Atlanta to Denver to Patagonia transit 1/14-1/20

Hi! Stef and Kevin here, bringing you the highlights of our two month trip to Patagonia and New Zealand. 

Our story begins really before it starts, with our 3-day drive from Atlanta to Denver on 1/14-1/16. After finishing clearing out our apartment with the help of Stef's dad and stepmom, who so graciously offered their services, we drove up to say goodbye to Stef's mom. After that, our trip West began at 3pm. We took longer than planned due to a ginormous ice storm that was in our (and most of the Midwest's) way. We had to change our route to cut through TX then up on a smaller highway North of Amarillo to finally arrive in our new home state of Colorado. 

The view on 1/16 from our hotel in Amarillo, TX

Kevin enjoying the view in Denver.

The following days were a whirlwind of finding a storage unit for Kev's car (Stef sold her's), buying supplies, making final arrangements for insurance and such, and packing and repacking a million times. Packing for a 2-month trip with a 50lb weight restriction is challenging. After all the scurrying about, we were lucky that our hotel on the 18th-19th had a nice in-room whirlpool to enjoy. 

At 4:30am the next morning (1/19) we woke up and began our long journey. We grabbed a bagged breakfast (some sort of rejected cereal bar with a messed up wrapper and a red delicious) then took a shuttle to the airport. Security was a breeze and the airport was nice with an outlet under each seat. Our flight finally boarded at ~7:30 and then we were off!

Ready to begin our journey starting with our flight to DC

There was no food on our 3hr flight to DC other than a tasty waffle snack. We noticed extra security (dogs and police) at both the Denver and DC airports, probably as a result of the election. During our layover in DC we managed a quick linner at Carrabba's. Then, we boarded our 5 hour flight to Bogota, Colombia. Entertainment was a little different on this one with a funny remote you can pull out that we later used for Tetris. Food was decent - a chicken thing with a chocolate thing for dessert and then a ham sandwich later on.

Avianca entertainment from DC to Bogota.

We arrived in Bogota a little early (8pm vs 8:45pm) and were able to get to our connecting flight just fine. We left for the 6-hour flight to Buenos Aires at ~10:15p. We had front row seats on this flight which meant more leg room but the tray table and screen were both in the seat rather than on the wall in front of us. We both managed to sleep about 3 hours on this flight. There was also one food service on this flight as well with a chicken thing, some vino, and a vanilla thing.

Once in Buenos Aires, we had a ton of time (4 hours) to pick up baggage, check-in for our final leg to El Calafate, pay for an extra bag, and have breakfast. We also made the decision to hike the W circuit instead of the O circuit, due to some long, precarious swing bridges and scrambling that was not well advertised. This also made for a much more relaxing day on 1/21... Our hike would begin on 1/24.

The final leg of 3 hours to El Calafate was CHOPPY. They are not joking about the wind in this region. We landed at a small 2-gate airport then took a taxi to the bus station. At first they had lost our reservation, but they were able to find it and we got a lovely seat next to the toilet for our 5-hr bus ride to Puerto Natalea. No sarcasm noted ;). We finally began seeing the sights we had travelled so far for.

View from bus

Rainbow from bus - was actually a full rainbow and there was a double-rainbow later on that I didn't manage to get a good picture of.

Bus views

Outskirts of downtown Puerto Natales, near our hotel the 1st night.

We arrived at the terminal in Puerto Natales, got our remaining bus tickets for the coming days, then walked 5 or so to our hotel. Finally at 10pm we were checked in. A long two full days of travel was finally complete.