Day 12: Ushuaia

 1:30am is when our alarm went off this morning. Tonight. Time is a construct. It was a handful of hours after we went to bed, anyway. 

After turning in at 8pm last night, I basically laid awake and tried to will myself to sleep. No luck. At 9pm I got up to use the bathroom and noticed a piece of paper had been slid under our door. Turns out our credit card number had been written down incorrectly (the lady doing it had forgotten her glasses!) so our attempt to sleep was interrupted by Dan heading down to reception to settle the issue. We had nothing on the room anyway. 

Round two at attempting to sleep. I guess I dozed a little bit here and there as I had odd dreams. Soon enough the alarm went off at 1:20 and we were up and about. Showers, dressed, packed and downstairs for 2am. 

We deposited the key and returned to the downstairs hall. We were greeted by a thumping baseline and disco lights! It certainly put a smile on my face. I grabbed a banana (omg fruit, I’ve missed you) and some very sweet pastries and we joined a table. Soon after Dan went to grab his drink bottle when he realised we had left them in the fridge of our room. He raced to reception then up to the room to collect them - returning just in time for us to head on. 

Meanwhile I was looking after his thing ngs and chatting with Diane and her husband at the table. From Hobart, they’ve been to South America many times and were interested in my flight prices. When Dan returned we raced back up the stairs to Bus 1, boarded a quite full bus, found a seat near the front and settled in. 

Jose, or Joe as he introduced himself was to be our guide to Ushuaia. He was full of energy and was a great start to the morning! He took a roll call, completely mangled my surname of course (made me start to wonder if I should change it 😅) and handed out our plane tickets. 

Once at the airport, it was through security pretty quickly, nothing much to report (except I had to take off my watch and I forgot to grab it again, so had to go backwards into security, oops). At time of writing Dan and I are sitting on the floor near our gate - the boarding area is tiny and we are already waiting for other earlier flights to go. I feel for the older folk who may not be able to get down onto the ground like we have (Altho I joked to Dan that with my grunting and groaning to stand up, they’d probably do better than I!)

That was 3:30am. We aren’t boarding til 5:30 so we have a bit of a wait. 

5:20am - sitting on the plane. There was a bit of confusion to get on - these chartered flights were through two different companies at the same time from gates next to each other. The queue was a mash, but we worked out that we were in the flybondi line. Altho the front of the line seemed to split into zone 1,2 and 3 for jetsmart, and we were 3 and in zone 1. But we followed others in the same boat and they were just waved towards the bus so… we followed. There’s people I recognise around us so we must be in the right place! A quick bus tootle and we were at the plane. Dan and I have ended up in an exit row, which is both good and sucky. 

We took off about 7am, an hour late. We think that we were waiting for someone, somehow. After an hour a security vehicle raced to the place and a man in high vis jumped aboard, making straight for the cockpit. Minutes later, push back. Still not entirely sure what happened! Also I’m quite sure Jose isn’t on board…

The flight was generally uneventful. I was told off by a guy who moved to a seat because my phone was flashing him, and a lady moved to the spare seat next to me because the lady next to her had a cold. The family behind us gave both Dan and I the absolute willies and we started to make ourselves an “avoid” list for the boat. They didn’t have a single positive thing to say. Even discussing getting money REFUNDED was somehow a bad thing. The food service was loving, but oh so slow. So slow. Had a jamon and queso roll and we got to choose a dessert - Dan and I both had the chocolate alfrejo cake. We landed a bit after 10:30am, an hour and 10 late roughly. 

Disembarkation was easy enough, and we had to go to the carousel to collect our luggage. Everyone’s luggage was wet because it was raining quite steadily in Ushuaia. We were originally meant to take the luggage to our bus number 1 but I think because of the weather we just left it in a pile, and got on the bus ourselves. 

Our guide, whose name escapes me, saw us into Ushuaia city and pointed out landmarks along the main road. Also on board to begin with was Lea, who gave us our boarding passes and took our boarding photo. Our envelope was different to those around us - everyone had been given a time for dinner that night and breakfast the next day but ours instead invited us to a celebration in the Londstrom restaurant, the fancy restaurant, because we are staying in a suite. I always find it interesting that the more rich you appear, the more free stuff you get. 

We took a very slow crawling tiki tour along the main shop street of Ushuaia - the shop part is quite small, walking distance but the sprawling town itself was surprisingly big. The backdrop to the town was majestic snow dusted mountains, and it was rather beautiful. We learned there were no postcards to buy on board, so if we wished to send postcards from Antarctica we would need to get them in Ushuaia. Ok. That dictated our first port of call. 

“Now everyone should be back at the bus by 3pm. Is that ok?” Our guide said. 

We murmured our agreement. 

“Good, because it’s not changing!” He laughed. 

We eventually pulled into a parking space with the other buses and jumped out into the rain. 

