* This entry from 2/9 *

Monkey – check
Ninja Turtle – check
Sharki E. Thrash – check
Tintin – check

The expedition team is accounted for. Me – I’m sitting in a plastic chair in the domestic flight area of Ezeiza. Yes, Ezeiza. Not, Jorge Newbery Airport – the airport printed on my multi-destination ticket. The nice lady at Jorge Newbery told me so.

“You are at the wrong airport. You can still make it if you go now. You have forty minutes.”

Getting to Jorge Newbery Airport:
At Ostinatto in the morning, not good with goodbyes, I avoid the main areas and step outside. I flag a cab, flag a few more cabs, get in a cab, driver's name is Fabio, he aims the rearview mirror towards the backseat and talks the ride up to Jorge Newbery with his left hand on the steering wheel. Twenty five pesos and some twenty minutes later I arrive and casually stroll to the Areolineas Argentinas counter where I patiently wait behind the ladies with their babies and bulky strollers. At the counter, I say, “Hola, Ushuaia, por favor.” This is when the nice lady tells me, “wrong airport.”

Walk briskly out the double doors, someone is leaving a cab, run towards it, tap on window, “Ezeiza, mas rapido!”, plane leaves at the twelve hour, “por favor, gracias”. The old man wearing bifocals looks at the clock on his dash and shakes his hand like he’s trying to get water off it. I squish into the backseat with my backpack strapped to my shoulders and we’re off. He zigzags through traffic, past buildings and billboards, past open fields with horses, past toll booths, city streets, and freeways. Finally EZE comes into view. He made it in twenty minutes. A Thank You very much and keep-the-change later, the expedition team and I navigate through the lines and arrive to this plastic chair in front of the gate. Destination – Ushuaia. Mission – do not miss the expensive boat to Antarctica.

(On the flight I drink Coca Light in celebration of my new friends from Buenos Aires.)



...at the moment, Los Lupinos Hostel - Ushuaia
I have left the sea but the sea hasn’t left me. Sitting on the top of a bunk bed with Monkey in my lap, it feels as though this bunk is a waterbed in disguise. Monkey has helped me to type and eat chocolate.

Hoping to finish an Antarctica blog by tommorrow evening and buy more chocolate.