Day 3 (3rd Jan): Ushuaia in Antarctica and Argentina Travel log

The morning flight to Ushuaia was painful. Hurtigruten arranged for buses to pick us up from the hotel, which was easy enough. But we stood for 1 1/4 hours in line at the airport to get in the ticketed area. It didn’t help that people were barging in, and the River plate football team was catching a plane at the same time so there was a lot of media and fans there. This all takes place at an entrance no more than 10 feet wide. After the ticketed area, we waited another 1/2 hours at the security line. There were disney poles with ropes around, but the airport staff was not using them. It was, as they said, a “relaxed” work culture. It was not well maintained at all. I had assumed things would go smoothly because we had a chartered flight, but nope, we were using the same entrance that everybody else used. At least the plane waited for us even after departure time. We left at 8:15, and it took 3 /12 hours to get to Ushuaia, but waiting for luggage was another 1/2 hours. We were picked up by Hurtigruten bus there; the bus took us a 4 minutes drive to downtown, which reminded me of small lake-side tourist towns like Lake George’s Bolton Landing: one shopping strip with souvenir shops and restaurants, some marina with boats you can hire, a few services, and that was it. There’s a museum and a day trip to the Tierra del Fuego National park you can take, but we didn’t have time (passengers from the early plane did). We took some pictures and got some souvenirs with La Profeseure’s friend and her husband, sat down at a cafe to warm up - it was rainy up until we boarded the ship - and tried not to get wet.

We took a bus for the 1 minute drive into the dock and boarded the ship at 4pm (apparently you can’t walk there yourself). Check-in was a breeze, because we were the last two passengers to step onto the ship. Strange that they never once asked us for our vaccination status though. We picked up our standard-issue parka and landing group badge, but found that we need to switch landing groups to be on the same group as La Professeure’s childhood friend. That was quite easy - we talked with an expedition team member, he clicked on a spreadsheet, and that change in landing group immediately showed up in our cruise ship app. The ship is very nice - from the port you can see it’s the largest of the polar expedition ships. We are sailing on the Beagle channel now, so haven’t hit the Drake passage yet.

I walked into some more fellow passengers - an elderly man next to me on the plane who travelled a lot, to college kids who greeted me on the top deck. It spans a larger range of travellers.

I spent a lot of time unpacking - deciding what to leave in the suitecase (Buenos Aires clothes), what to wash, and what not to wash. I was also nervous about hitting the drake passage before we secured everything in the cabin. There’s a lecture and info session tomorrow, and we have to pick up our boots and vacuum our clothes; so we will be busy.

But I’m so tired now; I was going to do laundry so far doesn’t seem like it’ll take.

Ushuaia from the ship:

Last updated January 19, 2023