The Travel Section

Settling in with the travel section of the Sunday paper, I scanned an article about Ushuaia, the southernmost point in Argentina and the southernmost city in the world. There’s a big picture of snow capped mountains behind a colorful city perched on the water at the end of the continent. It’s touted as a jumping off point for Antarctic expeditions and exploring Patagonia, a good place to drop out of life, eat king crab, drink Pisco sours, and grab a latte. It’s springtime there now.

I’m leaving in a couple of weeks on a trekking/hiking trip to Tierra del Fuego that I didn’t plan and haven’t really thought about much. I dug out my flight itinerary, and there, on page 2, is a Christmas Day flight to Ushuaia.

The Buddhas, handmade paper notebooks, copper vase, Christmas baubles, and gifts are not yet unpacked from Nepal. Brochures from museums, work notes, Nepalese rupees, and my mail clutter my dining room table. My travel companion is in Venezuela observing today’s election and will have even less turnaround time than I.

Today I made no progress on unpacking and organizing as my jet lagged body demanded rest.

Soon I’ll begin moving things from one bag to the next, swapping out shoes for hiking boots. Keeping my passport, flashlight, and shampoo handy for my next flights, which look like Chicago to Miami, to Santiago, Chile, to Punto Arenas to Ushuaia, and then in and out of Buenos Aires to Iguazu Falls, spectacular, huge, tropical, wild waterfalls on the border of Argentina and Brazil that led Eleanor Roosevelt to say, “Poor Niagara.”