While we were sitting in the dining room, eating our lunch, someone got wildly excited and started telling and pointing out of the window.

We all saw a whale breach just enough to blow a spout and then twice show its tail as it dived. Very exciting. It’s probably lucky the shop has stabilisers because fully 100% of the passengers all ran to our side of the ship to catch a glimpse.

This post is pretty much icebergs.

We saw a seal but my photos of it were pretty bad. The photo at the top of the post was taken by someone else.

In the afternoon we were going to have another landing but there was too much ice in the opening of the bay, so instead, both groups were taken out on the zodiacs to cruise around.

We were sailing around, looking for whales and seals but there weren’t a lot to be found, except that one seal I’ve already mentioned.

But no one cared.

It was simply enough to be here and to experience the beauty that was all around us.

At one stage we passed by a huge chunk of black ice. This is ice that is perfectly clear because it has spent thousands of years being slowly compressed until every skerrick of air is gone. Rose, our guide, got one of the men to fish it out so she could take it to the dining room.

I took this video to try and show you what it sounds like as the zodiac moves over and through the ice. It’s a cracking, crunching sound. At the end, you can hear the conversation the guys in the boat were having about using the black ice.

My absolute favourite out of all the ice is the blue ice. It’s simply stunning. I’ve taken hundreds of photos to try to show you just how beautiful it is. 

Some of the icebergs have weird and wonderful designs on them. This is because at some stage they’ve flipped right over, so we’re seeing what used to be the underside, which has been sculpted by the water.

All too soon it was time to go back. Ridiculous! We’d only been out for 3 hours or so!

In the next photo, please have a good look at the rectangular iceberg in the middle and a little to the left of the shot. It stars in the next little story…

As we were putt-putting towards the ship, all of a sudden there was a huge CRACK. As our heads swiveled to the left, a huge chunk of ice slid off the back of a rectangular iceberg and crashed into the sea.

There’s no photo of the actual event, sorry. It all happened so quickly. Morgan’s zodiac had passed a lot closer to it and they noticed a huge crack running up the side of it. They wondered if they should hang around just in case it calved, but of course you never know exactly when these things are going to happen.

But what an amazing thing to see! I’d say that it was one more tick off my list of things to see, but I didn’t even consider that something like this would happen just as we were going past.

We met for dinner and spent the evening together almost dazed at what we’d seen that day. From the very first moment we were out of the ship until the end of the day when we came back after cruising around the bay, the day was something magical.

I know that behind the scenes there’s a lot of work that goes on by the crew to ensure that we tourists have a wonderful experience. But all of their work, combined with the utterly perfect weather, made this a day to remember.

Scenic enough for you?

I was hot by the time it was our turn to go on land. As you can see by the photo, I’d unzipped my jackets and pulled up one of my merino tops, just to let some cool air in. This was definitely not what I was expecting from Antarctica!

The wrap around sunnies that I’m wearing turned out to be a good buy. They’re polarising, so any glare from the sun on the snow was mitigated. Some of the people in our little group weren’t so lucky…

The crew had prepared the landing site for us, with one path going up the hill, while the other stayed down near sea level, near 3 Gentoo penguin rookeries.

Being unfit, I stayed down on the lower level, which I regretted afterwards. I didn’t let my perceived level of fitness hold me back again. I was surprised by how much I could do. (aka: EVERYTHING.)

At this stage of the year, the penguins are mating, building nests and starting to lay their eggs. There have been some really heavy snowfalls this winter, so their mating season has been delayed.

It didn’t seem to put a dampener on their ardour. We saw lots of baby penguins being made.

I  saw many penguins making their way up from the sea, carrying stones in their beaks to make their nests.

They were so intent on their task. They’d walk up along their penguin highways – and occasionally on ours – carefully carrying a stone. If they tumbled and fell, which happens surprisingly often, they’d be unflappable. They’d pick themselves up and carry on. Sometimes they’d stay lying down and take a sip of snow, as if they’d been planning to do this all along.

Each year a pair of penguins will lay two precious eggs.

We saw a Skua fly away with a stolen egg, then land a few feet away and start to eat it.

I know that the skuas need to feed their babies too, but it was still sad to watch.

One of the guides said, “ It’s worse later in the season once the chicks are born. The Skua scavenge on dead birds and live chicks.”

I’m really glad I didn’t get to see a live chick being torn apart, or dangling helplessly from a skua’s beak as it dragged it away…

One of the most important rules when on land is that you don’t interfere with the penguins. If one crosses your path, you have to stop and let it pass. They have brains the size of a walnut, so sometimes they get confused and forget where they were going, so they just stand and stare at you. 

We always try and keep a 5m gap between us and them.

When we first reached land, I headed off down the path on my own and had a good 10 minutes of alone time, just watching the penguins in the rookery and looking at the scene around me. I could still hear voices, but the noise of the penguins was far louder. 

I felt like the luckiest woman in the world. Here I was, standing a scant few metres away from these wild things, while the backdrop of huge chunks of ice glittering in the sun was all around me. 

Not many people get to experience this. 

Especially with weather like this. I crossed my fingers and hoped that it’d continue.

I saw penguin courtship behaviour, where they bow to each other very solemnly. I didn’t get a video, unfortunately, but it was very formal and medieval courtly love, like an ancient dance.

I saw a couple of clumsy penguins losing their balance and tipping over.

Then I saw a few hundred more. Honestly, for such pretty birds, their design is far more suited to the sea than on land.

But that just makes them all the more endearing.

Words cannot do justice to the absolute beauty and majesty of this place. It’s incomparable.

