Punta Arenas is an important port on the Magellan Straight at the very south of Chile. Of its 170,000 people, about a third are of Croatian decent.
In 1518, Ferdinand Magellan left Seville in Spain with five ships. After several problems including a couple of mutinies they found a route through to the Pacific Ocean. The Magellan Straight. It meant they didn’t have to deal with the unpredictable hazards of Cape Horn. One of the five ships made it all the way back to Seville but Magellan was not on it. He was killed in the Philippines.
Another historical figure who had ties to Punta Arenas was Ernest Shackleton who led three expeditions to Antarctica, not always with the best results.
I took a long walk by the water and saw some interesting things.
From there we drove to Torres del Paine national park. Along the way we came across a couple of gauchos crossing the road.
We also saw rheas, guanacos and flamingos.
Once we got to Torres del Paine we took a short hike.
We stayed in a hotel right on Grey Lake and at the end of the lake you could see Grey Glacier.
Next day we had a longer hike.
I found out that glaciers make a rumbling noise like thunder when they move. This one was moving a lot.
From Rapa Nui we made our way to Buenos Aires and a brief visit there.
Our first stop was to the memorial for the “Desaparecidos” or the “Missing”. During the dictatorship in Argentina from 1974 to 1983 they estimate over 30,000 people ‘disappeared’. We heard from a man in his 40’s whose mother was snatched off the street weeks after he was born. It was only recently through new processes that they were able to identify her remains. When his father discovered she was missing he immediately took the baby to her parent’s house and he fled. Eventually the boy and his father moved to Pategonia to get away from it all.
It was a long time before anybody was able to talk about what went on. Now there is a large memorial where names are listed on several walls like the Vietnam memorial. They list the name, the age when they disappeared, and if they were pregnant. Many children were taken away from their mothers and given to other people.
Our next stop was to the Boca neighborhood of Buenos Aires. It is next to one of the ports and was originally founded by a mixture of immigrants who arrived in the late 19th and early 20th century. It is a working class neighborhood that is very colorful and begging for tourists.
During the pandemic people brought stones to the main square in front of the National Palace in order to say goodbye to their loved ones who died.
We ended the day with a delicious steak dinner and lots of good Malbec wine.
Early the next morning it was back to the airport and on to Bariloche, the Lake District at the northern edge of Pategonia. It calls itself little Switzerland and has some good chocolate for sale.
The only town in Rapa Nui is Hanga Roa. It sits right next to the ocean and sculptures line the coast.
I found these signs next to the sculptures. From what I can tell they are telling us who sponsored the sculpture. They are in the shape that is the local symbol of Rapa Nui. It looks like a boat with two heads and symbolizes authority.
Easter Island or otherwise known as RapaNui is a five hour flight west of Santiago, Chile. It is actually part of Chile and everybody speaks Spanish.
As we approached the island I was pretty amazed anybody could find this little spec in the middle of the ocean. It is about the size of two Manhattan Islands. And the runway goes from the ocean to the ocean. I was glad the breaks worked. There is one flight in and one flight out to and from Santiago each day.
Today there are about 8000 people living on Rapa Nui and about 60% are native. They are Polynesian and originally populated from other islands in the South Pacific. The closest neighbor it has is over 2000 miles away.
It is known for its Moai. The large heads sticking out of the ground. There are over 1000 of them on the island. There was a large archeological effort in the 1980’s to excavate and restore them. Those are the ones seen today. There are also many Moai in museums around the world thanks to the usual looting – the British Museum, the Smithsonian, and various others. Two have been repatriated.
Here is a sampling. The Maoi are made of volcanic rock. There are many dormant volcanoes on the island but three main ones are Terevaka, Poike, and Rano Kau.
Rano Kau is the oldest volcano – 3 million years old. Avocados and Pineapples and other fruits grow inside the crater. people hike down into it to pick fruit and some go swimming. I hear the water is cold.
The view from up there was amazing.
We had lunch at a restaurant right in the ocean that happened to be just at the end of the runway. it came in practically on top of us.
My photos look a little out of focus today. Kind of psychedelic. Or is it just me? The sky is an odd color. A rainy, dark day. But color starting as the trees adjust to winter.
I actually got a story published this week. No money but think of the fame! The notoriety!
