it in to the flight to Buenos Aires because that is the first International Leg of the trip.  Okay, I guess we can do that.  But my toiletries are in my bag.  You have complimentary toiletry kits for us?  But we have only the clothes on our backs.  Oh well, I guess this won’t be the first time I wear the same clothes two days in a row.  You’ll pay for a restaurant meal also?  Okay, we’ll let you do that.

So, carry-ons intact, toiletry bags and Hotel Voucher in hand, we head out of the airport on foot because we’re told the Hotel is actually IN the airport.  Oh there it is, right over there.  We check in to the Hotel and see a steak house on the way.  Well, if the airline is buying, I guess I’ll let them buy me a good steak!  We find ourselves checked in, room is nice, and we walk over to the restaurant and get seated around 10 o’clock at night.  They are still serving so let’s order food!

We’re seated in the restaurant and there is a party atmosphere around us.  Couples dressed in tuxedos and formal gowns and lots of what looks like Mardi Gras Beads.  Hmmm, an interesting mix of costumes but mostly formal wear with beads.  It turns out after talking with some of them (Elee and I are far from shy when we’re curious and we approach strangers and ask lots of questions!), there is a High School from New Orleans whose Alumni is from Atlanta (this reason we never got an answer to) and every year they throw a ‘Fundraiser/Party’ and celebrate!  And tonight’s the night!

A good meal in us and a couple glasses of wine and back to the Hotel for a night’s sleep.  We have a mid morning flight to Miami and then have a 5 hour layover before we board a flight to Buenos Aires.  24 hours into the trip and we haven’t traveled south at all.  We might have just driven cross country for the heck of it!

Okay, some of you have heard rumors regarding this. In the next week (or two) you will see the rules and prizes for our first annual Blog Contest! Basically, in a nutshell, for example, what you need to do, but only if you want to, if you like corny jokes it will help, but seriously, you can win a framed piece of art from DonP! (Some restrictions apply, but you can read all about them as the rules come out and this story progresses.

All we are saying for now is the contestants will include (and be limited to) those who “Follow” this Blog! You will need to either “Follow” or “Email Follow” the Blog. (Hint, hint hint, if you “Email Follow”, you will get more entries and have a better chance of winning!) Please trust us to know that your email address will never be “Spammed” by us! This is important to know! We will only use your email for notification of prize winnings and other important stuff. Never will we share your addresses with anyone nor advertise to you with junk!

So if you can trust us to this point, tell your friends about us and hopefully enjoy the perks of hearing about our adventures! So, for now, if you haven’t already, go to the bottom of any page in our Blog and “Follow” us! More details and “Rules” to come soon!

To recap, you must be logged as a “Follower” to win. And there will be random winners (Many can win!). But if you aren’t in the Followers list, you don’t have a “Shot in Hell”, so to speak! Oh, and to make if fair, follow me on FaceBook and that is how the winners will be chosen! Planned algorithms will be used. Make sure you answer when asked a question!

So here we are in Ushuaia with only the clothes on our backs. Sounds like a journey worthy of a much younger person! Why would anyone come to a place known as “The End of the World” with only the clothes on their backs? Well, because the Airlines can’t seem to perform simple tasks like send our luggage! We have purchased a few pairs of underwear and sweatshirts in Miami because we have been forewarned of a delay in our luggage since the Airline messed up our flights and wouldn’t put us on our original flight to Argentina.

We land uneventfully with only our carry on luggage, which, thankfully has all my camera gear intact. The views coming into Ushuaia are a tease for what we are to experience down here at the End of the World. Stunningly beautiful, especially for being shot out the window of a commercial airliner.

Okay, travel jitters again. Can I really travel without stress? One can wonder. Stay with me here and see where I can go!!!

So right now I should be flying somewhere over Venezuela or Brazil. Instead, the Airlines screwed up a flight crew and we are spending the night in an Airlines funded hotel in Atlanta and scheduled to fly south in the morning. Sheesh!

Day two and we are still in the country. 28 hours of travel has gotten us from LA to Miami. Probably should have driven here, LOL. And we will board a plane to take us to Buenos Aires in 2 hours and we find out our luggage is still in Atlanta with all our cold weather clothes! The airlines supposedly is trying to get our luggage to us before we get on a ship in Tierra del Fuego. Gonna be interesting for sure. Had to buy new underwear because we will be in the same set of clothes for 3 days, at least we’ll have clean undies like my mother taught me! So as a wise friend taught me, “Stay Calm and Get Yourself a Drink!

Here we go again, we are on Day 3 of our new adventure. We have arrived in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, sans luggage. It is a brisk 35 degrees and I’m glad I bought a sweatshirt in Miami! Beautiful town, the southernmost city in the world. Delta is telling us our luggage will arrive tomorrow before noon. We have already purchased some things on their dime and a shopping trip in town proves fruitful although we would have never spent this much by our choice! But with luggage promised on the way and our research having pointed out the stores to go to in case the luggage doesn’t get here and things are looking up. Now off to dinner and see if we can find some of that great lamb that Argentina brags about! The photos are a sample of why people come here!

Our Second Full Day in Habana on our own! Nov 12

Today, we arise and go out and find breakfast. We actually go into a large hotel just to see how the Europeans do it and breakfast is lackluster at best and it costs $70 by the time we get out of there! We’re glad we didn’t try this before! Tummies satisfied, we walk around the top floor of the hotel and find an outdoor patio for a view. Strange art sculpture adorn the lobby as we leave.

We spy a form of transportation that we have not, as of yet, ridden in and we approach them with the intent to get a ride. Alas, we are disappointed when we are quoted a higher price that even the Classic Cars charge! The miser in me comes out, especially after the outrageous breakfast and we decline the ride.

A stroll around the area reveals more graffiti art and our cameras are happy once again. Even a poster of an ex American President shows up!

I haven’t posted many photos of local Cubans to date, so it is time to put some up. I hope you enjoy!

Street scenes and live music in a park and it’s time for a cool beer again in the uncomfortable heat and humidity!

The band engages us and we party with them for a bit. See their latest moracca player! We meet more tourist and make new friends!

A typical street scene!

More fun shots from our walk on the Malecon…

Other fun street scenes that didn’t make it into a category!

More uncategorized images, transportation vehicles and an outdoor restaurant for lunch.

Our last dinner at Habana 61!

One more evening in town and I’m not tired yet. While Elee retires for the evening, I bring a cigar and some honey with me and go back to the local park with the live music and I order a cold brew and meet a couple from Europe with the same thought. I offer them some of the honey and show them the trick the Cuban farmers taught me with the honey cigar filter and we become fast friends and they let me photograph them! If you guys see this, please comment and get in touch!

So I’ll say adios for the evening and retire. For tomorrow, our trip will be over and we go back home. Cuba has been a marvelous trip. Compliments of my late Mom who feared for me traveling but always wanted to see where I would go next. This trip was for you, Mom!