On the Road... to South America

See album attached at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DFvDJlDHYU&feature=youtu.be

On the Road Again!! Tomorrow we leave the Detroit winter behind and we go Down South--WAY Down South.  In a matter of hours we will in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the middle of summer and the middle of Carnaval, at the beginning of what looks like an exciting adventure.  We start our travel with  Chris and Gary Abbatte, (LONGTIME friends, currently of Arizona).  Four days of now-it's-the-middle-of-summer acclimation up in the pampas, then back to Buenos Aires where we hook up with our small tour group for a ten-day trip to Patagonia.  The tour group is limited to 22 people, and we know 16 of them.  We put this together with Eric and Debbie, two fellow travelers from Staten Island we met traveling a couple of years ago.  We got a deal through Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) by organizing our own group.

After hooking up with our friends we fly south to the bottom of the continent, then travel by land along the glaciers and fiords of Chile.  Next we continue south by small ship through the Straits of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego.  Then we fly back to Buenos Aires, where we again are left to or own devices.  The four of us will be joined by Gail, Linda's college roommate and a steady fellow traveler of ours from years past.  We all fly up to Iguazu Falls for a few days (looks terrific--the film "The Mission" was shot there), then back to Buenos Aires.  Here it gets really interesting.  The five of us then take the public ferry across the Rio de la Platta and arrive in Uruguay.  For the next 10 days the five of us will travel up the coast from Montevideo by boat and by bus.  Like a bunch of old hippies.  Or maybe like a bunch of young hippies.  We will let you know.  Junkies, cat burglars and second-storey men take note:  we'll be gone just over a month.

We arrive in South America just in time for Carnaval!

We have a pretty good run of documenting our travels through the BLOG since we retired--India, Guatemala, South America, Africa.  Our last two trips we did not do as well, and we take this

opportunity to briefly bring it up to date.  A year ago August we snagged a last-minute bargain river cruise from St. Petersburg to Moscow.  Pretty laid back and interesting.  The only excitement was when Roger got his pocket picked on the Moscow subway.   He has become something of a professional victim--it was his fifth time: twice in Rome, twice in Guatemala, now once in Moscow.

Then last spring we traveled with Gail on a two-week group tour to Morocco, a  beautiful and exotic country.  We have had very little trouble with the language when we travel.  Between our high school Spanish ("Que es el burro?") and the fact that English is spoken nearly everywhere, we do OK.  Morocco, with its two national languages of Arabic and French, though, was among the more difficult.  Morocco, as it turns out, is the hash capital of North Africa.  It has been our experience that if there are drugs anywhere in the neighborhood, the dealers will be all over us.  Like Kobe Bryant on a cheerleader.  Like Bill Cosby on any female.  Not so in Morocco.  We spent several nights in the Atlas Mountains where the weed is grown and the hash is processed, and we got nary a nibble.  We think we are suddenly out of the dope-smoking-tourist demographic.  A sobering thought.  We then tacked several days onto our trip with Gail for independent travel, and we hung out at the beautiful seaside village of Essouria.  Roger didn't get his pocket picked, but we did get swindled in numerous restaurant transactions, just to keep in practice.

We include a few pictures of Russia and Morocco here, with this link to a very brief photo album.  We are trying it a little more high-tech, posting an album in iMovie format from our MACs to YOUTUBE.  We'll see how it works!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DFvDJlDHYU&feature=youtu.be

                       Blue village of Chefchaouen       Camel ride across the Western Sahara

                                              Las tres amigas--Linda, Chris, Gail

Even Moroccan camel drivers support JB Grose's bid for council!