All too soon it was time to go back to the ship. 

We got back into the zodiacs, feeling so privileged to have been able to experience this perfect morning. Bad weather can blow up here in a matter of minutes, so come what may, we’ve experienced this absolute pearl of a time.

The plan is that while we’re having lunch, the ship will take us to a new location, where we’ll go out and explore.

On the way back to the ship, I had a ‘Venice’ moment. I was sitting front of the zodiac and we were whipping along. Wind was buffeting my face and I closed my eyes, just as I did in Venice as we were about to enter the main canal. When I opened my eyes, there was the beauty of Venice laid out before me.

Today, I closed my eyes and let the wind buffet my face, just as I did then. When I opened them, there was the blue ship framed by white icebergs. It was stunning, in a totally different way to Venice. 

How lucky I am to be able to experience both.

At around 4:30 AM I woke with a start. It was pitch black in the cabin. The ‘swish swish’ noise was back.

It … it was getting closer.

It was coming down the ladder towards me…

It was Ming! Her bright yellow Gortex parka and waterproof pants were swishing together as she moved. She swish-swished to the bathroom and then swish! swish! as she grabbed some things in the cabin. Then she swished out the door. I rolled my eyes, then closed them and went back to sleep.

When the morning announcement woke us, I leapt out of bed and opened the blinds. Right outside our porthole was a chunk of ice floating merrily by. I leaped like a gazelle into the shower, threw on some clothes and bolted for the deck.

There were surprisingly few people up there.

The air was crisp and cool. I didn’t wear gloves and after a few minutes, my hands started to feel it. Everyone who was on deck was grinning delightedly at each other and taking photos.

There were a few gasps as a small group of penguins broke the water’s surface as they swam to find food.

We learned in one of the lectures we’d had that it takes less energy for a penguin to continually leap out of the water when it swims, rather than swim in a straight line with its body always in the water.

My hands began to feel too cold, so I went back inside to grab breakfast. We were all sitting together, very excited for the morning that was about to unfold.

The passengers had been divided into two groups. There are strict rules about how many people are allowed to go ashore at any one time. No more than 100 people at a time, and if you are on a ship that has more than 500 passengers on board, you cannot go ashore at all.

In Antarctica, less is definitely more. We had 150 passengers. Half would go ashore while the other half would cruise around for an hour and a half in the zodiacs. Then we’d swap.

We were in all the same group, except for Ming. She was in the group that was going to go onto Cuverville Island first, while our group was going on a zodiac tour around the bay.

Over breakfast, we heard the story about a guy who was on the ship a couple of years ago, who smuggled a penguin under his coat and hid it in his shower recess for two days. It was discovered by a cleaner. When the ship docked back in Ushuaia, he was taken away and arrested.

Was it true? I hope not. I felt just awful for the poor, bewildered penguin.

After breakfast all four of us piled into our cabin. Unsurprisingly, Ming was the first to be ready, seeing as all she had to put on was the lifejacket and muck boots. She’d been in her 5 layers of clothing for 2 days now! The rest of us struggled into our layers and helped each other to shrug on our life jackets. We were talking nervously, waiting for the call to go out for our group to report to the zodiac boarding deck for the first time.

Before we knew it, we were off!

A zodiac is like an inflatable boat that seats up to 10 – 12 people. You plant yourself on the sides of the boat with your feet on the floor. It’s possible to stand up, though the driver asks that you ask for permission first. Obviously, if the sea is rough you’d be crazy to try. It’s very fast and manoeuvrable and is (almost) impossible to capsize.

Luckily for us, the sea was smooth. As we drew closer to the island we could see people walking around, with red poles sticking up from the snow, marking where it was safe to go.

We turned and began putt-putting our way along the side of the island, looking for interesting things to see.

One thing I definitely didn’t expect to see was a sailboat!

The guy driving our boat had heard about it. The people had sailed across the Drake Passage from Ushuaia and had contacted our ship the night before, letting them know that they were there, in case they needed some help if their sailboat was iced in or something. We saw this boat off and on over the next few days. They seemed to be staying in our general neighbourhood.

Look at how thick the snow is! Oh… and if you zoom in, those three smudges lying on the ice are Weddell seals.

In one of the lectures, we learned that the water here is so cold that if the seals kept everything working at full steam when they were swimming, they wouldn’t be able to survive. So a survival mechanism they have is that they can shut bodily functions off – one of them being digestion – until they can reach land. Here they are, enjoying the sunlight and happily digesting penguins, krill and fish.

I could be wrong, but I think this might be a skua. Or a cormorant. Probably a cormorant. Maybe someone from the trip could let us know in the comments.

We could already see that we were going to get up close with some penguin rookeries when it was our turn to get onto the island, but this was our first look at them.

These were Gentoo penguins, which were far and away the most common penguins that we saw on this trip. They are so damned CUTE, so chunky and earnest.

The pinky colour that you can see around them is their poo. They eat a lot of krill and that gives their poo its colour.

Before I got here I read a few comments from people that had come here before me that penguins stink.

That’s not totally true. They do have a whiff of fish paste about them, but it wasn’t overpoweringly horrible, which was what I was afraid of. Of course, I don’t have a great sense of smell – probably from sharing my house with 4 sons for so long – but no one else complained about it, so I rest my case.

Our zodiacs communicated with each other by walkie-talkies. If someone saw some wildlife, they’d let the other ones know.

There was a rule that there were to be no more than 3 or 4 zodiacs near, say, a whale at any one time, so as not to stress the animals out. The guides would all share the time so that the majority of people got to see everything there was to see.

