Hi, I am going to attempt an ongoing trip report for what is likely to end up being my last big solo adventure for some time for a variety of reasons.

When I planned this trip earlier in the year I was going to have about 15-16 nights to play with, and I made the decision to visit both Argentinian and Chilean Patagonia, as well as the Atacama Desert, and booked flights into Buenos Aires and out of Santiago.

Well, I wound up getting a new job, and had to truncate my trip time a bit. And of course I couldn’t change my destinations, just the dates of travel, so now my itinerary looks like:

-2 nights El Calafate
-2 nights Puerto Natales
-1 night Puenta Arenas
-4 nights San Pedro de Atacama
-1 night Santiago

It’s faster than I initially planned and then I would like, but at the very least I might offer some learning experiences for future travelers.

At the moment I’m in JFK’s terminal 8, waiting for boarding to begin. I’ve started to become a bit nervous about my connecting flight to El Calafate: originally I was landing EZE at 10 AM with a flight to El Calafate at 2 PM at AEP, a tight but doable connection. Now we are scheduled to land at 10:45 AM and Aerolinas moved up their flight to 1:30 PM. After my Iceland trip and missing two days due to weather, I’m resigned to a difficult connection and will hope we land early so I can hustle through immigration/customs and get pesos and a remis to FLY to AEP. And if not, hopefully I can get rebooked for the next day and I’ll find somewhere to stay near the airport.

So my first tip for anyone arriving Buenos Aires and intending to fly immediately to another part of Argentina: try your best to stay within the same airport, and if you cannot, add a 5 or 6 hour connection time in case Aerolinas Argentina or LAN change the flight times.

At any rate, I am very excited to get a good night’s sleep on the plane and then quietly stress and deal once we land. Thanks ………