Our sojourn to Patagonia has come to an end. It was a bittersweet moment, as often is the case with these trips, but we have a few more days in South America to look forward to before heading home to a winter cold wave in the United States. As I write this we are on a ferry boat to Montevideo, Uruguay, a new destination for us. It takes about 2.5 hours to traverse the Rio de la Plata, which is the world’s widest river.

We are fortunate because others in our traveling party who hoped to be heading home had to deal with flight cancellations due to a massive winter storm in the U.S. We just had a delayed ferry departure of about 50 minutes, but you go with the flow. We accomplished our main task, which was getting on the right boat and on time. Everything else was out of our hands. We grabbed window seats but water spray blurred the view. The clouded windows and the delay made us feel like we were on the ferry version of New Jersey Transit rail service.

The Patagonia trip ended in Ushuaia, Argentina. Our final day in Ushuaia featured two activities that are always part of tours arranged by Overseas Adventure Travel — a meal at a local home and an educational discussion of a “controversial” topic. The talk was with an Argentine veteran of the brief 1982 war with Britain over what the Brits call the Falkland Islands and the Argentines know as the Malvinas.

Wars are intrinsically stupid, but that one was among the dumbest. Argentina was under a military dictatorship at the time, one that was known for kidnapping and “disappearing” dissidents. (We met a woman earlier in this trip who was kidnapped as an infant by security forces along with her young parents during that era. She was dumped off in the middle of the night at her grandparents’ door. Her parents were never seen again.) 

The junta was deeply unpopular, and it cooked up the idea of retaking the Malvinas as a way of diverting attention from their political woes. They calculated Britain would seek a political solution, but Margaret Thatcher’s popularity was also in the toilet at the time, and she used the incident to whip up patriotic fervor at home by dispatching a task force to reclaim the islands.

Both sides suffered casualties, but the Argentine forces were poorly trained and poorly equipped going against a professional military so the outcome was really never in doubt. Our speaker was 17 at the time he joined the military, which was compulsory at the time, and suffered PTSD from the conflict. Veterans were long ignored by the government, lacked access to mental health treatment and were shunned by countrymen in the immediate aftermath of the war, not unlike the experience of veterans of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. But happy to report his story turns out well.

Prior to that we visited the home of a woman named Gaby and her family, whose home sat in the hills above Ushuaia. It was a lovely house, one that many of us would like to own, if only it were located in a place with better weather. Ironically, we happened to visit on a glorious weather day, extending our good fortune. Temperatures were in the mid to upper 60s, with bright blue skies and puffy clouds. It’s what I call a chamber of commerce day; the one where the pictures are taken to show a community at its best. But those are rare in Ushuaia. Locals said it had been raining daily for the prior two months.

Gaby, like Gabo in El Calafate earlier in the trip, seemed to genuinely enjoy hosting OAT groups. She was very friendly and outgoing, encouraging us to explore every corner of her home. She is also a good cook, though I have to admit I only picked at the main course, a lentil stew. It was very tasty, but lentils and I don’t get along well. I devoured the dessert, however. The tres leches cake, which is a little different from the Mexican versions I’ve had, would have been enough, but there was also a brownie with dulce de leche. Over the top good.

We flew back to Buenos Aires the next day and in the evening enjoyed a final dinner at a steakhouse. We were in Argentina, so of course it was excellent. After dinner we strolled around the Puerto Madero area (pictured below) where the restaurant was located and enjoyed the scene of locals and travelers having fun.

It was a great trip. As our guide said earlier in the day, the point of adventure travel is to make you feel alive, to challenge yourself. This one succeeded on both counts.