Today is also gloomy and rainy. But that’s okay. We need rain. Rain is good. Winter is coming.
I read today that scientists think mammals will die out in 250 million years. All the land masses will collide, the sun will get brighter, and carbon dioxide will rise. We will suffocate and melt. I wonder if we will really last that long. Will we morph into something else? Will another species thrive on the new atmosphere? Will we build bio-domes like our science fiction writers predict? It is hard to imagine what 250 million years looks like. The dinosaurs roamed the earth for 165 million years and then all blew up about 65 million years ago. Mammals showed up about 225 million years ago. So we are almost half way through our time here. On the other hand the earth itself is 4.5 billion years old. We are but blips in time. It’s like democracy in Russia. A nanosecond. Apparently Earth has another 4 billion years to go. Don’t think I’ll be around to see it.
I’m reading Isabel Allende’s memoirs and in it she mentions the filming of The House of Spirits. I never knew it was made into a movie so I watched it last night. It was star studded, Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Antonio Banderas, Winona Ryder, and a million other people. Of Love and Shadows is another one of her books that was made into a movie. I haven’t read that one but looks interesting.
I read that people who are optimistic and have positive thoughts on aging tend to live longer. I’m feeling positive I am aging.
A friend just found out he is going to Burundi for work. The poorest nation in the world. The most unhappy nation in the world. I first heard about Burundi during the Hutu-Tutsi genocide of the 1990’s. So I have been trying to find positive things about it. It is in the African Great Lakes region bordering on Lake Tanganyika. This is what I found.
As we flew into Ushuaia airport I could tell the pilot was having to do some maneuvering swooping down in-between the mountains and dealing with the heavy winds. A province of Argentina, Tierra del Fuego is an island that sits at the southernmost tip of South America. Ushuaia, its capital, is on the Beagle Channel about half-way between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, 620 miles from Antarctica. The meeting of the two oceans along with the mountainous terrain creates a strange weather pattern. It was usually very windy and could rain, be sunny, be stormy, windy raining, all within the same hour. It never rained for long and usually not very heavily. We could be out walking in the rain and never feel wet.
Once we hit the ground, I started to cry. It had taken me more than 30 years to get there but I was finally there. It was an amazing feeling. And the beauty of it did not disappoint, it was even more beautiful than I had imagined. The light and color was like nothing I had seen before. The area was dominated by snow covered mountains all around. Before arriving I had been worried that the excursions I had reserved would be cancelled because the weather forecast called for rain every day. I soon realized, rain meant nothing in Ushuaia. Life went on no matter what the weather was. One of our tour guides said the only people carrying umbrellas in Ushuaia were tourists. Because of the winds, umbrellas were useless.
Prison with heater in middle of block
We visited the prison museum our first day in Ushuaia. It was a good introduction to the island as it included anecdotes about the prisoners, some of the escapees, the history of the area, and even had a small art museum.
In 1902, the Argentine government formed a penal colony on Tierra del Fuego just outside of the small village of Ushuaia. At the time there were only about 40 houses on the island. The worst repeat offenders were sent to serve out their time, sometimes for life, building a prison and infrastructure to go with it. At one point they had more than 600 convicts living there. The cells were meant to be for one person but they would often have to double up.
The only heat was a wood stove in the middle of the building. It was cold. The prisoners built a small railroad going into the forest to help them haul wood back to their buildings once they had chopped down trees. Now it is a popular ride for the tourists. The prison closed in 1947 for humanitarian reasons and a Naval base was installed in 1950.
By then the area had grown and since there were no land animals to speak of, the government decided it would be a good idea to import some beavers from Canada. They could farm them for their pelt and create an industry. The problem was the climate in Tierra del Fuego was very different from Canada. It was not cold enough and the beavers did not grow the extra fur needed to make them profitable. The Argentines gave up and let the beavers go. They multiplied and created major problems to the point where today there are about 100,000 beavers with no predators. The beavers have cut down trees and built dams all over the place. Some of the forest in the area has been completely stripped. The government now has a plan to cull the animals over the next 10 years by bringing in specialized hunters.
Ushuaia is now a small city of about 70,000 people. The Navy base is still there, along with a small electronics industry, but tourism is the largest money maker. All the ships going to Antarctica leave from Ushuaia. People go to camp, hike, fish, ski, and enjoy nature. We ran into a bird watcher with the biggest camera lens I had ever seen.