Dan and I rushed and found the closest souvenir store - we were worried that 300+ people trying to buy postcards would make it problematic to find them/find good ones. The first store we went into had a lovely selection of Antarctica postcards, good quality, about $2 each so we bought 17 of them! Also got a cheap magnet. 

On the crawling tiki tour our guide had pointed out a number of restaurants. I didn’t pay much attention because I was thinking about the postcards, but seafood and the local king crab took my fancy. Now the postcards were out of the way, we had to make a lunch decision. He had pointed out two seafood restaurants - one had a disturbing papier-mâché crab on the roof and live crabs in the window. I’m not super keen on choosing my food while it’s still alive, so we tried the other king crab place called La Casa de Los Mariscos. The prices were a bit higher but we came to the conclusion that this would our last meal we are paying for for the next week, so let’s splash out!

We were shown to a seat in the corner and handed an English menu. We were there to try the king crab, so we ordered king crab sorrentino (not knowing exactly what it was), the king crab with rice and two local beers. We were given a choice of red sauce or white sauce with the sorrentino. 

“What do you recommend?” I asked the lovely waitress. 

“I like them mixed together - half white, half red.”

“We shall do that then!” Dan and I agreed. 

We tried then swapped the beers we had chosen (Cape Horn Amber and Beagle Golden Ale) and soon some bread and accompaniment arrived - some kind of seed or lentil and it was delicious. Definitely stomach ache inducing for me tho!

I ducked to the baŋos and upon my return there were two delicious looking plates in front of Dan. Oh we did well. The rice had big chunks of crab through it, as well as peas and some other veggies and was a good solid base. The sorrentino turned out to be a sort of ravioli and oh my, blending the two sauces was the way to go. We wiped the plate clean of sauce with our bread. 

We paid and out on the Main Street again it was raining fairly heavily. By the end of the day we were pretty soaking wet because we stayed out in it! We peeked in shop windows and en route to the tourist centre to stamp our passports. We overshot so had to walk back a few blocks, getting more drenched by the second. We both had rain jackets; Dan has lost his hood but thankfully our top halves were mostly dry. We ducked into the tourist centre a few minutes before siesta closing to use the bathroom and check out the stamps. Looking at the stamps we decided we didn’t want to run the risk of invalidating our passports so we stamped a postcard instead. 

By now there was a scrap of sunshine so we found some spots to take photos of the MS Fridtjof Nansen on the docks. The sun didn’t last long and soon enough we were soggy. We tried a few spots and then decided to go back to the bus to dry off. 

I overheard our guide say “to the Germans, I say be back at the bus by 3:15. To the Chinese, I say 2:30. To everyone else, I say 3!”

Everyone was back on the bus before time except our driver who had disappeared. Once back, we went forward and back and forward and back and slightly sideways then a jarring stop(did we hit something) as he manoeuvred the bus to allow another bus to park next to us. I couldn’t watch when we finally went to leave, we were bees dick away from the bus next to us!

Eventually we were free and we drove to the dock. Exciting!! Dan and I were some of the first onto the boat from the bus where they scanned our boarding cards.  Mine worked instantly, but Dans had a problem. A few other people had issues too, but soon enough everyone from our bus was through and poor Dan was still standing at the front. I had been hanging back waiting for him - he said that they were reissuing him a card and it would be a few minutes. He insisted I go upstairs to collect my Hurtigruten jacket so begrudgingly I left him down there all alone to join the queue. Near the front I noticed he had joined at the back, and as I spoke to him the kind people behind waved him ahead up to me. 

I couldn’t figure out what size I wanted. L fit me quite well but was a bit tight around the bum when doing up. The XL swam and would work with bulky under layers, but the sleeves were far too long. I tried each on a few times, holding up the queue before finally settling on the one that looked better, the L. Done!

We finally made our way to our much anticipated room. Our luggage was stacked outside waiting for us. This level only has 2 suites, ours and the accessible one next door. We soon discovered the door to the balcony is for crew only, but this is only a minor inconvenience as we have the most spectacular view from our lounge chairs. But I’m getting ahead of myself. By now it was 4pm and we had the welcome drinks for suite occupants at 4:30. This means we missed the briefing about how the ship works. We did a very quick tour of our beautiful room - huge bed, Norwegian style doonas (ie, one each! Which means you get all twisted up…) a day lounge each and two lounge chairs, crackling  faux fireplace, nice big shower and bathroom area. On the fireplace (it emits heat sides, not up) was an ice bucket with a bottle of Bollinger wine, and a lovely note wishing us a happy honeymoon. 

I put a bit of makeup on and brushed my hair to look slightly more animated than a corpse (we had been up since 1am, and I hadn’t actually slept) and made our way to deck 9 to Lindstrom. 

On arrival we received a delicious glass of champagne, and not knowing quite what to do with ourselves we found a table by the window. Ushuaia had cleared up dramatically as we could even see blue sky. The snow on the mountain tops was crystal clear. We saw others helping themselves to a canapé so we went up, and naturally got one of everything available. I can’t tell you what they were - everything was a bit artistic and didn’t taste quite like it looked. They were tasty though. 

