Using an app on his phone called PolarSteps, Brian tracked his location during the trip. Combined with scans of printed maps, it is easy to see exactly where we were. The large grey dots are places we stayed, underlined in orange on the maps.

Last Day in South America.

Our friends left yesterday while Brian and Clare stayed one more night to break up the long flights.

The next morning, we thought to get breakfast somewhere besides a hotel, so we marched out onto the streets.

Buenos Aires, at seven AM on a Saturday morning is a lonely place. The streets were empty. None of the shops were open. But the lonely feeling was more than that. For a few weeks, we had visited new places, and everywhere was a friendly face, someone we knew.

We ended up getting breakfast at a McDonalds, the only place we found that was open. The food was different than in the U.S. but OK.

We went back out later to get a jigsaw puzzle that Clare admired at the beginning of this trip, and found a German restaurant for lunch.

We were scheduled for an English-speaking tour of the famous theater and opera house across the street from our hotel. The theater is known for excellent acoustics. Most of the performances are streamed on YouTube. The tour guide was informative, loving any questions we asked. She told us why the building had so many doors: depending on the price of your seat, you use different doors. People with the least expensive tickets have to stand throughout the performances.

The guide showed us various parts of the building, which was originally completed in the early 20th century.

They recently renovated the building, including the furniture. They tried to replicate the original cloth as much as possible.

One hallway featured busts of famous composers whose operas are performed in the opera house.

Inside the main theater, workers were testing the lighting for an upcoming performance. We were allowed to sit quietly in boxes to watch for a while.

Brian sampled some beers, us usual!

Long travel day, especially for our friends. We took a bus to the Calafate airport and did all the normal travel stuff.

We left our friends as they readied for their flight to the U.S. and walked to the Marriott Hotel, about a mile toward the obelisk on the main boulevard.

A bus ride from El Calafate would bring us to the national park. We had nice views along the way on yet another beautiful sunny day.

Near the National Park, the hills were covered with native trees.

Once inside Los Glaciares, the road was steep and windy. Jimena had the bus stop before we arrived at the glacier to explain, clearly and accurately, what we would see. She used some of her own photographs.

Then we split up, to experience the glacier on our own or in small groups.

We learned that the deeper the blue color of the ice, the more compacted. This explains why the blue color is much more common here than in Alaska, where the ice sheet is thinner. Here, the ice is over 3,000 feet thick. The ice moves an average of 2 meters per day! The front is calving continuously and is currently retreating slowly. In the past, the glacier has sped up and sometimes reached the Magallanes Peninsula, where we are standing, damming the upper portion of Lago Argentino.

The wind started picking up, and we were glad for our parkas.

After spending a few hours at the glacier, we drove to another viewpoint for a toast with Calafate berry liquor. Some say if you drink this, you will return to Patagonia.

Six of us were dropped off at the Glaciarium, a museum outside the park dedicated to glaciers, one of few in the world.

We took the bus again to a home + restaurant for our last, though delicious, dinner as a group.