Dear all,
I'm sitting writing at our hostel in Ushuaia, Argentina. It's the southernmost city in the world and hence was a long journey here...
After flying for what felt like days, we arrived in Buenos Aires late saturday night. Hostel was great and we crashed pretty quickly. Somehow our body clocks are tad mixed up because dan and I were both awake by 6am Sunday morning. Our lovely room mate snuffling around all his plastic bags didnt help either...grrr.
We werent flying out of buenos aires till 2pm so we went for a wander.The centre of Buenos Aires is a mix of old and new and a bit of everything else..we walked past soaring apartment blocks and banks, huge old beautiful buildings, white greek looking churches and a greek looking cathedral with pyramids and camels across the front. As we were out early there were street performers setting up along a huge market lined street, we watched the tango dancers and a man playing bucket drums.
By 12noon we headed out to the airport, our taxi driver was lovely...although we have no idea what he was talking about. He jabbered the whole 20 minutes to the airport pointing things out, dan and I nodded and laughed at what we hoped were the appropriate times, but who knows, we probably said 'yes' to a question that required more of an answer, who knows, he seemed cheerful though. We were glad we made it to the airport early, the place was heaving! every man and dog, literally, were there. Everyone seems to fly with their pets. Our small plane to ushuaia held around 100 people and easily 6 of them bought pets along. They were all checked in with their baggage, there were poddles, an english terrier that growled at everyone and even a massive orange cat that came along for the ride.
The flight south to Ushuaia took 3.5 hours and the last 30minutes were stunning. We were flying over snow capped moutains with water filled gorges in between. It was truly beautiful, only shattered that we didnt have the window seat, hopefully on the way out we will so I can take some pics.
The town is small and sits on the bay. The airport is only 4km out of town. All of the cruises going to Antartica leave from here so there is a fair share of shops and restaurants. The town is surrounded by more snowcapped mountains. As we are so far south, the sun dosnt set till 11:30 and its bright again by 4am. Luckily our days have been so busy we were able to fall asleep in the light. A full stomach also helped, we went to a restaurant that serves meat...all kinds and lots of it. It was buffet for all the salads and then a massive grill cooking every kind of meat you could imagine...dan was in heaven! sausage, pork, lamb, beef, chicken, chorizo, black pudding...on and on. There was a fire with whole animals being slow roasted around it. The meat that we tried was delicious!
Were staying at the Antartica hostel for one night before we transfer to the Albatros hotel to begin our trip with gadventures. Were flying to El Calafate on Christmas Day to begin our hike at Glacier National Park.
Merry Christmas everyone, have a lovely day and enjoy the day with family, friends and good food :)
much love and hugs to all, Jess and Dan xoxo
