Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America

I had a really good day walking around Ushuaia today. It’s a very touristy city, because there’s no other reason for anyone to be here than to say that were at the End of the World. I grabbed a bite to eat at a really nice restaurant on San Martin, the main street of Ushuaia. My Thanksgiving lunch consisted of croquets filled with ham and cheese for a starter, steak and fried potatoes for a main, and then a scoop of chocolate ice cream for dessert. Everything was really good, but it wasn’t even close to being as good as a real Thanksgiving dinner. Ah well, who knows where I’ll be next year. Maybe I can get one then.

I checked out a few of the stores to see what kinds of wares they have for sale down here. Everything is overpriced, but not as outrageously as I had expected. I didn’t buy anything though, because I’m going to be back down here in a couple of weeks, so I might as well wait till then so I don’t have to carry stuff around any longer than necessary.

I went to a museum today, which was a nice change. I’m not a big museum guy, but every once in a while they interest me, and this turned out to be a good one. It was half maritime museum, and half prison museum. The whole thing was housed in the old prison that was erected back when Ushuaia was a penal colony. It reminded me a bit of Alcatraz in the way it was set up where you could go into each cell and learn about a different person or thing that went on in the prison.

The maritime museum didn’t interest me as much, but I had a quick look around in there. One of the exhibition halls had also been set up as an Antarctica museum, so that was very cool. It showed all the earliest journeys to Antarctica and the men who took on this courageous feat. I was near the end of the Antarctica part of the museum when a group of a billion school kids came into the place to make it miserable for anyone in there. I only lasted another ten minutes and then had to get the heck out of there before I locked one of them in a cell. Still, I stayed in there for over three hours, which is pretty good for me in a museum.

When I left the museum I walked down to the port to see some of the boats that will be making the journey out to Antarctica. I saw one lone ship in the harbor, and it looked a little familiar. I zoomed in with my camera and could clearly make out the name on the side of the ship: Expedition. That was the boat that Ryan and I were supposed to be getting on in two days to head off to the Seventh Continent. I guess it was dead in the water, but I still would rather have known it was at the bottom of the harbor than just sitting there staring at me. That wasn’t cool. I had a look for our new ship but didn’t see it. I assume that’s because it is in Antarctica right now making some other people’s dreams come true.

I went back to the hostel to wait for a little bit before getting a taxi to the airport. It is a ridiculously tiny airport, so it took no time at all to check in and go through security. I immediately found out that the flight was delayed by an hour, so that made the wait just that much more boring. There’s no wifi in an airport like that, so it wasn’t a very exciting wait.

Once we got off the ground, it was an easy three hour flight up to Buenos Aires. We landed at about 1am, my bag came off the line straight away, and I jumped in the first taxi I could find. It was only about 15 minutes to get to Hotel Magdelena, where the owner, Ruben, was outside waiting for me to arrive. He is a really nice guy who’s been whatsapping me the last few days to make sure that everything went smoothly. Unfortunately his hotel is not as nice as he is. He did upgrade me to a single room with a private bathroom though, so that was nice of him. Plus, I have decent wifi, so that definitely is a bonus. I’m only here for about seven hours anyway. I have a bus to Cordoba in the morning, so I’m sure this place will be fine until then.