I had arranged for several day trips while we were there. The first one was in a 4-wheel drive jeep. We piled in along with two other women, our 76-year-old driver, and an English speaking guide who had been there a month. The driver laughed when he heard that, he had lived in the area for nine years. They were both from Brazil. The guide was earning a little money before starting a trip from Ushuaia to Alaska on the Pan American Highway. His girlfriend was a chef and they were going to blog about their trip and the food they encountered on the way. I wonder if they ever left Ushuaia.
Lago Escondido
Our jeep took us over the Garibaldi pass to the north of Ushuaia. We stopped just over the pass to take a look at Lago Escondido. It was named Hidden Lake because sometimes the clouds come down and cover it completely and you wouldn’t even know it was there. We made our way down the other side of the mountain and took a dirt road off the main highway just past Rio Milna. Along the way we came across a police car that stopped and they had a chat with our driver. A car up ahead had gone off the road head first into a ravine and was stuck there. The driver was not hurt, unbelievably, but as we passed, there were several rescue workers looking puzzled as to how to extract the car.
Not far from there we tuned off the dirt road onto an old logging trail that was more of a path than a road. We were going deep into the forest. We saw beaver dams and damage, but also undamaged pristine areas. The air was crisp and clean and the nature was raw and beautiful.
Because of the terrain it took us about an hour to reach Lake Fagnano which I am guessing was less than 5 miles away. The lake is one of the largest in the world. It is about 60 miles long and nobody knows how deep it is. It is a glacial lake and sits in a basin on the Magallanes-Fagnano Fault. We stopped for coffee and pastries on the shore of the lake. Along the lake, there was no road. We drove along the shore of the lake and often in the lake and then back up looping to the dirt road we started from.
Back onto Route 3, aka the Pan American Highway, we retraced our steps over the Garibaldi Pass and turned off toward the Valley of the Wolves. This was mainly a winter recreation area where they offered dog sledding, ATV and UTV rides. In summer people hiked down to the Emerald Lagoon. We were there for lunch. Inside a round hut, that looked kind of like a yurt with grass growing on its roof, was a cozy room with tables surrounding a wood fire heater. At the back was another small room where meat and vegetables were being grilled on a wood fire. It smelled amazing. We had wine, bread and a delicious parilla (grill) Argentine meal.
The driver dropped us in town at the end of the trip and we wandered around the main street looking at the shops. We bought stamps at the post office and were pretty surprised when we found out it cost 4 dollars to send a postcard to the USA. I hope people will actually get them some day. A friend of mine works for Hard Rock Café so we always have to stop in when we see one. Ushuaia had one. Since we live in Minnesota we were happy to see one of Prince’s outfits on display in the Hard Rock at the end of the world. After drinking a lot of wine in Buenos Aires we shifted gear a bit in Ushuaia and tried some of the beers. They were actually pretty good and we found Patagonia, Cape Horn, Otro Mundo and Quilmes to all be drinkable. Patagonia was one of our favorites and readily available.
I went to Argentina in 2017. In a few months I will return so I wanted to refresh my memory of the area. I wrote this series at the time but on another blog. Enjoy.
In 1984, I went to Spain. I boarded a train in Granada headed for Seville. My ticket had a seat number on it but I could not find the seat in the car I was assigned to. Confused, I asked a guy who was standing in the aisle. It turned out he was as confused as I was and could not find his seat either. After a fairly long conversation in Spanish, he asked me where I was from. It turned out he was a school teacher from Oregon. We decided to pick any seat and got to talking about places we had been and places we would like to go. I mentioned I wanted to see more of South America including Machu Picchu. He had been there and highly recommended it but he also suggested I read the Old Patagonian Express by Paul Thereaux. It was about a trip from Boston to Tierra del Fuego mostly by train. His description of the southernmost tip of the world had a big impression on me. It sounded beautiful and other worldly and almost eerie. A special place. I decided I had to go there. Thirty-three years later, I finally fulfilled my dream. My son and I took the long trek from St Paul, Minnesota to Miami to Buenos Aires, Argentina on an overnight flight landing at 6 a.m. The taxi ride into town through the suburbs, the tall run-down apartment buildings, the knocked out windows, was underwhelming.
