Ushuaia, Buenos Aires, and the trip home

 I'm writing this from home, laundry in the washing machine, cat firmly glued to my lap (now that she has forgiven me).

We arrived in Ushuaia around 6am.  Ushuaia is a beautiful city from the water.  And we arrived at sunrise which didn't hurt either.

We had to have our bags outside the cabin by 6:30am so they could sort it by 'who's going where'.  Julie had a 9am flight so she had to be on a bus by 7. We were the last to disembark because we really had nowhere to be.  But they took us to a hotel on the main drag, across from the taxi stand.

Those aren't all mine but it felt like it
every time I had to carry my bags

Bus #1.  

Diane and Stephen, people we got to know on the ship.  
This is in the Tourist Centre, where we visited a lot!

After some confusion and much carrying of our bags up hill, we found our AirBnB room.  I didn't take any pictures but it was fine.  Ushuaia is a giant hill.  Everything is uphill, even things downhill seem to be uphill.  We walked a lot.  It is a small town so it seemed silly to take a taxi for 8 blocks but those 8 blocks were always straight up.  

First stop, lunch.  Then we walked over to the prison on the edge of town.  I wanted to see about the prison tour. But it turned out to be something like $50 so, no.  But I took pictures of the outside.

I'm pretty sure I ate food too but that is barely noteworthy

View from one of the many hills

The prison

I think we went home to take a nap but then we went to a fancy restaurant called Kalma.  I had started by looking for a place that served King Crab, which is a specialty here, but ended up finding Kalma.  

It was, of course, uphill.  We were lucky, it is not near the tourist areas so we got a table in their little restaurant without a reservation.  We both had the tasting menu.  I am so tempted to show you a picture of every course, they were so pretty but I will try to restrain myself. 

This is the 'snacks'.  Butter soaked crab, deep fried seaweed on
seaweed hummus, scallops, and smoked salmon

This is the 'appetizer'.  King crab meat with a herb pesto smear

The next day, we had to change money, print our boarding passes and try to take the prisoner train. We gave up on the train and park tour.  No time for both.  

We also needed to figure out what to do with our luggage while we wandered around town.  There was a hostel near by that agreed to watch our bags for the day.  First stop, walk there (not uphill miraculously) and dump our stuff

The money changing place opened at 10am.   We got there just at 10 to the surliest cashier guy but he changed our last bits of money.  We managed to change our Canadian to American on the ship, at a terrible rate, and then this guy also gave us a terrible rate.  But what are you going to do when it is Sunday and this guy is the only guy.  Take it and give him a return surly stare.  

A quick breakfast at the Banana Bar y Cafe which gets a mention exclusively because of its name. Oh, it's in Spanish so you may not understand.  Let me translate:  Banana Bar and Cafe.  :)

We took those croissants with us for a snack later. 
There were all we got to eat until 11 that night so 
good thing we did 

Then back to the tourist office, for like the fourth or fifth time to get them to print our boarding passes.  The people in that centre are the nicest, most patient people on the end of the earth.

Then  a taxi to the train station which is about 20 minutes out of town.  The train was scheduled for noon. We got there around 11:30.  The taxi guy said if he didn't get another fare, he would wait for us.  Everyone else there was on a tour bus so we said sure, please.  

rush to the ticket booth, all excited.  The train is totally sold out! What, how can this be, we got there late, we didn't reserve and it is high season but they 100% should have saved us a seat.  So rude!  Haha.  They were very nice and put us on the waiting list.  We wandered around, watched the line to get on the train get very long.  If we got tickets, we were resigned to sitting on an aisle away from a window but still better than nothing.

A few minutes before noon, we get the nod.  We are on!  And it turns out, there are no aisle seats.  Every group gets their own little car.  Window seats for ALL!  

The station

The waiting list guy

Our own little car

The scenery is absolutely stunning. And the weather was perfect once again.Prepare yourself for more photos taken through a window out of a moving vehicle of some sort.  

