Sunday, February 20, 2005: Buenos Aires

We arrive in Buenos Aires on time, and our two checked duffel bags arrive just fine as well. (That next potential glitch point… lost luggage… has just been passed successfully.) Marathon Tours personnel are there and waiting for us just beyond customs, and we are directed to a large tour bus, our luggage loaded on the bottom for us. For a couple like us who are not used to traveling in tours, it is a nice, unusual convenience to be taken care of like this. On the bus, meet Joe Hale for the first time, and thank him for the book. The Cincy contingent is all here and accounted for! The ride from the airport to the hotel takes about 45 minutes, and the Buenos Aires guide speaks a bit as we ride, giving us a little background about the country and the city.

At the hotel, we unload. The tour takes care of getting our bags to our rooms, which, given that each weighs 45 pounds, is nice. We are all brought into a separate reception room, and registered as a group. However, since it is only 10 am, and normal check-in time is 3 pm, most rooms are not yet ready. We are told that they will be ready for us “soon”. We are given a continental breakfast, then we check our carry-on backpacks with the hotel concierge, take the camera, and head out to the streets to see what we can see.

We start by going across the street to what appears to be a very attractive city park. Plaza San Martin, it is called. It is a wonderful park! With one absolutely wonderful tree in its center. It is a 200 year old Higuera tree, we find out later, and it forms an incredible centerpiece for this park. The trunk has multiple wings to it, a huge root system spreads out and breaks through some of the tile walkways like huge snakes, and the branches spread out laterally several hundred feet in all directions. The branches are thick and close to the ground, and must be propped up by specially built posts as strategic spots around the perimeter. Walking to our right through the park, we see a walkway leading back in the direction of our hotel, framed by other large trees with branches that twist and curl with tremendous character.

Views of Plaza San Martin, and the amazing tree that is its centerpiece:

A little further on, there is a fenced in area with a woman who is watching perhaps 20 or 30 dogs. They are of all sizes and breeds, but generally have in common one thing: they are expensive purebreds. This is a phenomenon that seems amazing now, but which we will see repeated many times over the next couple of days. This is a dog sitter…. A doggie day-care provider for those urban dwellers who have fancy dogs but no yards and need someone to care for them during the day.

Dog Sitter in Plaza San Martin, Buenos Aires.

Back to the hotel, we go down Florida Street, a major pedestrian-only shopping street that is lined with leather shops, art shops, and many money changers. Many stores are closed, since it is still not 11 am on Sunday morning. But as we walk, more are opening up. We think about Tamara. She has probably started running by now.

Strolling down Florida Street, a major pedestrian avenue in Buenos Aires.

We go back to the hotel. It is 11:30, and we are among the few lucky ones…. Our room is ready! We check in, and our bags are delivered. We settle in, shower, and get a couple of hours of sleep. We get up, do our back and leg exercises. It is going to be interesting, trying to keep these exercises up in these final days of travel before the marathon.

We go out for a walk, get about $30 worth of Argentine money at an ATM machine, and go to find Arroyo Street, which the book says has interesting art stores. But everything is closed. So we find a grocery store, and we buy water, bread, cheese, and cookies: hotel room food! We head back toward the hotel, and go by way of the park at San Martin again, and see a section we had not seen before…. A Falkland (aka Malvinas – the Argentine name) Island War Memorial This is a subject that still has emotional charge for many people here. The memorial has the list of names of those who died in the war, along with an eternal flame and two guards standing formally at attention.

The Mavinas (Falkland Island) War memorial, in Buenos Aires.

That evening, we had the reception and dinner for the Marathon participants. We have a chance to see and meet everyone now. After dinner, Thom Gilligan introduced all the staff, and then spoke about the trip and the marathon itself.

*There are 227 passengers traveling on this trip

*205 are signed up as runners. 16 are signed up for the half marathon. 8 are repeaters from previous Antarctica trips.

*99 are signed up to do the Fin del Mundo run in Ushuaia, too.

*Runners represent 9 different countries. Some base people will run the half marathon too.