We stayed here for a while, watching these penguins waddle down to the water and then jump in. They looked to be enjoying the sunshine.

We were in water that was perfectly clear, with blue skies above and no wind. Our guides keep saying that we’re so lucky. The cruise before us had bad weather every single day, while Morgan, the YPT team leader who went on the cruise last year, the one that Latestarterfire and I were supposed to go on, said the same thing about that one. 

Looks like being trapped in Australia last year with the covid quarantine from the rest of the world turned out to be a good thing after all!

I absolutely fell in love with the aquamarine colour of some of the icebergs. It was startlingly beautiful.

Look. At. This.

Like seriously, how is any landscape able to be so wonderful?

It was quiet. The only sounds we heard were the quiet murmurings of people, the clicking of cameras, the almost braying sound of the penguins floating over to us across the water and the sound of the sea lapping against the boat.

Every now and then a crunch would happen if we slid over the top of some ice.

I began the cruise by rationing the photos I took, because we have another 3 days after this. Someone mentioned a similar thing to the guide and he said, “No, don’t do that. This weather is extremely rare for Antarctica so make the most of it. You’ll see all the guides on land will be taking pictures as well. This sunshine is unbelievable!”

After what seemed like 15 minutes but was actually an hour and a half, we made our way to where the other half of the passengers were queuing to get into the zodiacs.

We were about to set foot on land at last!

A couple of housekeeping things:

1. Now that we’ve finally reached Antarctica, I’m going to split the days up. I literally took 984 photos, (thanks Charlie for showing me how to count them!), and it’s taking an enormous amount of time to trawl through them all to find the best ones to share with you.

2. After reading yesterday’s post, Morgan reminded me of an even STUPIDER question that was asked on the trip.

It was when we were doing the mandatory briefing on the lifeboats. We were up on the deck, looking at these orange-coloured pods that are able to hold over 100 people for 3 days.

“There will be enough food stored on board to feed 100 people for the time that we’d be waiting for rescue,” said Pippa. “If the call goes out to evacuate to the lifeboats, all we ask is that you bring the water bottle that we gave you on the welcome pack left on your bed. We ask that as soon as you go back to your cabin, you fill it up and have it always ready in case we need to abandon ship.”

Then a woman from Vietnam raised her hand.

“What are the water bottles for?”

I used the word ‘still’ in the title on purpose. Look at the sea. Today we well and truly had the Drake Lake! Also, as promised, the bird photos I’ll be using were taken by other people – these photos are shots taken while we were crossing the Drake Passage.

I slept pretty well, though once or twice a ‘swish swish’ noise floated from somewhere. It didn’t disturb me much and I was woken by the morning announcement by Pippa , with her Scottish accent:

“Goood morning everyone! It’s 7:30 on a beautiful day in the Drake Passage. We have calm seas, blue sky and a forecast top of 3C. Breakfast will be served in 15 minutes. After breakfast, we will have the mandatory briefing on how to board and disembark from the zodiacs, followed by a lecture by Josh about the race to the South Pole. Have a good day!”

We all met in the dining room. SamFrank was there and I realised that this was the first time I’d seen him since the day we set sail. He sat down at the table next to me.

Breakfast started out great! A huge buffet with all sorts of options to suit everybody. Intending to get my money’s worth, I sat down in front of a plate brimming with bacon, scrambled eggs, fruit, yoghurt – even a breakfast pastry.

As I started tucking in, I made the mistake of saying to SamFrank, “I don’t think I saw you yesterday.”

“No, you didn’t see me,” he said earnestly. “I was very seasick. Every time I put anything in my mouth I vomited it straight back up.”

“Oh no, you poor thing,” I said. “Didn’t you buy a patch from the doctor?”

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “At first I thought I was fine, but then I felt some vomit come into my mouth at dinner so I left very quickly.”

Um… this isn’t the sort of conversation I wanted to have over breakfast. As he kept talking about vomiting, I began to look at my scrambled eggs with a queasy eye.

“At first I was bringing up food, but soon it was just watery…”

“Hey, Frank!” I interrupted. “Let’s not talk about vomiting, ok? It’s not something I want to get in my head when we’re at sea. I’m feeling great and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Ok, yes,” he said. “But what you don’t understand is that as soon as I tried to eat anything it just came right back up ag…”

“Frank! You’re still talking about it! Please stop!”

This time he got the message and after a few moments of conversation with the others at my table, I was able to look at my breakfast, including the scrambled eggs, with a renewed appetite.

Eneko then needed a point to be clarified.

“So, if you need to go to the bathroom when you are on land, that is ok, no?” he asked.

“NO!!!!” we all said at once.

“Oh, not for number twos, of course. But if you need to pee in the snow, that is alright, yes?”

“NO!!!” we all said again.

“You cannot pee in the snow,” said Morgan firmly. “If you need to go that badly, they will take you back to the ship on a zodiac.

I thought of my pee bottle and felt a little smug. I’m really hoping that I don’t have to use it and can bring it back to use as an actual water bottle.

This breakfast was turning out to be quite the exploration of bodily functions…

(This is a Wandering Albatross, for those who’ve read ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’)

The bottom two decks are below sea level, so when we are getting in and out of the zodiacs we’ll be doing so by two big doors at sea level on deck 3, which is also the deck that our cabin is on. How convenient!

In the mandatory lecture on zodiac safety we were told that when getting in and out of the zodiac, or whenever we need some help steadying ourselves on sea or land, we’ll need to grab each other’s arms just past the wrist and hold on to each other like that. Simply holding each other’s hands isn’t as strong.

