If someone had suggested in August, that I was about to head off to Antarctica, for a 4 week trip, I would have thought they were mad. Antarctica had never been on my agenda, and not a place I had ever thought of going, despite Matt telling me several times that I should go there. Matt was there in December 2016.
It all started when Lisa, Matt and I took Jean out for her birthday. Matt was telling Lisa that he was shortly going to Madagascar, a trip he should have done in 2020, when it was cancelled due to the covid lockdown. Lisa told Matt that she had booked to go to Antarctica in 2020 and had also had to cancel, and she feared she would now never get there. Later on, when Matt had got home, he found a really good offer for an Antarctica trip through Bird Quest, and run by Oceanwide. Basically the trip was being offered with a 50% discount and was to depart from Puerto Madryn in Argentina in around 6 weeks time. When Matt sent the text with some details I thought it was safe to show Lisa, as there was no way she could take the time off her work. However, when she saw the dates, she realised that 3 of the weeks were her mid term break, so she would only actually lose one working week.
She then tried to convince me to join her. We both very nearly talked each other out of going, but in the end, even I decided it was too good an opportunity to miss.
Flying out to Buenos Aires on an overnight flight on the 13th October, we had one night here before moving on the following day to Puerto Madryn, where we would join the ship for the epic adventure 3 days later. This would give us a chance to look for wildlife, and a chance to relax before we set sail.
Whilst we were in Buenos Aires we did get to a large green park, to look for some Argentina birdlife, before going out for a great meal in the city. The lovely hotel also had a spa that we had the private use of for an hour, so we were well chilled out before heading out to the restaurant, although we did get soaked as it was heavy rain all evening.
Earlier, in the afternoon though, the weather was very pleasant and we did see many lovely birds in the park, although most escaped the camera. Some birds were very approachable and a few pleasing photos were taken.
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