Off to Ushuaia...

Up early and off to the airport to head to Ushuaia, the southern most tip of Argentina.  So far all the reservations that I booked outside of the expedition company have worked out well… Ok, I booked our car to the airport a couple hours too early… we had plenty of time to get through security.

All the stress while we were packing trying to get our bags to stay under the weight limit 33lbs for checked bags and 17lbs for carry-on for our flight on Aerolineas Argentinas was lost effort.  We decided that we would have one of our checked bags go over the limit and pay the fee… We checked in at the airport put our bags on the scale had our Pesos ready to hand over and to our surprise we were not charged.  Yippee!  No worries on the way back, because all the hand and feet warmers will be gone! :^)

Another empty seat – life is good!

 

Flying into Ushuaia is definitely an “E ticket” ride – the planes fly incredibly close to the mountains as they turn over the Beagle Channel toward Ushuaia.

 

Arrived in Ushuaia without any problems, our short trip from the airport was a fun experience, our non-English speaking driver was very talkative – Cheryl did her best to attempt to speak with him in Spanish.  We enjoyed the afternoon walking around Ushuaia it was a beautiful sunny day.  Warmer here than in California right now.  We had a drink looking at the pier and the Andes – what a view!

No this is not our ship!

We walked around town before dinner and came across a huge party, 100’s & 100’s of motorcycles in the streets with people dancing… it appears that these folks ride from Alaska to Ushuaia! 

 

Wonderful dinner tonight – crab, pasta and a great bottle of Malbec.  Met the most adorable kind person in Ushuaia; Lucia – she was our waitress at dinner.  Her great grandfather (Alferez Jose Maria Sobral) was the first Argentinian to visit Antarctica.  She has never been to Antarctica, we learned from her the expedition ships do not offer last minute deals to the locals in Ushuaia.  (Shame on the expeditions, they should take care of the locals that are supporting their tourists)

From this point on the sun will never really set.  It’s 10:00pm and it is just now dusk, the sun will soon be rising again.  Sleep masks are definitely necessary!

We are sitting in the bar having a glass of Malbec writing this blog… best wifi is always in the bar!

People in South America love their dogs... we have seen some adorable well behaved dogs, but we have also seen some people & their dogs that can use some help from Dog Dynamics!

Ushuaia will be our last place with free internet.  Once on the ship we will be charged by the megabit for internet.  We might not be able to post pictures on the blog, but we will try to get at least one picture up each day.

Long blog tonight… but tomorrow we start crossing Drake’s Passage… so you may not hear from us depending on how rough it is… Yikes!

Casualty Report:

-       Day two and we still have two working iPhones