When we get into the zodiac we have to sit on the edge straight away, then slide on our bums over to where we’re going to sit. Same thing when we’re ready to get off. You don’t stand, you slide over to where you’re going to manoeuvre your way out.

Backpacks are on your back when you get in, then once you’re seated you take them off and put them at your feet. Put them back on again just before you disembark.

We were then reminded about the strict rules against sitting, kneeling or lying down on the snow, to try and mitigate the risk of avian flu, which is decimating bird numbers in the northern hemisphere.

Immediately after that reminder, we had the stupidest question of the whole voyage, asked by some doofus guy with an American accent:

“ Can we do snow angels in the snow if we move away from the penguin nests?”

Heavens above. The saintliness of our team leader, Pippa!

“No you can’t,” she said patiently, ” because that would necessitate lying down…”

It must be so hard to answer stupidity like this with courtesy and patience. This is why I like teaching teenagers. I can turn and bang my head against the whiteboard when I get questions at this asinine level and we can all have a good laugh.

Listening to the Scott /Amundsen lecture, I looked out and saw my first albatross soaring against the deep blue of the sea and sky. Drake Lake today. 

The lecture about the race to the South Pole was really interesting. The guy included lots of photos and gave lots of information giving us the context of the situation and also what happened afterwards. When I was a child I remember seeing an old black and white movie called ’Scott and the Antarctic’ so his end didn’t come as a surprise. Actually, I still remember the scene when Oates sacrificed himself so the rest of them had a better chance of survival.

Just before lunch I had a great idea. I grabbed my coat and lurked around the dining room door and when it opened I was the second one inside. I ate quickly and then made my way to deck 7, where the bridge is located.

The ship has an open bridge policy, so unless they’re in the middle of navigating through really bad weather, people can pop up there and have a look around at pretty much any time.

To my surprise, I was the only one there. Well, apart from the guy actually steering the ship, of course. We had a bit of a chat, in between him doing his duties. He’s from Russia and spends half his year up North doing Arctic cruises, then he comes down here for Antarctic cruises.

I spent some time there just gazing at the horizon. There was nothing to break the even line between sea and sky no matter where you looked. It felt like we were in the middle of a huge bowl. The sea was placid, birds were swooping around and it was all so peaceful. It’s strange to think that by this time tomorrow we could be seeing icebergs.

After I’d seen enough, I zipped up my jacket and went out on deck. Not 2 minutes later, I saw my first whale. It wasn’t leaping out of the water or anything… I saw the back breach the surface of the water and a spray of seawater was flung upwards. Then, about 20 seconds later, its back broke the water again.

Then, as if to really hammer home that this trip is really happening, it started to snow. OMG.  Zoom in. Those white flecks are snowflakes. This is only the 4th time I’ve seen snow falling. I was very excited, much to the bemusement of a guy from Wisconsin.

“This isn’t really a snowfall,” he said. “This is nothing.”

I didn’t care that it only lasted about 4 minutes and then vanished into clear skies again. It’s snow and I’m definitely counting it!

I didn’t care that it only lasted about 4 minutes and then vanished into clear skies again. It’s snow and I’m definitely counting it!

My hands were so cold from trying to take photos of the birds following the ship, but the rest of me was toasty warm. We were warned that windchill is a factor here and clearly the jacket I hired was good at stopping the wind. 

Before the afternoon lecture on seals, we were treated to ice cream cones. Very civilised. Then, when the lecture finished at 5:30, the call went out… 

… the first sighting of land! Smith Island was on the horizon. Suddenly, it’s real.

We’re almost there!

At dinner, we sat at the table next to Ming and her friends. She’s very easy to spot, because as soon as she set foot on the ship, she put on every layer of polar gear she brought with her and, to the best of my knowledge, she hasn’t taken it off. Her outer layer of Gortex is a bright yellow jacket, so on a ship where everyone is dressed in trackie dacks, jeans and light jumpers, she certainly stands out.

Corinna leaned into my ear, after looking around to ensure no one could hear her.

“Hey Frogdancer, didn’t you and Morgan say that SamFrank said that he worked for the FBI?” she asked.

“That’s what he said when we dropped off the luggage,” I said. “Why?”

Her face lit up with merriment.

“One of the American guys told me that he said that he was in the special forces… as a general!”

We both started laughing.

“Only a couple of days ago he was a captain,” I said. “That’s quite the promotion!”

“The guy said that SamFrank said that he couldn’t tell him what his current mission was, but that he couldn’t be photographed on social media.”

We couldn’t wait to tell the others. And yes, they enjoyed it as much as we did.

Morgan was originally going to share a quad cabin with SamFrank as one of the roommates, but he and Baptiste were allocated different cabins by the ship’s staff, so Morgan organised a swap.

Eneko is stuck in SamFrank’s cabin, but the boys, much to their relief, are not.

We stayed up pretty late – this ‘no sunset until well after midnight’ thing really fools you – and went to bed knowing that when we woke up, the view from our porthole was going to be very different.

I wonder if there’ll be an iceberg?

I can’t recommend my room in Ushuaia. The room I was assigned at the hotel was the loudest place I’ve ever slept in. The window opened right on the main drag on the harbour and so there were cars and people going past all night.

Why is it that people who are awake and walking around streets in the middle of the night seem to speak at double the volume than they normally would?

I didn’t know it then, but in rooms right near me, two people on my tour, Morgan and Baptiste, were also tossing, turning and thumping their pillows in frustration at the noise.

By 5 AM I’d given up on getting any meaningful sleep so I got up and threw back the curtains. It was sunrise and the harbour looked beautiful. I took a quick shower, grabbed my phone and went out to explore.

