It's snowing and more trials

This is the latest from Guillermo, sent at 3pm on Monday:
We just got done eating a good lunch: we both had meat that was very rare, and salad and French fries that we shared, and a beer each. It was good and I put it on the credit card because I had not tried the ATMs here yet and I am still a little gun shy. We then went to two different banks and the ATMs were out of order. At the third bank, I got the same message as before, so I asked for a smaller amount and it seemed to go through, but then it said sorry, there is a temporary problem. So I then went to the other ATM machine in the same place and I had to go through the same process as in Puerto Pirámides. With the high prices here, it will probably go pretty fast; however, I am confident that I will be able to get more when I need it, but we should be fine for a pretty good while.

This morning we flew to El Calafate on an Argentine military plane that takes passengers and is a little cheaper than other airlines because it doesn't fly back to Buenos Aires as the others do to get to these places. El Calafate is way down at the very bottom of Argentina, but before Tierra del Fuego, along the Andes and close to Chile. It is 5 degrees celsius and raining and they say it has been raining for the last two days, but that it usually doesn't even rain here, so we are hopeful that tomorrow it will be better and our plan is to go to the Perito Moreno Glacier. We will go to a place from where we can observe it and then get on a boat that will take us closer to the ice cliff. There is another very interesting excursion that goes by 5 different glaciers and apparently the boat circles some of the ice bergs in the channel. Some of the glaciers are larger than the perito moreno and with higher cliffs, but that one would cost more, so I think we will skip it. The snow is very low in the mountains, but no snow here in the town.

Yes that armadillo that looked like it was wearing a skirt was really funny and I could just picture him and the Energúmeno getting into a really funny tussle. Tell Nena my money would have been on the armadillo!!

This website has information and pictures of Perito Moreno Glacier but you can put that in Google and find plenty of other good sites, too. Perito Moreno Glacier

Back at home:
What I did today was go to our credit union (again)to see if they knew anything about why Guillermo can't take out the full amount of money he wants, if they knew why he has to do it in bits and pieces. Apparently, it has something to do with being in Argentina because checking the Thorntree site, there are plenty of other people who have gone or are going through the exact same thing. We also got a call from the "fraud department" today, and they need Guillermo to call them. So, I let him know through email and he called me asking what that was all about. After he talked with them, it came to light that at least one, possibly two ATM transactions that were denied him, in fact did go through to our credit union. (That was probably that transaction he talked about above where the machine said there was a temporary problem.) So, now it's back to the credit union tomorrow for me to try to get that straightened out. This has been a real hassle, but at least they have been able to get money and it did help to read that they aren't the only ones having ATM and money difficulties over there.

When Guillermo called me after calling the fraud department, he told me that it was snowing there in El Calafate. It wasn't actually sticking to the ground, but it was snowing. Oh, and in that sentence where Guillermo uses the word "Energumeno", that is actually what he calls Rebeca's dog Blackjack, a.k.a. Diablillo. That dog has many names and every single one of them fits!!! That's little Diablillo below!

Between credit union and bank visits, I did manage to get in a walk in "our" park today, which is always very pleasant. :-)

Guillermo sent an email Sunday morning:

This will be a short one and I will try to write you more later. We are back in Puerto Madryn and came here to confirm our flight for tomorrow to El Calafate, but I have called several times and they don't answer, so my guess is that they don't work on Sundays. I guess we just have to show up tomorrow at the airport and see what happens. Hopefully, we won't have a problem. They told me to confirm the day before, but if they don't answer, there isn't much that I can do.
Before leaving Puerto Pirámide, I went to the same ATM and had to go through the same thing (a little at a time) to get more money, but it worked. Hopefully that will work in other places too, so yes, you need to cancel that Western Union thing and hopefully get all of the money back.
I think we may drive down to Trelew in a bit, provided that we have enough kilometers left on the car, and then come back here to spend the night.

