Back from Antarctica

Ok gang - just got home and haven't been through all the pictures yet, but here's a couple of the good ones for now. More to follow of course. Yes, I'm that close to the penguins.

A B&W of the stream we had to cross. It's artsy.


Here's a picture of a Gentoo penguin and two chicks who might not survive since they are so late in development with the impending fall/winter.



Chunks of huge icebergs. I also took a plunge into water like this 1 day after this. Don't have that picture handy, but it wasn't as cold and mind-numbing as I thought it would be.

more pictures

OK - a big scare, thought i had lost all my pictures from my card. luckily - it can be read by a computer but not by my camera. i have copied it to a dvd and now am more happy. i was going through denial, then anger, then sadness. here are some more pictures. Check out the album, which I just put some Patagonia pictures together on.

Here´s Brian´s favorite so far. it´s of me and one of the fellow trekkers, Gina from Dallas. It´s near the bottom of Fitz Roy in Patagonia. Notice the rainbow in the background.

The next one is of us on the glacier looking a bit cold. but our antarctica gear has served us well. actually brian´s recently bought convertible pants weren´t water proof but it worked for him.

Here´s one of Brian looking dapper on the ice.

Here´s me pointing the way up to Fitz Roy. Although we are going the opposite direction.

I´ll end with another scenery one. This one with us in the clouds as it were.

Patagonia Hiking Pictures

OK - less talk, just pictures as i´m trying to conserve the time on the internet cafes and it takes too long to upload these pictures. there are many of the scenery as well, but i´m putting the pictures with either brian and myself for now.

Here´s one of me and brian at the beginning of our two day, one night super-trekking trip in El Chalten, Argentina. note how rested we looked.

We hiked into the mountains and stopped at a lake for lunch. I and others decided to wade into the very cold waters which was great for the feet. Surprisingly the water is potable so we filled up our water bottles - it was cold and refreshing.

From there we continued to hike up more. We took a quick break at a vista point and that´s one of me taking a breather on a nice, warm rock.

The next day, we woke up at 6 am to begin our big day. We hiked to get to our destination, which was walking on some glaciers and then do some ice climbing. Not my idea of fun, but i was game. At one point, we had to cross a big river by this rope bridge where we pulled ourselves over. Here´s a picture of Brian doing it.

OK - here´s one scenery picture as we were hiking onto the glacier. You are seeing these massive jagged peaks which are indicative of the Andes due to the high winds. It was too cold, but I was in my Antarctica gear which worked like a champ. We also had to put on crampons which was a first for me.

Finally, here´s a picture of me doing my ice climb. Brian was videotaping me and he said at the top, he saw the look of fear. I agreed. I climbed up and said, now what? OK - so this should be turned around clockwise, but that would require about five more minutes of internet time and it´s been 1 hour.

Hasta luego.

quick post from argentina

hi everyone - quick posting of pictures. this is a picture of me, brian and summer at puerto madiero, which is a converted warehouse on the port place.

also a picture of a nice church in the town square or plaza where we watched a free concert (with a large gathering of socialists).