It was so quiet. There was hardly anyone around. I carried my fleecy jacket with me but I didn’t need it. A cruise ship was slowly coming into the harbour. “That’ll be me in 10 days,” I said, not knowing that I was getting my first look at the Hondius, which would be my home for the next little while. 

The air was crisp and cool, but only my face and hands were feeling it. I couldn’t believe that there were tulips blooming in the ground in summer!

As I was walking, my thoughts turned to coffee. Surely, even on a Sunday morning, there’d be somewhere open? I cut into the streets of the town and asked a passing policeman. Sadly, no. Shops here open at 10 AM. So I wandered back to the hotel, hoping like hell that there’d be someone there at reception to let me back in.

Once I was done with breakfast, I went back to the room and looked at the photocopies of the emails I’d been sent by the travel company. Something suddenly leaped out at me.

“Passengers need to take their bags to a drop-off point between 8 and 11 Am. It was already 9… I was waiting for the meeting we were supposed to have at 10, but what if everyone else had dropped their bags off??

I went to the reception desk and asked the girl to call Morgan’s room. He’s our tour leader. He came down to me and said that he was going to be dropping his bags off in 5 minutes and I was welcome to come with him.

Fortunate Frogdancer strikes again! I knew booking a room in the same hotel as the tour leader might come in handy! In a few minutes time he was back, along with his friend Baptiste.

Morgan and Baptiste are from Paris and are in their early 30’s. Morgan is a journalist who is an avid traveller. He went to North Korea 4 years before me in 2014 and we think we might have had the same Koren guide. Baptiste is a policeman, who quietly notices everything that happens around us. You know how you can read in books that someone’s eyes dance when they’re amused by something? Baptiste’s eyes actually do! (And considering some of the people who were on this trip, there were lots of times when our eyes met in mutual appreciation of the ridiculous.)

Morgan was offered a sweet deal – this was his first tour as a leader. He has been travelling with YPT (Young Pioneer Tours) a lot over the years and went on the Antarctica trip that Late Starter Fire and I were supposed to go on last year, before covid locked Australians into not being able to travel overseas.

YPT contacted him and asked if he’d lead the 2022 group, in return for a free trip. What a bargain! Of course, he grabbed it with both hands. He’s no fool!

While we were getting our bags checked in on the waterfront, a small Asian guy with an American accent, wearing a yarmulke came up to us. He was in our group. On the FB group he was called Sam Sampson, but it turns out his real name is Frank. 

Morgan introduced us and we briefly chatted, with Frank telling us that he was not allowed to be seen on social media, so he invented the alias “Sam Sampson from New York, New York” to become a member of the FB group. Seemed a little strange, but ok…

Once Morgan and I were looking after our suitcases, he sidled up to Baptiste and said in a low voice,“ We’ll have to compare notes on law enforcement during the voyage. I work with a branch in the states called The Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m a captain.”

As Baptiste said later, as the three of us were laughing about it, “ Seriously dude, we’ve all heard of the FBI!” My take on it was that it was total BS, but then again, what do I know? (When I got home I looked up ranks in the FBI. Turns out that unless you were a Captain in the military, retired and THEN joined the FBI, there was no such rank. Stay tuned, though. SamFrank, as we called him, is quite the character.)

We had around 6 hours before we had to board the ship and the guys kindly said that I could hang out with them: that day we did a LOT of walking. Ushuaia isn’t very big, so there wasn’t much scope for adventure. 

I spotted this soft toy in a shop window. Why on earth would anyone want to buy a kangaroo (with a joey) in Ushuaia? It’s funny what catches the eye, though. None of the others spotted it but it leapt out to the only Aussie in the group.

This is Morgan and Baptiste as we were walking around a lake on the outskirts of town. Did I mention that we did a lot of walking that day?

Around the lake. All over the town.

We stopped for lunch and Corinna joined us. She’s a very confident Italian girl in her late 20’s, who speaks with an English accent. She has the cutest, kittenish face, with a smile and a zest for life that is utterly contagious. Turns out that she was one of my cabin mates, which was a stroke of luck. Again, like Morgan, she has travelled extensively, often to places that not many people go to.

Seriously, Argentina needs to drop a few zeros from their currency. All of these notes were to pay for lunch for 4 people. It was crazy.

After lunch, we still had a couple more hours to fill before we could go to the docks to board the ship. We went to a supermarket to fill in time. Look at the price of this wine!

After walking for a couple more hours after lunch, we were finally able to board the ship. In the queue to board, I met Liga from Riga, Latvia, who was also going to be sharing our cabin. At first meeting, I was intimidated by her. She has an ultra-serious demeanour, coupled with an air of not seeming to take fools gladly and an accent that had very Russian-sounding overtones.

After we’d spent some time talking in the cabin though, I warmed to her. She’s an incredible young woman who has achieved so many things in her life. She was part of her country’s army reserves, she has been a truck driver, and she voluntarily dunks herself in icy cold water every fortnight – (I’ve seen a video of her going into a stream in the middle of winter and breaking the ice on the surface to submerge up to her neck in the water) – and she has also, like the rest of the group, travelled extensively, doing such things as hiking to Everest base camp, carrying everything she needed on her back.

She’s in her late 30’s, fiercely independent and is a single mother to a 5-year-old daughter. Her dry sense of humour was an absolute delight, though, true to my first impressions – what you see is what you get with Liga. There’s absolutely no bullshit about her – she says what she thinks and if you don’t like it? Too bad.

It was wonderful.