And Sunday evening he called me. I was so happy to hear from him! He sounded like he was in good spirits, and said that he and Fernando had tried several different internet cafes to write from that evening, but they were all packed with people. So, neither of them got to send an email tonight, but at least I got a phone call. Guillermo said they saw a very interesting armadillo on Peninsula Valdez and that it was a little clueless, actually getting within a foot of each of them until scurrying in another direction.
He also said they were excited to see a Rhea, which they were starting to think they weren't going to see. On this website, there's a picture of a Rhea: rhea picture

It was very nice to be able to talk to Guillermo, but we didn't get to say goodbye to each other properly because the line went dead. He tried calling 3 more times, but each time we were again cut off.

Nothing new here at home.

Things are looking up today

I spent a good part of the morning running back and forth to our credit union, trying to get answers and withdrawing money for a wire transfer. I also opened an account at a new bank, because apparently we can't count on our own credit union! Unfortunately, when I was doing the Western Union wire, at the time, I did not know that in South America, all Western Union places are closed until Monday, as are the banks. So, everything seemed quite useless, and I was so worried all day, until I got Guillermo's email this evening. Here's what he had to say:

Things are looking up, so I would get that money back from Western Union. Tell them the offices here are closed and you want to cancel the whole thing. When we got to Puerto Pirámide, we were told that there is an ATM here, so we looked for it and found it in a little tin building pretty much sitting by itself, but I thought I would try it anyway, as unlikely as it seemed since I had already had been turned by ATMs at 6 or 7 different banks in Bariloche and Puerto Madryn. I asked for the usual amount and it told me to ask for less, so I lowered it and got the same message, so I lowered it more and got the same thing, so I went even lower and it gave them to me!! So then it asked if I wanted another transaction, so I asked for another and it gave me those too, and then I did it twice more and I got the full amount that way. Isn't that crazy?? I'm sure it charged me for each one, but it won't be as expensive as western union or cash advances. I am hoping the thing just started to work as I was in the middle of trying to withdraw money and that tomorrow it will give me all the pesos at one time. I need to take advantage of this ATM while I am here in case we have a problem in El Calafate. So, we get to eat tonight!!
This Internet place is expensive, so I won't make this long. We drove on peninsula Valdez some and saw tinamous, guanacos, a small group of female elephant seals, a colony of sea lions and a colony of Magellenic penguins.
We are fine for the moment and hope that things have been straightened out. I will probably not get a chance to write to you from here tomorrow, but we will spend the night in Puerto Madryn and I will write you from there.

So, the guys now have money in hand and for sure they AND I will sleep better tonight! And adding a picture of flowers seemed appropriate, since the guys situation looks a little brighter and the flowers are a bright spot in our yard!!

ATM Hassles

The word from Guillermo and Fernando today is that they are having trouble getting money from an ATM machine. Unfortunately, Fernando's card expired at the end of March, and Guillermo's card for some reason did not work last night or today. So, I visited our credit union to find out what the problem is and they reassured me that there is no problem with Guillermo's card, it just may have been the machine he was trying to use. Which I have my doubts about, since Guillermo claims he used that exact same machine with no problem prior to going to Chiloe. So, not only they, but I am going to be very worried until this is resolved. Right now, they are on an "all-night" bus ride and when they get to Puerto Madryn Saturday morning, that is where he is going to try to use the ATM again. Good luck to them, they are going to need it!!!

Back at home: my job with removing plants from the greenhouses is over!!! Now, I need to enlist our neighbor's help for the last 30 plants, which are way too big and much too heavy for me to even push or pull, much less lift!

