Today we checked out of our apartment and said goodbye to the pool that was our home for the last five days.
It was time to pack up start the main leg of our journey - our Antarctica cruise with Hurtigruten. The Emperador Hotel that the tour started from was only a 12 minute walk away, so we shouldered our heavy backpacks and marched onwards. The walk wasn’t so bad in the end, but I sure was sweaty by the time we arrived.
A lot of people were milling about in the foyer. We knew we needed to get a COVID test to allow boarding tomorrow - and we wanted to get it fast. We didn’t want to think about the alternative. I made my way to the counter and talked to some older British guys, they weren’t completely sure what was going on either! I saw a sign for Holding room, Hurtigruten so Dan and I made our way down there.
In one of the expo rooms, a checkin table was set up next to a covid test desk, with a number of round tables filling the rest of the room. We immediately had our COVID tests (mine tickled so much I tried not to sneeze) and then was invited to join a round table for a briefing. There were 5 other people at the table.
Instructions were:
- Luggage bags must be outside our door by 8pm tonight.
- Buses will leave at 2:30am, and a light breakfast available from 2:15am. We all gawked a bit at the early hours. Dan and I are on bus 1 (because we have a suite room? I’m not sure!).
- We were given luggage tags that must be attaché to our luggage and a sticker.
Mine was….. negative!
Dans was….. negative!
Everyone else on our table was also negative and we collectively breathed a sigh of relief and ripped our masks off. We started talking to the others at the table - Arnika and Martin are from Melbourne, Australia - they’ve done a lot of budget travelling just like us and they like photography, John Samuelson and his presumed son probably in his early 20s, John Samuelson. Turns out these guys are foamers. Of course we would find the foamers instantly!! Dan chatted with them and I chatted with the Aussies, until we were asked politely to leave the table for the next group. In the room was juice and cakes so we helped ourselves.
Dan and I then checked in and deposited our bags with the hotel. The queue was quite long by now. Once this was all complete we had to come up with a game plan for the rest of the day. Literally across the road from the hotel was the National Railway Museum (honestly, I couldn’t make this shit up) so of course we went there. Dan didn’t know much about it, so we walked inside and had to write our details down. Ahead of us on the list we saw John Samuelson - of course! Entrance was surprisingly free, and we walked through the small displays before going outside to look at the big trains. We were sort of forced to join a “Tour” - turns out our guide is a legitimate railway worker - I assume they come in periodically and host tours, or he was being ingenious as he asked for tips at the end. The John’s were also on this tour, of course! They too had just walked across the road once the briefing was one. One of the carriages had a fireplace in it, which I thought was hilarious.
This pretty much concluded the railway museum so now it was time for lunch. I had a pizza place on my list, so Dan punched in directions and we set off. Two subway rides later we pop out into a completely different kind of Buenos Aires, bustling, made me feel a bit of Oxford street. Pizzeria Guerrin wasn’t far, and it was PACKED. we panicked a bit at first - so many people squashed in but the we realised everyone was at standup tables scoffing slices of pizza. We were beckoned further inside and noticed the whole back and upstairs was tables and chairs, which is a little more our style!
We must have looked pretty obvious as an English menu was brought to us. Upon opening, we were assaulted by about a thousand different pizza options. After a long while we returned to the front page and chose one of their famous square pizzas, with a side of fainá which is a traditional chickpea slice and a 750ml bottle of Patagonia beer that we shared like a bottle of wine!
When we tried to order, the young man wasn’t comfortable taking our order in English so he motioned for someone else to serve us. We sat there for quite a while until he came back and got the person to speak to us. We ordered to a young lady who spoke constantly into a walkie talkie and understood our stilted Spanish. The pizzeria was pure, delightful chaos. We had arrived at the lunch rush and were lucky to get a seat so easily, but it seems the restaurant is quite large. The din was incredible. After ordering we saw other couples have half a pizza delivered to them, and we concluded that the “small” option probably wasn’t a smaller pizza, but half of a big pizza. And the half was huge. We realised we had made a big mistake.
Soon enough a giant rectangular picante pizza, famous for its toppings spilling off the crust, arrived along with our plate of fainá. I liked how the pizza was on its own little stand so that other plates could fit underneath. The pizza was beautifully presented and tasted amazing! It had rivers of mozzarella. The jalapeños were full flavoured but muted on the heat - which was good for me. The restaurant was quite warm, so we were rather getting the food sweats.
Find someone who looks at you like I look at this pizza
😍
By now it has calmed down ever so slightly so when we flagged a waitress we also motioned that we would like the remaining pieces boxed up. She took them away with a smile and became back with them bagged, which was actually better as it would fit in our bag.
Leaving, we realised we needed more cash. We didn’t have the energy to go to the “blue” market places and get our US dollars changed and we weren’t getting much out, so we went to the closest atm. The lady ahead of us swiped her card to get into the atm building, so we left the queue as we didn’t have the banks atm card. We tried two other bank atms and they either didn’t have money or wouldn’t accept our card. We went back to the first one as it was the same bank we had withdrawn from at the airport. This time we followed a lady who just opened the door. Ah. We managed to get a bit of money out but the exchange rate has gotten worse since we got it out last time.
Back on the subway and back to the hotel to hopefully have a room ready! It was indeed, and our bags were brought up separately on a trolley. The room is interesting - it has two double beds, but they look quite small so we think they might be king singles. We have a view out over the railway station and rooftops beyond, so Dan has been positioned at the window for the last few hours photographing trains as they go past, and generally just staring out the window in bliss.
I took a bath, which hasn’t happened for a very long time - and was great on my tired muscles. At time of writing, it is 7pm, we have had our left over pizza and our luggage is packed, ready to put outside our doors shortly.
We will go to bed shortly as we will need to get up at .. 1:30? Dear lordie. It’s still so light out.
Internet is going to be either patchy or non-existent until 8 January so please excuse the radio silence. I’ll keep writing during that time and you’ll just have to read it all in one go!
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