Thursday, February 6, 2014

"Dispatches from the Pampas"...Day 1...Thursday, February 6, 2014

So...in about two hours, I'll be leaving for Miami Airport and a flight to South America for a month-long camping trip.
Last year, on the way back from Costa Rica, I started to plan this trip. Years ago in Geography class, I spent a few days studying Argentina, and I was fascinated...Tango, Cowboys, beef...and penguins! Thus, Argentina became the focus of my trip planning. Later around New Years, my friends, Andreas and Simone, were visiting...and Uruguay came up. Why not?
This is a trip that, more or less, planned itself. Argentina is a huge country...so what to see...where to go? Sometimes, there is the temptation to want to see everything...and by doing so, you really don't see anything. In this case, less is more". Instead of trying to see all of Argentina, I'm just concentrating on two areas...Buenos Aires and Mendoza (wine country!).
Today, I fly to Lima, Peru, and I have three nights there. Lima has acquired a reputation as a "culinary destination", so I will be eating (and drinking) well. Sunday, I fly to Buenos Aires, and I have three full days/nights there. I've lined up reservations at three of the best steakhouses in the city. I've also got errands to run in Buenos Aires, mainly to pick up the camping supplies that I can't take with me on the plane...butane/propane for my stove, a small grill, a cooler, etc. A week or so from today, I pick up a rental car in Buenos Aires for the six hundred mile "road trip" to Mendoza. And for the next two weeks, I'll be camping in the foothills of the Andes at several National and Provincial Parks. In Mendoza, I've got winery tours, tastings and lunches lined up at all of my favorite Argentinian wineries...great fun! Then, it's six hundred miles back to Buenos Aires, and a ferry trip from there to Uruguay. I pick up another rental car in Montevideo and spend five days camping along the coast before returning to Montevideo for three days. Finally, I take the ferry back to Buenos Aires and fly home on March 6...arriving early on the morning of the 7th.
Planning this trip was interesting, to say the least. I ordered a "micro SD card" from Garmin...so my GPS will work in both Argentina and Uruguay. Argentina has an extremely high inflation rate, so I'm taking more cash than I would normally. I bought a money belt, and most of my cash is stored in there. The "official" exchange rate is around 4.5 pesos to the dollar, but the "black market" rate is closer to 9 pesos to the dollar.
Like last year's trip to Costa Rica, I faced the challenge of getting everything that I need (clothes, camping equipment) in two duffel bags...and each bag had to come in under fifty pounds. My Costa Rica Packing List served as the template for this year. Each item was weighed on a professional digital scale accurate to 1/100th of an ounce. Yesterday, I took my packed duffel bags up to Publix and weighed them on the big Toledo scale. One came in at 42.5 pounds, and the other at 44.5 pounds...success!
Over the next four weeks or so, I'll be blogging whenever I have Internet access. It's going to be a great adventure!

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