Hard to believe we are rounding out our first week of
vacation. Today we leave for Ushuaia, the
Southernmost tip of Argentina and the last leg of our pre-Antarctic
vacation. The anxiety I’ve had for
months about the last part of our trip is now coming to fruition as there is
not much left standing in between me and the infamous Drake Passage other than
5 days.
This morning we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast on the outdoor
patio at the Hyatt before bidding adieu to the last of our sun and warm
weather. Ushuaia, while in mid-summer,
is expected to be cloudy and rainy with highs in the 40’s for most of our
stay. Time to start cooling down our
blood before the crossing.
Flight was uneventful except when we landed and were waiting
to disembark, I realized that the person sitting behind Damon looked familiar –
I stared at her for a while until I could place her – if you ever watched the
TV show “The Mentalist”, Robin Tunney was on our flight to Ushuaia! I think she saw me staring and realized I
recognized her, so I stopped. She was
with her boyfriend (I Googled) and a few other people – could have been family –
but I don’t think anyone recognized her.
She is a teeny tiny thing!
The Ushuaia airport is a metropolis boasting one runway and
one baggage claim area, yet it took nearly 45 minutes for us to get our luggage
and that was before Damon was (once again) “randomly selected” to have our
luggage rifled through for frutas and other organic contraband. What they found was 4 lbs of coffee and two
giant jars of peanut butter that we brought for our tour coordinator, not to
mention 8 packages of cookie mix we brought for Camila, which is all, apparently,
fine to bring in.
We finally got our luggage and headed out to be greeted by
our friend Martin (half of the Martin/Camila couple whom we met on safari in
South Africa), who drove us to our hotel and arranged to pick us up for dinner
later. Quote of the day from Martin – “we
know Americans like to eat early, so we will pick you up at 8:15 for dinner at
8:30”.
Since it was near 5pm and we still hadn’t eaten lunch, we
walked to the main street area. Ushuaia,
is a city of about 80,000 people and is a big tourist destination primarily
because of its location. Popularly known
as “El Fin del Mundo” (the end of the world), Ushuaia is the southernmost city
in the world and is surrounded by water, islands and mountains. The main street, which stretches about 8-10
blocks, is primarily geared toward tourists and is populated with a lot of
restaurants, gear shops, and souvenir shops.
We easily found a coffee/sandwich cafe and had coffee and empanadas, which
are quickly becoming our favorite food choice in Argentina.
We strolled around town and ended up back at our hotel for a
quick unpack and then Martin picked us up and we met Camila with their 9 mo old
son, Benjamin, and her dad who was in town visiting. Camila told me she reads this blog so I
promised to say nothing but awesome things about her! We had a delicious seafood dinner and great
conversation. Camila’s dad was
practicing his English and kept Damon well-engaged in conversation for several
hours. We went back to our hotel stuffed
and tired and even though we are in a solidly mediocre at best room, we slept
like rocks.
One more note about Ushuaia in summertime – it doesn’t
really get dark until about 11pm! This
will be good practice for adjusting when we have 24-sun in Antarctica.
This was taken at 9:20 pm and looks darker than it actually was...
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