Then there was the fourth member of our cabin – Ming . She was a Chinese woman in her 40’s, already dressed in her polar layers. At first glance, she was very nice and friendly with no obvious shortcomings. But there was something that would make itself very obvious over the next few days…

This is the third time Morgan has been on the Hondius and he told us two things:

1. The food is so good that you’ll leave heavier than you arrive

And

2. If the captain cancels the Welcome drinks on the first night, then the Drakes Passage is going to be rough.

Anyway, the welcome drinks were lovely and so was dinner.

Afterwards, our little group settled into the lounge on the 5th deck. Liga mentioned at Sam/Frank had told her that he was in the special forces and he can’t tell her what mission he was on. We all had a laugh about that, especially when I said, “Gee, things change swiftly in the special forces world. This morning he wasn’t allowed to speak about his job in the FBI and now he’s in the special forces starting to talk.”

Just then, a young Spanish guy walked up and sat down. 

“ Frogdancer?” he asked. When I nodded, he said seriously, “ I’ve been investigating you on FB.”

“WHAT?” I said. I certainly wasn’t expecting that! (I hope he enjoyed the Dad jokes I post every day.)

“ Eneko is a member of the group,” Morgan said.

“Of course,” Eniko said. He shook my hand. “ I’m a private investigator.”

I shot a glance at the boys. First Sam/Frank and now this! Eneko fished his phone out and showed us his official card. Baptiste, being the policeman that he is, had a good long look at it, enlarging parts as he read.

“Of course, “ said Eneko, “ I only do this for fun. I’m really an online poker player.” 

After a while, he left and the boys, Corinna, Liga and I collapsed with laughter.

“What is going on? ” laughed Baptise. “ First we have the FBI and special forces and now a private investigator! You know, this is the perfect place for a murder on the orient express. By tomorrow morning there’ll be a body.”

We weren’t sure what to make of Eneko, but it was soon clear that he’s a great guy. He has a special way of viewing the world and has been smart enough to build a life that absolutely suits what he wants to do. He has an apartment in Spain, with a window that only looks out onto an internal courtyard “so I don’t have to see the people” and he stays there for a few weeks at a time playing online poker.

He has the sort of brain that loves numbers, patterns and statistics (which I decidedly do NOT!) and so he’s able to play 10 people at a time. I’ve seen a photo where it shows his set-up – it’s incredible.

Once he’s made enough money, he leaves the apartment and goes travelling. He is a terrific photographer. When that particular trip is over, he comes back and does it all again. He has a 20-year-old car that looks brand-new, which made me think of the FIRE lifestyle. We only spend big money on the things that we value and we minimise spending on the things that don’t interest us as much. In many ways, Eneko is living the dream!

While we were talking in the lounge, someone mentioned that the doctor was over the other side of the room selling seasickness patches for 4 euros each. That sounded like a bargain to me. The ship was moving through the Beagle Passage out towards the Drake Passage, about which Wikipedia says: “The Drake Passage is considered one of the most treacherous voyages for ships to make. Currents at its latitude meet no resistance from any landmass, and waves top 40 feet (12 m), hence its reputation as “the most powerful convergence of seas”.

The ship was rolling a bit, which actually seemed quite pleasant, but I didn’t want to risk getting sick if we emerged from the Beagle Passage into the “Drake Shake”, which is what the Drake Passage is usually like. Personally, I had my fingers crossed for the “Drake Lake”, which is rare.

Because the sun doesn’t set until nearly midnight this far south, we stayed up really late without realising it, sneaking into our cabin after 1 to see Ming peacefully sleeping in her upstairs bunk above mine.

Later that night, I was woken by a mysterious “swish, swish” sound in the cabin. I stirred, then rolled over and went back to sleep. The ship’s rocking was beautifully soothing.

More on that mysterious noise later…

(I meant to write this paragraph at the beginning of Day 1, but I forgot. These posts about my Antarctica trip were written as I went, so as you read, it’s as if you’re coming along with me. I’m putting identical posts on both this blog and my frogblog, so if you’re one of the people who read both, be aware that the posts will be the same.)

Well, isn’t Uber a great invention?

I’ve never used it before. Never needed to. But with a day of unfettered freedom ahead of me with no tour guide to ferry me from place to place, today seemed like a good idea to download the app and give it a go. 

So that means I was testing out a transport app in a continent so far around the world that if I went any further away I’d be coming home, and it’s a country where I don’t speak the language. What could go wrong?

As it turns out, something did go wrong, but it wasn’t with Uber. I boldly set out to get to the Sculpture park on foot, and somehow got myself turned around. Twenty minutes later, with the help of a nice woman who didn’t speak a word of English, I worked out what I was doing wrong and boldly (but with a far more humble attitude), set off again.

I made it, but that’s when I decided that from now on I was going to use Uber. I’m not all that fond of walking without a dog or three in front of me.

Speaking of dogs, there were quite a few in this park. People seem to use the parks more here than at home. I don’t think I’ve ever seen more canoodling young couples lying on picnic blankets in my life before. But as I said, there were also dogs.

As I was nearing the end of the park, I saw the unmistakable shape of a snag on a leash. His name was Luca and he was a nice old man, walking with a mother around my age and her daughter. Of course, we had a chat and I told them about Scout. 

“What do you think about Chile?” The daughter asked. Her mother couldn’t speak English. When I said the polite words about how lovely it is … you know, what everyone with manners says in answer to that question, her mouth turned down at the corners.

“Chile is an awful place,” she said. “There is so much crime and it’s not safe to walk the streets by yourself. I hope you’re not travelling alone?”

Yikes! I said something about being out and about during the day, but at night I stay in. 