*Around 10 people will be completing their 7th marathon continent with this trip. 5 have already done 7 continents.

*Reasons for doing the Antarctica run…. There were 3 themes:
-Have lived successful lives, but feel unfulfilled without some adventure experiences
-Want to be a role model for someone else
-Want to help others via fund raising associated with this trip

*Note: We are going to a dangerous place! Rules are in place for safety. Safety will come first.

*Recall 2003 trip and the cyclone that they hit on the return thru the Drake Passage. 80 mph winds, 12 on the wind severity scale! Hope for better this time!

*Official time cutoff is 7 hours for full marathon, 3:30 for half. Unofficially, will try to keep the course open as long as possible to enable everyone to finish. But EVERYTHING is dependent upon conditions, which can and do change there at the drop of a hat.

*Logistics:
-Vavilov departure day is the 22nd, Ioffe (us) is the 23rd.
-On departure day, bags must be in lobby by 3 AM!!!
-Breakfast 3-3:30 am. Then bus to the airport. Get plane tickets on bus.
-At airport, claim luggage, and get it checked in at ticket counter.
-In Ushuaia, claim luggage, and get to lobby where tour people will load on bus for transportation to ship. Then we will be on our own until 4pm to explore Ushuaia.
-Marathon: will anchor in Maxwell Bay.
-Has been warm winter, much glacial melting
-Formal approval required for marathon. Rule: No more than 100 people in one place at one time. So we will have to have 2 separate starts, 2 minutes apart, to take care of 200 people. All women, men over 60, and half marathoners will be in first start, all others in second start.
-Bring gifts for the Russians at the base. Candy, wine, small things ok. Can get in Ushuaia.
-Water bottle logistics. Mark your bottles. Carry on each leg to designated drop point. You drop it, and get it on your return trip of the loop.

A few other items:
· Joan was successful in exchanging her Antarctica denim shirt for one of the right size.
· Our race numbers were given to us this evening. Mike was given 197. Joan was given 182* (the star indicating that she was part of the first starting group.)
· A note about Buenos Aires… it is at about 35 deg S latitude, not that different from Cincinnati’s latitude in the north (Cincy is about 39 deg.). However, there are a fair number of palm trees here, and it has the feel of being more tropical than the latitude would lead you to believe.




Marathon Tours reception, held in the hotel banquet room in Buenos Aires, for the runners who will be taking part in the Antarctica marathon.

As the evening closed, we captured a few observations thus far:

*We feel like we are quickly becoming members of this group. The social connections seem to be important for everyone.

*The group is not as diverse as expected, in terms of people’s backgrounds. Only 9 countries represented. Vast majority are from the US. Racially, overwhelmingly white. There would be 3 African Americans on our boat.

*In other ways, though, the group is very diverse, in terms of attitudes, personalities, and experiences. Some are clearly truly elite runners. Some have prepared for this better than others. Some are self-professed slow runners like us. Some, like me, have been battling injuries, and are wondering if they are going to be able to complete this in 7 hours. Some are very athletic in appearance, others not at all. If there is a single common theme, it is that everyone is up for adventure, willing to take some risks.

*This trip has had many stages psychologically already. We expected the concept of going to Antarctica and running the marathon to be getting to feel real and imminent by now, but it doesn’t. If anything, it feels more remote. We are in Buenos Aires, summertime temperatures in the 80’s and occasionally 90’s. We are in a relaxed environment, in a plush hotel, being tourists in a European-feeling city. An adventure of extremes and hardships seems very remote right now. It helped to talk about it at the dinner/reception, but it still feels so hypothetical. I expect that Ushuaia and the Drake Passage will end up feeling like separate stages, too.

*Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. Because in our preparations for the trip, all of our attention was on Antarctica, we have given almost no thought or preparation for what to see or do in Buenos Aires. We’ve invested very little time reading about it. Joan did get a book on B.A. a couple of days before we left, and now we are trying to catch up. The city seems to be a really nice place, but we feel very ignorant about it. Hopefully that changes with the city tour.

Rocky, in our hotel room, getting a good night sleep after a very long day.