WEATHER: Sunny and a tops of 13C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Going for a walk into town
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Waking up at 4am and not being able to get back to sleep
BUYS OF THE DAY: Souvenirs
WORD OF THE DAY: Gracias – Thank-you
I have been in Ushuaia for 2 full days now, but yesterday was pretty much a write off as I was still shattered from my travel day/s. So I just hung out around the hotel and in particular my room and just updated blogs, which I am now happy to report I am now up to date for the first time in at least 4 weeks and I have been catching up on banking, bills and correspondence which is a great feeling, even if I am in my room all day, I needed it to recharge and rest up for the cruise.
I woke this morning at 4am (which in my last time zone was 10am) and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I worked on my Epic Travel Day blog and adding photos to my blog entries. That always manages to kill some time as breakfast doesn’t start till 7am here. I was able to get some magic sunrise shots though from my window, so there is always a bonus getting up early.
Today was the official start of the cruise, day 1, which was just an arrival day with our meeting scheduled for 6pm tonight. I had paid for an additional 2 nights in the hotel, so I knew there would be some-one joining me for tonight, so I doubled checked this with reception, which was right and went back to my room after breakfast and tidied up the mess I had made using the spare bed as my dumping ground, so I had to fix that quick smart. I didn’t want my new roomie thinking I was a sloppy, messy person.
Needless to say with such an early start I got tired around mid-morning. So I decided to have a mid-morning kip for 90 minutes to recharge my batteries and because I can, I then set off for town to have a look around. That was a bonus of getting moved from the last hotel, it was a far better location than the other one. So a 10 minute walk got me to the main drag, which literally is a main street with shops and restaurants that runs for around 1km, and once again with the beautiful snowcapped Martial Mountain range in the background. So with some souvenir shopping done, a supermarket run, where I was also able to buy some new shirts here as well which was a nice surprise I was back to the hotel a couple of hours later and my roomie has arrived but wasn’t in the room.
After I had been back for around 40 minutes the door opened and I met my roomie for the first time. Her name is Julie and she is from Minneapolis, USA. She had gone down to the shops to buy some alcohol for the cruise 4L of white wine and 4L of red wine. This was the first indication that Jules (I cleared this with her) and I are going to get along just famously. Once again there is my travel gods doing their thing. I’m gonna owe you (and also Beth) big time by the time I get home! So we just chatted and got to know each other and I checked with Jules on what clothes she had bought as I wanted to make sure I was still okay. It looks like I have enough clothes and I am glad I asked as I though the temperatures were like -34C but Jules got me to check the internet and it is only 0C. It was 0C when I did my Trans Mongolian trip in April and I managed fine then and I didn’t have the jacket, pants, beanie and gloves back then, so I am really really relived that I am going to be warm enough. At 6pm we went to reception to meet the rest of the people on the cruise who were staying at this hotel. Keeping in mind that there were also guests staying at another hotel, so we will get to meet the rest of them tomorrow. The G Adventures Rep was a little late, but it gave us a chance to check out the other passengers and there seems to be a mix of ages, older, but we’re not talking 75, so it will be nice to have a mix on this cruise. We were given information packs on the naturalists that will be on the cruise, general ship information and what the process was going to be for tomorrow. The ship doesn’t leave till after 4pm tomorrow afternoon, so we actually have another day here in Ushuaia, so there were a few day tours suggested to us that we could do and Gap would make the bookings for us, so Jules and I have decided to go to the national park, which is only 11km away and catch the train out to the most southern part of the continent which they call here ‘world’s end’ and get out photo taken with the sign. I am sure there aren’t too many people that will have that claim to fame.
So the plan tomorrow is that we will be collected for our tour at 8.15am, our bags will be held in the luggage room and they will be collected at some stage during the day and put in our cabins on the ship. We will be back from the tour around 1pm, where we will have free time in town till 3.30pm when we need to make our way to the entrance of the port for our transfer to the ship. It is a secure port, so we just can’t willy nilly get ourselves there. We haven’t been given cabin numbers yet, we just have tags on our bags with our names, so Jules and I are hoping that we will be sharing on the ship, we get along really well.
So we sat and listened to some of the question being asked and then decided to head into town for dinner. We asked reception for some recommendations and with map in hand headed out the door. It had just started to rain slightly, but we had on our jackets so we decided to tough it out and just walk in the rain. We passed a sunglass shop on the way and I decided to stop and buy a pair. I can just imagine the glare off the snow in Antarctica, so thought I better buy a pair. It was a power purchase and 10 minutes later I left the shop with a 60AUD pair of new polarized sunglasses. This will probably be the best buy in the next 12 days.
Dinner was in this cute place called Ramon Generale, which as the name suggests it was set up like a 1920’s general store. IT was quite cool, and busy so we figured it must be okay. The menu was in Spanish, but we like the look of what the ladies next to us were eating, so we just said we’ll have what they are having. Now that is how to order food! It was a piece of meat with a champignon sauce and potato bake on the side. Man it was a good feed and washed down with a local beer all for the grand cost of 18AUD it was a great way to start the next 12 days.
So we walked back to the hotel in the rain, packed our bags watched a movie and turned the lights of at midnight.
I can’t tell you how excited I am to be on this section of the trip. Not too many people can say they have been to Antarctica and I am so looking forward to getting a bazillion photos and sharing this unique experience on my blog each day. I am not sure if I will get on the internet on the ship. It is offered and available but there was no cost on the information sheet, but be rest assured that I will be dutifully blogging each night about my amazing days and they will all be uploaded the first chance I get when back on the mainland.
So it is farewell for the next 10 days and I will see you when I return from the last continent to be conquered – ANTARCTICA.
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