She nodded. “Oh, during the day it is alright,” she said.

When the waiter yesterday told me about the park, I was expecting something bigger, like McClelland Park at home. This one is a small sliver of land, running in between a river and a road. But it’s very popular with the locals.

Even though it’s little and narrow, it has an atmosphere very different from the hustle and bustle surrounding it.

The roads on three sides are totally busy, especially the one that runs along the length of it, the Avenue Santa Maria. It’s a major thoroughfare. Then, running the length of the park on the other side is the most turbulent river I’ve ever seen run through a city. They say that the Yarra in Melbourne is brown but this one is the colour of dirt and mud, almost to the point of looking like liquid mud.

Yet once I stepped into the park, the noise from outside faded into a background hum. Birdsong was everywhere and I swear that a couple of times I could smell flowers in the air.

After the park, I walked to a side street and summoned my first Uber to go to the Museum of Memories. How easy is Uber? Who knew??? I didn’t even have to pay as the fare was already deducted from my debit card that holds my travel funds. This means that I have plenty of pesos left for when I come back after Antarctica:

But back to the Museum.

When I was at work this year, I’d caught up with a little girl I used to teach in year 7 who had just come over from Santiago to live in Australia for 6 years. She was excited to hear that the trip I’d talked about 2 years before was finally going ahead. Back then, she’d emailed me a list of things to do in Santiago. On that list was the Museum of Memories. I remember being enchanted by its name. “It sounds like something out of Harry Potter,” I remember thinking. A little googling soon showed that yes… it was like Harry Potter… but if Voldemort was running the place.

The Museum of Memories is devoted to human rights abuses that happened during the coup Chile had fifty years ago. I knew it was going to be a bit of a downer going in, but once I knew about it I couldn’t ignore it. I knew I’d feel bad if I didn’t go, so I decided to knock it over and get it done. 

When I went in I was pleased to hear that the museum was free. Two free activities on the first day! I was expecting to be issued headphones and a tape pack with English translations like when I was in Europe in 2015, but time has moved on. Nowadays you download an app to your phone and work your way through it: if I’d realised that, I would’ve brought some headphones over with me. 

I vaguely remember the coup from when I was a child but it was just a story you see on the news. I’ve heard the name Pinochet from then. But to see the footage as an adult was another experience. Those coup guys weren’t mucking around. They bombed the government buildings to bits, shot the president and then set up torture places all over the country. 

There was one part where I stayed the longest. It was a little room with a metal bed, no mattress, with electrodes and a battery attached. Above it was a screen where a video of the survivors spoke of their experiences while in captivity by the new regime. It wasn’t pleasant viewing but I felt as if I should bear some kind of witness. (Plus, the video had English subtitles, so that made it easier.)

I didn’t do the whole museum. I felt an hour was enough so after having lunch – water and a bread roll I swiped from breakfast –  I grabbed an Uber and headed back into the centre of town.

Here was where I made a mistake. I meant to be dropped off at a museum of pre-Colombian art but I clicked on the cathedral instead. I’m pretty sure I get to see this on the walking tour I’ve booked for when I come back, but what the hell? I went in anyway and wandered around.

Look at who I saw in a stained glass window! His chain of op shops is legendary.

The cool of the cathedral was a welcome relief from the heat from the square outside. It was around 2 pm and the temperature was hovering around 30C. There weren’t all that many people there. Around half were there praying and the rest of us were tourists wandering around or sitting quietly and checking phones.

I wasn’t sure if I could take photos so I took a sneaky few until I saw a girl openly taking a shot in front of a guard. Then all pressure was off.

At the front of the cathedral, near the doors, was a side chapel. It was sparsely occupied and very quiet. It looked like there was some serious praying going on in here. I crept in, took this picture of the altar and then sat at the very end of the front pew. One row behind me, next to the aisle, was a man praying with rosary beads. He was muttering under his breath while he worked his way through the beads.

Suddenly, on the other side of the chapel, a jaunty phone tune rang out at full volume. As the guy hastily fumbled to get his phone and answer it, I smiled under my mask at how incongruous it was. The rosary guy didn’t miss a beat, though.

I admit I was a bit smug. No way MY phone was going to ring!

Once I was out in the sun again, I saw a few stalls outside the cathedral doors and realised with a jolt that I needed to get a decoration for the Christmas tree. Once that important task was done, I wandered around the square for a bit, looking at the paintings on sale. Gaudy seems to be popular.

As I was walking around, I saw a group of men playing chess, so I stopped to watch a game. The first time I remember seeing the little ‘timer’ clocks was when I watched ‘The Queen’s Gambit’, so of course, I watched a game that was using one of these. Once the game was done, I found a seat in the shade and looked up how far away the pre-Columbian art museum was.

Only 6 minutes walk. Good! But… time was ticking. It was now 3 pm. Did I want to look at things from a part of history that I have absolutely no knowledge, or should I go to the biggest hill in Santiago and ride the cable car to the top?

I think we all know the answer to that question!

A fairly long Uber trip later, I was buying a round-trip ticket on the cable car. Beside me in the queue was an American couple. I’d noticed them on the way in, when they were at the information counter and he was whinging and complaining about everything and trying to bully the girl behind the counter into giving him a map. 

There he was again, trying to bully his wife into only getting a one-way ticket. “There’s a tram to take us down,” he said to his wife.

She started to disagree, so I said, “ Yeah, I don’t think there is. “

The wife looked over and quickly flashed a smile, before saying to him, “I really don’t want to walk down the hill.”

