Month: February 2025

Antarctica Adventure:  More Fun in Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego National Park

Monday, February 3, 2025

This morning, January 15th, we relaxed a little and packed our bags again for a change in location.  Included in our expedition package with Polar Latitudes were two nights at the lovely Arakur Hotel which is perched on the mountain above Ushuaia.  Beautiful setting.  Beautiful views looking down on the city.  Great hotel staff.  We spent some time getting settled in, and touring the facility, then took the shuttle back downtown to do a little tourist shopping, getting some additional pictures and walking along the shore of the bay.  Back at the shuttle stop, Donna struck up a conversation with a gentleman wearing a Polar Latitudes puffy jacket.  We asked him if he was with Polar Latitudes, and he said yes and after a few more minutes Donna asked him what he did at Polar Latitudes.  He was the CEO.  He was going to be on our ship, the MS Seaventure, for our Antarctica Expedition along with his two partners. While we were all on the shuttle to the hotel he told us that the Drake passage wasn’t looking very good (too rough) and we might not be able to depart on time.  They were working on some additional plans for us, not to worry.

The next morning, January 16th, after a wonderful breakfast buffet, we rode a bus to the Tierra del Fuego National Park.  The bus took us to the “End of the Road” where we began our hiking back to the Visitor’s Center.  The “End of the Road” is the end of the Pan American highway.  The other end of the Pan American is at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska which we visited in 2014 with Barry and Donna.  It was a beautiful park with nice hiking.  We saw more birds we had never seen before.  The weather started to get very windy and temperatures began to drop by the time we got back to the visitor’s center.  It was another 22,000 step day and we were thankful for another great dinner at the hotel and our first Polar Latitudes briefing for our embarkation the next day. Going to get on the ship tomorrow!

 

Antarctica Adventure: Second Day In Ushuaia

Sunday, February 2, 2025

January 14 was our second day in Ushuaia.  For those new to our blog, we and Barry and Donna have traveled to a lot of places and had some wonderful experiences. A few things seem to always occur when we are together. Hiking and or biking, ice cream, doughnuts and generally, good food. So, it should not be surprising that we investigated these favorite items before our travels to Argentina. We learned that the local culture dictated late dinners. Many locals eat dinner at 8pm or later and many restaurants don’t open until 8pm or later and most restaurants serve dinner until about midnight. Also, most breakfast restaurants don’t open until about 8 or maybe 9am. Although we were tired, on the way back from our dinner of empanadas last night, we spotted a pastry shop – actually several. We spotted one (and the only one we saw the entire trip) that opened at 7am. Guess you know where we were at 7am, after a good night’s sleep. Ushuaia is a beautiful city and we had no time to waste. We had a busy plan of exploring for the day. We purchased some delightful fresh pastries at 7:15am and returned to the Airbnb for breakfast. Then it was time to begin our self-guided walking tour of the town. Remember, it is summer in the southern hemisphere. There were beautiful flowers everywhere. The birds were very active. It was a wonderful day of sunshine, blue skies and moderate temperatures – high about 60. Hope you enjoy the pictures. For lunch we went to a YouTuber recommended place for fried empanadas. Even better than the night before!

Then we took a 20 minute Uber to the trailhead of Laguna Esmeralda, a 5.4 mile round trip hike in the Fuego Nature Reserve. The scenery was incredible. Pictures really cannot do it justice. We hiked across two valleys of glacial origin, and then climbed up to a lagoon of emerald, green water. We saw a number of birds we had never seen before. We had rain on and off, so the trail was pretty muddy at places but the beauty all around was so worth the effort. Fantastic day!

Antarctica Adventure: Have You Ever Heard Of Ushuaia? 

February 1, 2025

Wow! Didn’t realize it would be so long when we posted our last entry.  So… let’s catch up.  On January 1st we began our drive back to South Carolina with an overnight stop in Shorter, AL.  It was great to be back with Randy and Debra for a while.  We spent the next week visiting and packing and repacking suitcases. We hadn’t tackled this chore since our trip on the polar bear photography expedition in 2022. This next trip would be considerably further and require considerably more cold weather clothing.  We decided it was much easier just to travel in Fred and take all our stuff with us. However, this next trip was not possible in Fred. Decisions, Decisions on what to pack.  Next destination: ANTARCTICA via Alabama.

We departed SC on January 9, arriving in Oneonta, AL in time to purchase our auto tags.  Crazy as it sounds, there was a winter storm predicted for Blount County, so Barry, Donna and the two of us decided to stay at a hotel closer to the Birmingham Airport for a couple nights.  After all the planning we did NOT want to miss our Sunday morning flight. Pine Mountain is notorious for ice after a storm. There was snow and ice by Friday morning.  We were able to return to Barry and Donna’s house for Saturday night even though there was still some ice on the roads.  Sunday, January 12th, we flew out of Birmingham, of course to Atlanta, and then a nonstop flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Our Atlanta flight was delayed about 2-3 hours due to all the weather issues, but, otherwise, was uneventful. Next was an airport change, 45 min Uber from the international airport to the domestic airport, and then a flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, Argentina, also known as the End of the World or Fin del Mundo. We left Barry and Donna’s house about 9:00 am Sunday and did not arrive at our Airbnb in Ushuaia until Monday evening, January 13, about 32 hours later. 

We were near the very southern tip of South America.  The view from the rooftop of our Airbnb was nice, with a view of the harbor where our ship would be docked. We could relax because now we would certainly be able to make the ship embarkation on time.  Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica, and South Atlantic Islands. Exploration would have wait until after some sleep.   We did walk to a restaurant to try our first Argentinian meal.  Between our little knowledge of Spanish and our waiter’s little knowledge of English, we managed to order some wonderful empanadas.  Next – sleep.