We stayed at the Palo Santo Hotel in the Palermo Hollywood neighborhood. It billed itself as the only completely “green” hotel in Buenos Aires. I have to say it was very nice. It was a small boutique hotel with a great staff. Breakfast was included and we enjoyed the “media lunas” (small sweet croissants), media lunas filled with dulce de leche, beef empanadas, eggs, and homemade bread. We had a small balcony off our room with plants growing all around it and a waterfall outside in the courtyard and an inside waterfall that came on at 6 pm every day. There was a small shallow pool on the roof for those who wanted a dip or to sunbathe. It was hot. In the 80’s and 90’s F. most of the time we were in Buenos Aires. After a long nap, we went out and bought beer and sat on our patio. We picked out an Italian restaurant for dinner. That was enough work for the first day.
Casa Rosada – or pink house – is the seat of the Argentine national government and houses the president’s office
The next day was Sunday, Christmas Eve. I had read that there was an open-air artists market along an old cobblestone street in the San Telmo neighborhood. We headed over to the Plaza de Mayo to see the big pink National Palace and the Cathedral. The market started down a street off the plaza. Vendors lined both sides of the street and we walked down the middle. We walked for blocks and blocks and saw all kinds of items for sale. Jewelry, leather goods, clothing, ceramics. We were afraid it would be really kitschy and touristy but it wasn’t. It was really pretty awesome. I bought a cool pair of earrings. The artist adapted the earrings on the spot when I asked for silver wires. Everybody was friendly. They tried to communicate with everybody. We heard English, French, and Portuguese along the way. Some communicated by pointing and gesturing. Luckily I speak Spanish so we had little trouble.
We headed back to the plaza in order to catch the subway (known locally as Subte). On the way, we stopped in the Metropolitan Cathedral. This was where Pope Francis who is currently the Pope, performed mass before moving to the Vatican. It was nice and cool inside and a good place to rest out of the heat. The Cathedral was the seventh church built on the same site. The first chapel was built in 1593. The current building was started in 1752 and took almost 100 years to complete. The mausoleum of San Martin and the Unknown Soldier was in an alcove to the right of the nave. General San Martin led the army that liberated Argentina, Chile, and Peru from the Spanish in the early 1800’s. The sarcophagus is surrounded by three female figures representing Argentina, Chile, and Peru. Two grenadiers stand guard at the entrance.
There were several beggars out in front of the church. I watched one of them pull out a dirty bandage and wrap up a perfectly fine looking foot. We saw a lot of homeless people living on sidewalks and in alcoves around the city. The interesting thing was many of them seemed to have pretty good mattresses to sleep on. Some of them had elaborate setups. We ran into a group in a park who had put together a contraption so they could grill some food. Apparently, there are about 15,000 homeless in Buenos Aires.
The Subte was easy to figure out and inexpensive. Some of the trains were even air-conditioned. Each station had its own unique art on the walls. Trains ran pretty regularly even though it was the holidays. The only problem was we often had to walk a ways from the station to reach our final destination. Some days we walked 8 or 9 miles. My Fitbit was buzzing away.
Our next stop was the MALBA art museum (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires – http://www.malba.org.ar/en/museo/). It is a big modern building designed by three young Argentine architects in 1998. The artists featured came from all over Latin America and the day we were there, a special exhibit on Mexican artists was in place including Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera among others. The art was fabulous.
That night we had booked a special dinner for Christmas Eve at the UCO Restaurant in Palermo. It was within walking distance from our hotel. Nothing opens before 8 pm for dinner so we had a reservation for 8:30. It was a six-course dinner with wine pairing. All the wines came from the Uco Valley of Mendoza, Argentina.
The first course was a charcuterie of pork shoulder with apple chutney, veal tongue with chimichurri, pork terrine with homemade mustard, pate with sliced almonds, pork fillet cured in herbs, pastrami with cucumber pickles and Patagonian trout smoked in Quebracho wood with fennel salad. It was paired with an Alma 4 Pinot Rose.
Next came the octopus pieces with aioli in a micro-salad. The wine was Zuccardi Q Chardonnay. This followed by a paella style rice with organic vegetables and emulsions paired with Emma Zuccardi Bonarda. The main course was Patagonian lamb shoulder cooked for 18 hours with morels, peas, and vegetables paired with Jose Zuccardi Malbec. My son had never seen morels before and didn’t know what they were at first. He did enjoy eating them, though.