Not a real prisoner

Those are the stumps of trees cut down
by prisoners a hundred years ago for fuel for the town

We were far more interesting than the scenery for this little guy

That was a two hour round trip.  Back into our taxi. I'm sure he was glad he waited.  He took us back into town to pick up our bags, then backtracked to the airport.  The airport had the best views of all.  And a lapwing nesting right on the lawn.

The airline had two posted weights for checked bags, free (15 kg or so) and then up to 23 kg for extra cost.  Over that was not allowed.  Amy's bag was over 23 kg but they just smiled and let us through.  Whew!

Flight was uneventful.  Taxi back to Waldorf where they put us in a single room with the tiniest double bed.  Um, no.  They didn't have a double available so they gave us a second single.  Well, that was so comfortable, we just decided to pay for the second single for our second night.  We needed the room to pack, if nothing else.  We still each had a second bag stored at the Waldorf that would need to be repacked and our new stuff redistributed over the two bags. 

The next day was pretty lazy.  We walked along a nice shopping street that I have already forgotten the name of, it starts with an F.  - Florida.  Unbelievably, I didn't buy anything.  I still have 7000 pesos to spend!

We found a small place that made a nice steak.  Last dinner in Argentina definitely requires a steak. 

Next day, we went to El Ateneo, 'the most beautiful bookstore in the world'.  It is an old theatre and they didn't really renovate it at all except to add bookshelves.  They really know how to build a theatre in this city.

We had always planned to go to the botanical gardens when we were in Palermo but never got to it.  It was over 30 degrees on our last day so a nice treed area seemed like a good idea.  The street was boiling so it couldn't get hotter.  Plus we still had money on our Subway cards.

Hummingbird

There were a lot of statues in this park and pretty much
every one of them was a naked woman

And then we picked up our bags from the hotel and headed to the airport.  Here is my last photo as we got into the taxi.

The gift shops in the airport sucked so I just bought candy with my left over pesos.  I should be popular in staff meetings for the next while.

Our trip home was a bit of a gong show.  First flight from Buenos Aires to Houston was fine.  But in Houston we had a wee bit of engine failure.  Easily fixed with a replaced fuse but that took almost two hours.  About half an hour too long for us to make our connection in Calgary.  

So, what with border and having to pick up our luggage for the inspection that they didn't do, we were stranded in Calgary.  Much discussion with Air Canada.  We were in our transfer point between United and Air Canada.  AC, not shockingly, really took no responsibility for us.  They were very nice and booked us a flight to Vancouver but we were not getting a hotel room out of them.  And the last flight from Vancouver to Victoria was already overbooked.  

So, we got to Vancouver and found an Air Canada agent.  The chances of getting onto that last flight were non-existent.  She whispered, 'why don't you just take the ferry'.  Another mad dash to get our bags out of storage.  We had picked up another thruple by then. A woman who was on our late flight and didn't know what to do.  So, we just dragged her along with us.  

Uber to the ferry and onto the 9pm boat!  Amy's friend Sarah picked us up and I was in my bed, purring cat on my chest by midnight!  HOME!  

And that is the end of this trip.  See you all next time.

Antarctica Day two (Cuverville Island, Errara Channel, and Neko Harbour

I've had a rough two days crossing the Drake Passage.  It wasn't even that bad but my seasickness seems to be cummulative.  The first days between Uruguay and Falklands was fine(ish), then between Falklands and S. Georgia was so-so.   That terrible storm between S. Georgia and the Antarctic was pretty brutal but for some reason, this less-terrible crossing was my most nauseus.  But we are in the Beagle Channel now, over the continental  shelf and in the home stretch.  The seas are calm and I was able to partake in our last meal together.  Prawns and baked Alaska so good timing.  

But back to the Antarctic.  Our first day we didn't have any landings.  The north tip of the peninsula was pretty stormy so the crew took the ship further south than normal.  They said they usually go to 62 degrees.  We made it as far as 64.5 degrees.  I swear, there is no 'we can't do it' with this crowd.  They won't take us anywhere dangerous but they are watching the weather all of the time and if they have a day's warning (which isn't always the case), they adjust the itinerary as needed to basically anywhere they think we can land.  

