During a nine-hour wait in the DFW airport—lengthened by technical difficulties with our flight—I managed to attract three different people with medical problems. A man and his wife from British Columbia, seated next to me in the waiting area, began chatting with me. They had organized a running marathon on Antarctica—over ice, snow, and rocks—and had gone down there seven years in a row to oversee the event. The subject of Lyme Disease popped up because the man had suffered with the illness for nine years. Of course, I couldn’t help myself from diving right in.

After the couple left to get some lunch, a young gay woman from Argentina sat down next to me and began discussing US politics. A woman two seats away loudly announced that President Trump was going to fix everything that was wrong with the US. She and the Argentine woman had a polite, but heated debate. I stayed silent, too shocked to respond to the woman’s harsh stance about taking away all government support for those in need.

The other two people I spoke with regarding their medical problems was a woman with a rash that was easy to diagnose as being fungal-related, and then the lovely man who sat next to me on the flight to Buenos Aires who had vertigo intermittently for a prolonged period of time.

Mid-flight a stewardess announced over the loud speaker that, if there was a doctor onboard, to come to the business class section. Once I got there, the person who called the alarm decided he was all right.

Yes, I know that I’m on vacation, but it’s hard for me not to speak up if I think I can help someone. On top of that, focusing on someone else’s problems keeps me from focusing on my own—like my discomfort being in airports.

The young man who sat next to me on the overnight flight spent the afternoon with me exploring the city by subway. Buenos Aires, as predicted, has changed a lot since I visited the city in 1976, exactly at the time that Isabela Perron was thrown out of office and the military dictators took over and terrorized the Argentine people during the next seven years. The economy crashed and the dollar was in high demand. As a Peace Corps volunteer with very little money, I was able to eat three meals in a day for approximately one dollar. I felt sad seeing this once proud country come to its knees. After I returned home, I heard about the murders of students, journalist, teachers, and anyone else with leftist leanings—up to 30,000 were murdered or “disappeared.”

While I ate dinner at a restaurant in Buenos Aires with my Ecuadorian climbing buddies in 1976, masked men with guns came into the restaurant and commanded everyone to get up and stand facing the wall with their hands behind their heads. I was the only woman in the restaurant. I felt worried that I might die without my parents knowing my whereabouts or how to find my body. I held my breath, waiting for the bullet in the back of my head. After some yelling, the masked men led two men from another table away at gunpoint. The rest of us sat back down at are table, too shaken to finish our meal.

My friend, Miguel Di Donato, came to visit me during my stay in Buenos Aires. I hadn’t seen him for almost twenty-five years when he came to see me shortly after I moved into my co-housing community in the early 1990s. We have the kind of friendship that remains strong even after decades of not seeing each other and with little communication.

Miguel took me in the subway to a tango studio for locals far from the town center. An hour and a half of classes cost $7. Although I was the only true beginner in the class, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and could easily see how this form of sexy, stylized dancing could become an obsession.

Today I transferred to Hotel Emperador, a high end hotel in a lovely neighborhood where our expedition group has gathered. We will depart at 6 am for Ushuaia and then we’ll embark on our journey to Antarctica.

Dear Readers, you might not hear much from me while I’m in Antarctica because of spotty and expensive internet connections and because of glitches in my new laptop computer which I should have tried out more thoroughly before I left on this trip. Just know that I’ll be soaking up every minute of this magical experience and will report back to you when I can.