We had a pre-dessert cleansing of watermelon granita and then peach with ginger, honey and cinnamon ice cream and hazelnut paired with Soleria by Malamado followed by some small petit fours. The evening ended with Zuccardi Blanc de Blancs champagne.
Needless to say, we were stuffed.
We came out of the restaurant about midnight and there was a family across the street setting off fireworks. Fireworks were going off all over the city in celebration of Christmas. We ended up staying up until about 2 a.m. enjoying the sounds and sights.
After spending two nights in a very hot room I finally figured out what the problem with the air conditioning was. I needed to actually turn it on. After that, we were very cool and comfortable. We got sunburned the first day of walking all over the city and made sure we had our sunscreen from then on. The sun was very hot and it hovered in the 80’s and 90’s the whole time we were there. If you were in the shade and there was a breeze, it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t very humid.
Christmas day was a quiet one with not much open. We decided to go to the cemetery. The Ricoleta Cemetery is on 14 acres and has over 6400 statues, sarcophagi, coffins, and crypts. It became the first public cemetery in 1822 and the layout was designed by Prospero Catelin, a Frenchman who also designed the Metropolitan Cathedral.
The graveyard was restricted to wealthy families with power. One plot could cost up to $8 million. The mausoleums were about 650 square feet with several floors going down into the ground. We found several abandoned graves where families could not afford the taxes and upkeep anymore. Eva Peron was buried in a heavily fortified crypt over 16 feet underground. You won’t find Jorge Luis Borges there, he was buried in Geneva, Switzerland.
It was another day of walking in the heat. We saw the National library – a huge neoclassical building. We walked through parks, saw monuments, ate French fries and shopped at the “Disco” grocery store.
Before I left the US, I had purchased tickets to see the Nutcracker at the Colon Theater. I have seen the Nutcracker many times, performed in different ways from ultra-modern to classical Russian. I went because I wanted to experience the theater. It is said to have some if the best acoustics in the world and is an opera house ranked on a par with La Scala in Milan, the Paris Opera House and the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. The current building opened in 1908 and has welcomed famous performers from around the world. They did a full restoration of the building in 2010.
We were impressed with the beauty of the theater, with its chandeliers and stained glass ceilings. The main hall is a horseshoe shape with box seats going up three floors. The orchestra pit holds 120 musicians. We had a box seat about halfway down one side of the room. We only had a partial view of the stage but we could hear the orchestra perfectly. There were four other people in the box and one small child. It was very hot and crowded. The performance was good but seemed geared more to children and was nothing out of the ordinary. We left at intermission just because we were so uncomfortable.
There was a restaurant in the same neighborhood that we wanted to try so we headed over there. It was about 9:30 or 10:00 pm when we got there and the place was completely packed. We managed to get a table right away but after that people were waiting inside and outside. They weren’t tourists, either. They seemed to all know each other. We didn’t really know what we were doing but we decided to share the half tenderloin and a side of mashed potatoes. The steak we got was about 12 ounces and cooked to perfection. It practically melted in your mouth. It came with an excellent chimichurri sauce and the potatoes were nice and creamy. Chimichurri always accompanies the grilled meat and can include parsley, oregano, garlic, onion, red pepper, vinegar, olive oil. It can be a green sauce or a red sauce. Many of the restaurants had their own secret recipe. If you are ever in Argentina be sure to go to Parrilla Pena (http://www.parrillapenia.url.ph/).
The following day we headed for another airport. This time we were going to the southernmost tip of South America, my ultimate goal, Tierra del Fuego.
I’ve been back a few days now and am slowly getting over jet lag. Starting to feel human again. Trying to adjust back to regular life. Reflecting on all I saw and did.
There were lots of things I liked about my Arctic Cruise and there were some I didn’t. I realized I am not really a cruise person. I kind of knew that already but thought a small ship would be more of an adventure and less of a “cruise”. I was right about that. It was an expedition. You never knew what was going to happen next. You never knew what the schedule would be, would we land, would we go someplace else, would the sun ever come out… The sea was rough and unforgiving. I spent a couple of days confined to my cabin.