We were supposed to land on Mikkleson Island in the morning but it was too windy.  Then in the afternoon, we managed that zodiac excursion I talked about in my last post.  People were getting antsy.  We now only had one day in the Antarctic and no guarantees of a landing.  But once again, the gods of stupid tourists and good weather graced us with another perfect day.  

We started at Cuverville Island.  A Gentoo colony.  Jonathan told us we were there at exactly the right time.  Most of the colony arrives over three days and we were there for that.  We walked beside a penguin highway (they have paths they follow) so they were coming in from the sea fast and furious and just waddling along beside us.  King penguins are majestic and beautiful but the little Gentoos are just so relatable.  They fall down, they lay down and rest mid-stride, they bump into each other and stop and have little conversations.  Endlessly entertaining.  

The island was covered in snow.  Apparently this is an affect of global warming, warmer air means more precipitation.  Normally the Gentoos are arriving to start rock-nest building but the rocks are 10 feet under snow.  This does not bode well for them this season since they won't be able to lay their eggs until later than normal.  Fortunately, Gentoos are not endangered.  

Love is in the air

I forgot about this guy.  I think a humpback hung around the ship while we were having dinner the night before.  No jumping but lots of bubble circles while he fed.  

Back to Cuverville Island

Hmm, maybe I'll try the people highway instead of
the penguin highway.  These giant red penguins
seem to think it works....

everyone had to wait until there was a break in the 
penguins before they could cross to the path

There was also a polar plunge for the completely insane.  Amy and I did not partake but Julie did. They had to dip to their necks to get the polar plunge certificate! 

Then, big excitement.  John had spotted a leopard seal on an iceberg with a baby!  Even the Polar Plungers who were probably freezing wanted to go see that instead of heading back to the ship.  

We arrived in the second wave of zodiacs.  By then the ice had shifted and the baby was not visible.  But it was pretty exciting anyway.  Mostly because the three zodiac drivers there decided to shove an iceberg out of the way by using their zodiacs as battering rams, all in order to get a better view.  It worked somewhat but still no baby. 

While we were there, the ice moved in behind us so fast, it blocked our exit.  It happened in minutes. Fortunately, they were able to get out a different way.  But one zodiac that came a bit later got stuck in the ice!  They had to do a rescue where the passengers had to leave their zodiac, climb over an mini-iceberg and climb into another zodiac.  Just thinking about this makes me so happy to have not been on that particular run!  How terrifying.  Those little icebergs can flip really easily.  But they all got to zodiac number 2 safely.  I understand it was quite a job to get that trapped zodiac out of there.  You can't just abandon those things to float around the antarctic.  

Here are some photos of the icebergs as we were pushing them around. They were so close I reached out and grabbed a handful of snow!

I could show you a million pictures but let's move onto Herrera Channel.  To get from Cuverville Island to Neko Harbour, which is on the actual peninsula, we were able to pass through this channel that is usually impassable due to ice at this time of year.  We got an announcement that the current weather conditions were Wind: 0 knots!!  Unheard of.  So we all stood on the deck to see this amazing area.  I keep thinking at each place we land or visit, that this is it, this is the most beautiful place on earth, and the they outdo themselves each time.  The sea was so calm, we could see down under the icebergs.  The blues!  Stunning. 

We also spotted another leopard seal on a flow.  He was on and off that flow so many times, he must have been hunting.  

Then onto Neko Harbour.  Cuverville Island was difficult to walk along because of all of the snow, but it was easy compared to Neko Harbour. There were more adorable Gentoos so we did the best we could but it was hard slogging.  One of the things they stressed a lot was that if you leave a deep enough foot print in the snow, a penguin can get caught in it and die there if it can't jump out.  So, if you sink down, you have to fill in your hole.  Well, there was a lot of sinking!  And then as you would try to fill in the hole, your other foot would go down!  I fell once on the very narrow path and the guy behind had to haul me up.  Very graceful.  Amy didn't even bother to go to the end of the trail.   She almost lost a boot in a deep sink!   But more Gentoos so you get more pictures.  