Not yet at Puerto Madryn

This is taken from the email Guillermo sent me this evening:
Well, things didn't go as we had hoped today. We left Castro at 8:00 and got to Puerto Mont at about 11:30, but there were no buses going to Neuquen (toward Puerto Madryn) until tomorrow, so our only sensible option was to catch a bus to Bariloche. We had to wait for the bus for 2 hours, but here we are in Bariloche again. We got here at about 9:45 this evening (it is 11:15 now). The problem now is that the bus for Puerto Madryn doesn't leave until late tomorrow from here, so for sure it will be an all nighter, but we are at least a little closer, and we will only have the rest of the day that we get there and the following day to explore Peninsula Valdez. I will most likely rent a car for at least one day. The following day we have to leave for El Calafate and after that it will just be a couple of weeks until you are with us!!!!. That is the plane ticket I bought some time ago to save about a 35 hour bus ride.
Fernando wanted to try that Mexican Restaurant again tonight, so we just came from there; they had corn tortillas this time and the food was much better. Hasta pasado mañana desde Puerto Madryn.

So, it looks like there won't be any news from them again until Saturday.
And back at home? Well, I had an enjoyable lunch at an English Pub with Sandra, a friend of ours. The evening was spent, yep, taking more plants out of the greenhouse. The smaller greenhouse is almost empty now!!

Phone calls are better than emails!!

Guillermo called this afternoon, and it was so nice to hear his voice. It's so much better to hear him, hear him laugh, all the things that you can't get with an email. We talked a long time about how the day went, how today he walked along the shore of the Pacific Ocean, and either tomorrow or the day after, they'll be on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, in Puerto Madryn. Evidently both he and Fernando were a little disappointed with Chiloe Park - but both of them seem to be in good spirits. Fernando commented that it's a good thing they both enjoy birdwatching, because Chiloe Park would have been a total disappointment otherwise. As usual, it was difficult hanging up with Guillermo, but at least we got to talk to each other!

Back at home, I've been removing plants from our two greenhouses for probably over a week now and even though the greenhouses are emptier, there are still TONS of plants still left to take out. Instead of placing them strategically around our yard, they are all going under 3 different trees, and will stay that way until we get back. We haven't had much rain here, but the flowers in our yard are beautiful!! We've got poppies, daffodils, irises, and roses blooming now, and the sweet-smelling jasmine and honeysuckle are just starting to come out!!

In Chiloe

So, the guys are in Castro now and this is what Guillermo wrote the night of March 31:

I will send you a quick email tonight to let you know we are in Castro, Chiloé. We left Bariloche at 7:30 this morning and got to Puerto Montt at 2:00. We were on another bus headed for Castro in Chiloé 20 minutes later, so our timing was good. Then we had about a 45 minute ferry boat ride and then some more time on the bus. Fernando took everything well and we got to Castro in the early evening. On the way over here we saw a lot of ibises and lapwings in fields and as we were crossing the channel on the ferry, we also saw quite a few blacknecked swans, which was kind of neat. The island has very green rolling hills. It feels colder than it was in Bariloche, but it isn't too bad. It is probably due to the higher humidity. Tomorrow we are going to try to get to Chiloé park and do some walking. Some of the houses here are up on stilts, or at least the side that is toward the water, and many of the houses have their sides covered with different shaped wooden shingles.

This person's site on the web has many great photos and since it gives an idea of what Guillermo and Fernando might be seeing, I thought I'd add it to this blog. Chiloe photos

And Guillermo wrote this on April 1:

We had planned to go to Chiloé park today, but when we got to the bus station, the bus that goes to the town near the park had left about 20 minutes earlier and the next one didn't leave until 12:30, so we decided to go to an island instead. It was an interesting ride there, but there wasn't much to do in the town of Achao other than to look at the houses and buildings covered with those wooden shingles in a variety of styles and all different colors. They really are very unique looking. I have been a little disappointed in that Chiloé is much more developed and deforested than I had expected. We have seen a few monkey puzzle trees in yards, but that is it. They grow a couple hundred miles north of where we are, so we won't see any forests of pehuenes in Chile. There was also a very picturesque wooden church in the town. We then went to another town, where we did more walking around and taking pictures of the houses and of another neat wooden church. We then returned to Castro, did a lot more walking and saw the palafitos, houses on stilts. Well, that is about all we have done today. Tomorrow we will try to make it to the park and the following morning we have to head back toward Argentina.