At 5.30 was a ship-wide safety briefing on deck 6, an on our way we did a short tour of the ship. Saw the sauna, found some doors outside (I was not dressed appropriately for that!) and went to deck 6. It was a bit of a middle where we needed to go but we realised our boarding card said muster station A and there was a man walking around with a card saying Muster station A so we figured we were in the right place. We were beckoned into a lecture room split in two and took a seat. 

Once the room was full, three guys went to the front - one in a security type suit and the other two in expedition clothing. The security guy did a room roll call, going through each room number and we had to raise our hands. “100% attendance!” He said at the end. 

Someone piped up, “you didn’t call my number!” And another couple of rooms said the same. 

One room said they were 743 and the expedition man, whose name is Tolsten, said “er does that room exist? Does it say A on your card?” Sure enough both were correct. Another room called out “ours says C!” To which everyone laughed and they realised they were in the wrong briefing. A few people more people scurried out. 

“More than 100% attendance!” And the briefing continued. Torsten took over from here, alternating between German and English. 

“This is a very important and not at all amusing safety briefing,” he began. “As such, I am going to read directly from this piece of paper to make sure everyone gets the same information.

Good afternoon. Ladies and gentleman, my name is dot dot dot…. Ah, Tolsten!”

We recognised his voice from the announcements we hear From time to time in our room. The briefing showed how to get into the insulated survival suit modeled by Bruno, another expedition team member. We had seen him practicing earlier, so we knew this would look amusing. While Torsten read the instructions in English then German, Bruno took that step to put on the suit. Feet in first - no sharp or stiletto heels, and then do the ankle straps. Next, one arm at a time, into the suit complete with black rubber gloves built on the end. Next hood, and tuck all the excess material into the front and zip right right right up until you look like Kenny. Poor Bruno looked like he was roasting, but he gave the occasional thumbs up and at one point did the air walk. 

“Once you have it on correctly” Torsten continued, “you should look like an orange penguin.”

We also learnt we would be given a survival pack with wooden clothes and other items such as sunscreen. 

Once the safety briefing was over we returnedtfo our room for a Kip before going to the launch ceremony. We realised we had launched early so we raced to the back deck where we were handed a delicious cocktail (I think it was a Bellini but with lots of peach). Took a lot of pictures of the departure and Chatted with Laura, chief environmental scientist onboard and ice expert. To put it bluntly, it was fucking freezing. We both were wearing our Hurtigruten jackets which is a windbreaker but has little warmth. And I overheat inside so was just wearing a top. I’ll have to carry an extra layer in my pocket for times we head outside on a whim! A little after 7 we went to the front lounge and wangled another free cocktail, and sat on one of the front couches to watch the front view. 

We had booked 7:30 for dinner in our exclusive restaurant, so we toddled off after downing our cocktail. This one is alacarte, and for suite occupants is included and other passengers can pay to join. Handed the menu, we made our selections and despite ordering the fish I went with Malbec because I’m still not much of a white drinker! We knew alcohol was included during meals but we didn’t know if it was a glass or more, so when Dan finished his and was topped up, we knew our answer. Dangerous. Here I ordered the beetroot cured salmon for entree, halibut with shredded shrimp and delicious glazed vegetables for main and the cloudberry crème brûlée for dessert. I wanted to know what cloudberry was, and Dan reminded me it’s the strange little orange cherry tomato like citrus fruit from the Scandinavian countries - I loved these! Dan got the oxtail terrine, duck and also the crème brûlée. The meal was delicious and the portions fancy-small, but we were still very full from lunch so this was perfect. 

At the conclusion of our meal we were given petit fours, the little after dinner chocolates which we shared. We were stuffed. We wanted to be on the main deck for 9pm as the captain was going to be greeting the ship. 

On approach we were handed yet another champagne, which by now was actually getting a bit much. We had both taken seasickness tablets earlier and it’s not recommended to drink with them (although not completely forbidden). The captain appeared and made a short, slightly stilted speech in English, and introduced his close crew. Then, suddenly, “Skål!” And we all raised a toast. 

Tolsten took centre stage now and introduced all the exhibition crew and others around the ship. Those how could speak German did their part in English and again in German. My favourite was one Young Brit who started to introduce himself in stilted German, concluding with “ich kann kein Deutsch”, which elicited a giggle from English and German speakers alike. There’s one Aussie in the crew, a fantastically dreadlocked lady who is the permanent expedition leader (ie, kayaking etc). 

“You’ve probably noticed from my accent that I’m an Aussie,” - bogan cheer goes up around the room, including me - “…but I live in Norway.”

At the conclusion we made our way back to our cabin and settled in for bed. Having dosed up on seasickness tablets, I thought I had it covered. It was not a good night.