This was taken from my second story window
Once I started on my seasickness pills I stayed on them. It saved me. As we went farther north, things calmed down a bit. Even though we had 24 hrs of sun once we passed the Arctic Circle, it was cloudy and kind of gloomy.
We kept going farther north in order to find more ice. We were looking for polar bears and they usually hunt for seal on the ice. Once we crossed 80 degrees north we had to head south again. We did find some cool ice, though. A lot of it was blue.
Svalbard was not what I expected. I thought it would be more flat. It was almost all mountains and fjords. It was difficult to hike around on land because not only was it steep, it was covered in about two feet of snow. This was the closest I got to a wild animal.
Reindeer with their white winter coats on
We were the only people we ever saw. It was empty and cold and kind of eerie. But beautiful and magical. The vistas were definitely awe inspiring. And when the sun finally did come out, it was beyond belief.
So, what didn’t I like? I didn’t care for the Zodiacs. Those rubber motor boats with 8-10 people on them zipping around the icy waters. They were tricky to get in and out of and they went so fast, I had to hold on for dear life. I was sure I was going to fall out of the thing. I thought I was the only one, but once I mentioned it, people acknowledged they would not ride with certain drivers, or they felt uncomfortable as well. However, most people, it seemed to me, were loving every minute. They had been on these tours before and planned to go on the another as soon as possible. Many had been to the Antarctic.
It probably didn’t help that I had just been through the third snowiest winter of Minnesota history. I was kind of sick of cold and snow. So maybe not the best idea to go when I did but this particular organization only does this trip once a year and I wanted to see the Shetlands and the Faroes as well. It was my only option.
So I didn’t like the Zodiacs, much. I didn’t really like being in a confined space looking at water all the time. It was two weeks. The first week was fabulous but it got kind of the same after that. We spent five days wandering around the fjords of Svalbard. Two would have done it for me. Now that I have been to the Arctic, I don’t really see a need to go again. Although I may have to go to Canada to see a polar bear.
But I’m glad I went. I loved the Faroe Islands. I loved the gorgeous views of the snowy shores and mountains and glaciers of Svalbard. I loved being in the middle of nowhere out of touch with civilization. No news, no idea even what day it was. The food was good. The company was generally good. I read two books. I learned a lot about birds, and sea mammals, and ice. And now I have been to the southernmost city in the world and the northernmost city in the world.
The night before we docked in Longyearbyen, Norway, we all toasted the Captain and crew and thanked them all for a wonderful trip. Earlier in the day I watched about twenty people take the polar plunge. They all survived.
Night or day the views were the same.
Once we docked in Longyearbyen, Norway we boarded a bus that took us to the airport. On the way we passed the entrance to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
I had an uneventful overnight in Helsinki and it was on to London the next day. I opted for a slower pace and stayed in Windsor for my last few days abroad. The castle wasn’t open on the days I was there but I managed to see a few sights. It really is a lovely town. With Eton right next door.
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle was originally built by William the Conqueror in the 11th century. Eton College was founded in 1440 by Henry VI. You will need $56,000 per year to send your teenage boy there. No girls, please.
From Jan Mayen we headed north and spent another two days at sea before pulling into Bergerbukta at the southern tip of Svalbard. We took a Zodiac cruise and saw a seal lounging on the ice. The next four days were spent traveling the coast and fjords of the island.
We spent some time enjoying the view of the Fourteenth of July glacier.
We hiked over deep snow in Ny London to an old deserted mining town. They thought they had found a fabulous deposit of beautiful marble and set up shop with about 70 people. When their first shipment arrived in the UK they opened boxes only to find rubble. Because of the climate there were tiny cracks in the marble and so it had disintegrated during transport.
We passed by an old blubber gathering and whaling station. We stopped at an old unsuccessful site where they were looking for gold deposits.
There were sightings of walrus, seals, Orkas, beluga whales, reindeer, lots of glaciers and tons of birds, but no polar bears.
At one point we were headed to the northern edge of Svalbard and came across some beautiful blue ice. On the fourth day we reached 80 degrees North. We were closer to the North Pole than to the Arctic Circle. Six hundred nautical miles to the North Pole and 807 nautical miles to the Arctic Circle.
The weather was cloudy, snowy, foggy, and a bit mysterious until the last day when the sun finally came out.
