Wednesday 3 February

Buenos Aires to Ushuaia

As mentioned yesterday, we had a very early start and breakfast, if you can call it such as it consisted of dry cereal in bags, fresh fruit, yogurt, tea & coffee, but no toast. Doggy bags were provided if you wished to take some food away.

Then it was off to the airport (not the one we landed at when we first arrived in Buenos Aires) for the three hour flight to Ushuaia in a 737. Other than the QANTAS flight over, this was the best aircraft we have flown in so far. The airport experience prior to take off was also the best. Only two queues and 10 counters open for three domestic flights. [The scanning took longer however, with only two scanners and a 737’s worth of passengers to go through!]

On arrival in Ushuaia we were given a short bus tour of the town of 70,000, then told to explore the town on foot over the next four hours. (We have since been told that the plane was originally scheduled to take off at 10am, but the airline changed flight details a few months back.)

In Ushuaia, we met up with another couple and walked the main street looking for cold weather gloves (not for us) and then somewhere to have a light lunch. After lunch we visited the naval base and prison museum. The prison is similar to all 19^th century gaols – two stories high with small (2m x 2m) cells on either side of the central area. Some of our group wanted to change some US dollars into posadas but the bank wouldn’t do it – need a passport for the transaction, and all passports had already been given to the Cruise Director to facilitate our progression onto the ship. Left them in a quandary! Thankfully most places accepted card or US$.

We then looked, unsuccessfully, for somewhere to have hot chocolates. The Chocolate shop was closed, (for siesta) while a restaurant/café located near to where the busses had parked didn’t serve hot chocolates (only coffee). This café, like a lot of others in the town, specialised in lamb and had four lamb carcasses hanging around an open fire.

After sitting for 45 minutes in the bus to get out of the cold and light rain, we were taken to our ship “Le Lyrial” (one of four small cruise liners tied to the wharf) to board. The ship is completely charted by Scenic and has 193 guests and 138 staff.

By the time we had unpacked our bags etc in our room, it was tea time. Stuart went down to the Level 2 “A la carte” restaurant while Lesley stayed in the room, as she was still not feeling well (has a cold now, as well as dodgy tummy – can’t win!).

Our program had our ship departing at 8pm, but we left the wharf at 6.30m, just as we started tea.  After tea it was back to our room and bed to get as much sleep as possible before mid-night when we were expected to reach the Drake Passage and five meter swell/waves and windy conditions – small compared to what it can be (30m). From Ushuaia the ship traversed the Beagle channel.

During the night we were awoken when the full ice bucket and a large water bottle crashed to the floor. Had to use a bath towel to soak up the melted ice on the carpet.