For anyone who has read any of my blogs, you'll know that we like to travel and that our trip locations run the gamut from mundane to somewhat wild. Looking back on some trips, several have been tagged as "bucket-list destinations." Immediately coming to mind are New Zealand and South Africa, as well as getting to bring Katherine and Anna to see Jordan. While several destinations remain on that list, Patagonia has been on there the longest. Admitting that I didn't know much about the area, it still created a fascination for me as both a part of the world I have never explored, as well as one of natural and remote beauty. I knew, too, that it was not a place I would want to explore -- at least not the first time -- on our own, so a tour was the natural choice. Our tour company of favor -- Gate1 -- has several trips to Patagonia, and one had garnered my attention for going on ten years.
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| Our Gate1 Trip Overview |
You may also know that we have traveled with our good friends, the Rieckhoffs, on several occasions, and always had a good time. They share our love of travel, as well as good food and wine. At some point years ago, we realized that they too wished to visit Patagonia. That said, Jeff has been vocal in the past that he prefers to travel on his own or with private guides, as he'd never done a group tour. For example, when we visited Egypt several years ago, only Barbara and Charlotte joined us, as Jeff had visited before and did not desire to join our tour. That said, in discussing Patagonia, he agreed that it was place best visited with an experienced guide. With that, we watched for specials on our tour of choice -- a 13-day trip to both Chile and Argentina -- and finalized plans for October 2020, booking in late 2019. Given that we could not visit in our summer -- as it would be the dead of winter in South America -- and the fact that (at the time) both Anna and Charlotte were to be in university, we booked this as an "adults-only" trip for myself, Katherine, Jeff, and Barbara. This became -- and remains -- a sore spot with both girls, and I must admit it was not without a healthy dose of guilt that we finally made our booking.
As with several other trips -- Poland and Kenya/Uganda (twice!) -- our originally scheduled trip in October 2020 was cancelled due to the Covid 19 pandemic. We weren't surprised then, and when we re-booked for the same month in 2021, all of us assumed things would be back to normal. As it was, we all watched the situation on the ground in both Chile and Argentina, and while we held out hope, the 2021 season was also cancelled, about three months out. Chile remained closed to outside travelers and Argentina required a 7-day quarantine on arrival for any foreigners, so in hindsight we shouldn't have been surprised. We rebooked -- AGAIN -- for 2022 and only grew confident in our ability to travel in early summer, when Chile dropped their quarantine requirement and the national parks reopened to reduced numbers of tourists. Given our experience with having to cancel our April 2022 trip to Africa only five days out -- after I contracted Covid -- we remained worried about last-minute snafus. I will openly admit that I was somewhat relieved that Katherine picked up Covid (an extremely mild case) upon our return from Romania in mid-September, as that provided her with an extra layer of protection. I also received my third Covid booster shot, which added to my own immunity.
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