Finally have time to blog, AND have a hotspot at the same time, in about ten days this has not been true... Woopie!!!   So I'm at Heathrow Airport, waiting for my flight's gate to post, so am having a decaf mocha and an hour to spend on catching everyone up.  I actually got an email off to my family at a cafe near the British Museum late this afternoon, so I'm cooking with gas.  Last I did a detailed post I was in Santiago,  then I finally got to the Falkland Islands on April 16th, was met at the airport by Loraigne (sorry if the spelling is wrong) , and she transported me to Darwin House in the exact middle of East Falkland Islanfd on the narrow land bridge between the north and south parts of that East island.  I never got to West Falkland Island, but was assured the land scape between the East and West Islands was very similar, but the West has more mountantous areas.  The southern part of East Falkland Island just beyond the narrow land bridge is the flatest part of the country, it once was one huge sheep ranch.  Stanley the capital is at the North East part of the island, and Mount Pleasant the British military base also serves as the international airport, Stanley has a local airport and the island government owns and provides the intra island air service from that city airport.  Anyway my first two days were spent at Darwin House, a resort bread & breakfast which is superb in every detail, the hosts Loraigne and Alan are really great hosts, and tour guides, and their food and service top notch.  Alan spent my second day showing me the war sites of the Argentian invasion in 1982.  Here and there there are fenced off mine fields which have not been cleared of the plastic land mines, being plastic makes them harder to detect because metal detectors don't register and indicate the mines locations.  The British government is clearing out the mine fields from Stanley outwards--mainly.  There still are Beach mine fields in several locations near Stanley, and the penquins walk right over them, but because they don't weigh a 100 pounds they aren't heavy enough to detonate the mines, lucky penquins.  I had another full days tour from Tony Smith, who is the prime expert on the war, and can sure show one all the scenic bests while on tour.   A side benefit is the thrill ride the tourist gets enroute to the war venues.  It is better than a roller coaster ride at Adventureland.  Over bogs, ruts, up mountains, skirting rocks, and thru fence gates necessary to keep the sheep in their various pastures, most hundreds if not thousands of acres each.  I volunteered to open each gate, and Alan or Tony drove thru, and I closed it, and hopped back into the range rover's, bet close to 100% of the vehicles are 4 wheel drive.  The island museum is fantastic, spent six or more hours in there.  Very well done!  Now after all the bragging, the balance must be told, it is super expensive for everything, nothing is free, not even wifi at the expensive B&B's or hotels, restaurants, anyplace...  But since everything comes from Britain, Scandinavia (the prefab quality housing), South America-- but not Argentina--the war has many lingering effects, especially Argentina refusing to allow any additional flights over it's air space, but the one per week agreed upon by the treaty after the war.  --  more to blog, but gotta get to my gate for my Capetown flight in an hour.  See ya later.