We had to climb ice steps off the beach to get to the trail.  Jonathan met us on the beach and said, get up the steps as quickly as possible.  If the glacier calves, there will be a tsunami and the beach will be a DEATH ZONE!!  So dramatic.  Everything here will kill you.  

Avert your eyes if you are sensitive, there is some penguin sex in here somewhere

Amy and I left a bit early, what with the impossible walking conditions.  That meant we got a bit of a zodiac tour.  No wildlife but John, our driver found a very cool iceberg to show us.  

Then back to the ship.  We pulled up to the landing apparatus, which is a landing and staircase that leads into the mud room.  It basically hangs off the side of the ship, I'm not even sure how they secure it.  You step on the stop, then the side of the zodiac, then onto the landing where a couple of guys are there to guide you in by both hands.  Here is what it looks like:

We were ten on the zodiac coming back from the beach to the ship.  I was in the last position.  I think 4 or 5 had gotten off.  When we hear a great crash.  I happened to be sitting in the right direction to see a giant hunk of the glacier crash into the ocean.  Cool!!!  But not cool!  Before I had really registered what was happening, John was yelling "GET OFF THE BOAT!!! GET OFF THE BOAT!! GO GO GO GO!"  The last five of us set a record for getting onto the landing.  Actually, I could hear John telling me to get back in just as the two crew were hauling me up onto the landing.  I don't think my foot was a centimeter off the zodiac before John sped away at top speed!  Then the guys hauled up the landing so fast, just as the tsunami hit the ship and sent it rocking in otherwise calm waters.  

All I could think about was that DEATH ZONE on the beach!  We had been standing around on the beach while we waited for the others to get on the zodiac.  What if someone had been on the beach!  We talked to someone later who had been there.  They were loading a zodiac.  They had nine on, she was to be the tenth.  The zodiac took off and she had to scramble up those ice stairs.  Fortunately, the beach was further away from the calving than the ship so she got up in time.  She said, there were three waves, the third one completely covered the beach and up the show shelf.  She said if anyone had been on the beach, they for sure would have been washed out with the waves!   So, I guess, DEATH ZONE was not too dramatic, it was just a statement of fact.  

Two near disasters on our last day!  

Then more whales. a pod of Fins this time, during dinner again.  And one last iceberg as we turned north to leave the Antarctic! 

The Antarctic was cool and it definitely has the cache of nonchalantly saying, 'Ya, I've been to the Antarctic' but really people, South Georgia is where it is at!  Go there! Go there now!.  Get a camera without spots!

We saw literally millions of animals and birds in S. Georgia.  So many species in such vast numbers.  In Antarctic we saw two Adelies, one Chinstrap, many Gentoos, and a couple of leopard seals.  It would seem enough if I didn't know what was right next door (if going next door involved two days of rough seas).

We left Antarctic that night, and onto two days of me dying.  My zappyzappy did not stop me from feeling crappycrappy.  But today, we hit the continental shelf and the boat stopped rocking and I felt instantly better.  

The crew had a nice goodbye for us with a montage of photos by the ship's photographer.  It should be on the trip website so I will try to link it later (when i get wifi!)

Free Champagne

Just so you believe me about the storm in the South Sea, here is the ship's flag after we got to Antarctica (on the right) and the one that replaced it (they were auctioning them off).  That flag was ripped to shreds!

Tomorrow morning we land in Ushuaia and I will have wifi once again.  I have no idea if any of those posts saved, at all, or partially, or fully.  We'll all find out tomorrow.  

Back to real life in just a few days.  

I am going to have to do my last post from home.  We leave today and I don't want to spend my last day in Argentina on my computer.  See you back in Canada!