I laughed and said, “ I feel the same! I’ve done enough walking for one day!” As I took my ticket and started to walk off, she quietly said, “Thanks for the help…”

Made me glad that I was unencumbered by a grumpy old man!

Much to my surprise, I was given a cable car all to myself. As I slowly rose towards the top, the whole of Santiago lay below me. It’s a big city. Of course, with 7 million people, it’s not going to be a village, but there it all was.

Santiago is ringed with hills. It occurred to me later that night how strange it would be to never have an uninterrupted view of the horizon. Wherever you go, the view is stopped by the hills.

Anyway, in the tradition that started when I went to The Great Wall and bought myself a Magnum ice cream, I bought a scoop of pistachio ice cream and found a seat where I could take in the view.

After a while, I realised I could see my hotel. That mural on the side is pretty distinctive.

The music playing here was all English. Britney Spears did it again etc. I find that kind of weird. In the airport, they were constantly playing Christmas songs in English, but old ones. Bing Crosby thinking that it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas… that sort of thing. I suppose the bonus is that whenever I hear Bing and Britney again, I’ll remember Chile.

After I finished the ice cream, it was time to keep walking. At the very top of the hill is a 25m statue of the Virgin Mary. She’s surrounded by terraced gardens filled with pigface, which made me happy because I have some in the garden, one of my Little Adventures souvenirs.

What didn’t make me happy was the number of steps I still had to climb to reach the top. My feet were starting to hurt after all the walking. But my mother didn’t raise a coward, so up I climbed.

It was worth it. The wind was gently blowing, the sun was shining and the city was laid out before us. I leaned on the rail and took it all in. I was here… on a hill in South America. Me! I’m one of the luckiest people in the world.

Then all too soon, the woman I’d helped at the ticket line started coughing. Now, I’ve had a chronic cough for around 6 years. Worst thing to have in a pandemic! But this was a hacking cough. She was bent over, hands on her knees, coughing up what sounded like huge chunks of phlegm. Of course, she wasn’t wearing a mask.

The man leaning on the rail next to me said to his wife, “This is when we get out of here, I think!” I don’t know about her, but I was in perfect agreement. If I catch COVID now, there goes my holiday. I’d be viewing Antarctica from a porthole instead of actually being there.

So I followed them down the steps.

On the way, the cautious American and I struck up a conversation. He was Kermit, ( yes, really, poor man), from Minnesota. He said he and his wife are retired, so they now spend 6 months a year in California.

“Of course you do! I said. “All of that snow.”

“How do you know about that?” he asked.

“ I grew up reading Laura Ingalls Wilder,” I said.

We had a nice chat as we ambled back, then I made my way down in solitary state in the cable car and then grabbed a taxi to take me back to my hotel. 

On the way, guess what happened?

MY PHONE RANG!

I was astonished. I unzipped my bag and grabbed it, looking to see who on earth it was. It was a call through FB messenger from a friend from work, Cam. He arrived in Santiago a couple of days ahead of me. He’s a great guy. He was a student in Exan26’s year level and did year 12 Drama with him. He is another CRT like me.

He was calling to let me know that the situation in Argentina is much easier to navigate with American dollars. He said that their economy is crashing and they’re desperate for USD rather than pesos, and if you exchange USD for pesos you get nearly double the official exchange rate.

I don’t think it’ll affect me much. I’m pretty much just going from airport to airport to hotels while I’m here. The only real travel I’m doing is the actual Antarctic cruise, so hopefully the fact that I don’t have USD on me won’t be an issue. 

It was lovely to hear a familiar voice.

I got back to the hotel, took a quick nap and decided to treat myself to dinner in the hotel restaurant. My feet didn’t want to do any more walking! A nice meal with a glass of wine, a quick WhatsApp chat with Ryan27 and then it was bed with a book.

I’ve finished 2 books now and I’m on my third.

I wrote most of this post sitting in the airport and then on the plane on my way to Buenos Ares airport on Day 3 of this trip. I have a 5-hour layover here before I fly down to Ushuaia, landing at 10 pm at night. The next day I board the ship.

One thing about flying with Aerolineas Argentinas. I had to pay to get my suitcase on the plane. Yes, my massively UNDERweight suitcase. I hadn’t heard anything about this before. They’ve got you where they want you- of course you’re going to pay it at this late stage! I was inwardly irate but I coughed up the cash.

Fingers crossed that my suddenly ‘expensive’ suitcase continues to stay with me. I have to confess, I’m looking forward to joining up with my tour group and having the tour leader, Morgan, take care of things for a while.

People are allowed to bring their dogs with them into the actual airport in Santiago. I saw so many of them, even a dachshund on a leash when the people were getting their passports looked at. Amazing.

One more observation:

Small toddlers are utterly adorable when they’re playing in an airport. So cute and such an abundance of energy! When crying in a plane for much of the night… not so much.

6 pm that night:

I’m sitting on the plane bound for Ushuaia, waiting for take off. I have tears in my eyes. I was so anxious that all of the interconnecting flights would fall apart with a delay or cancellation.

But here I am. Five hours away from the southernmost city in the world.

I think this crazy adventure is really going to happen…

Later, at the hotel in Ushuaia:

By god it’s freezing here!

My flight was a surprise. Of the two seats left empty, guess where they were? Of course, I had to stretch out and grab a couple of hours sleep. It would have been wasteful not to, right? Plus there was no in-flight entertainment for a four-hour flight. Thank goodness I loaded up the iPad with books. I’m on my 4th now.

But I was happy to see that the luck of Fortunate Frogdancer was still with me. My two biggest fears about this trip didn’t eventuate:  my suitcase stayed with me the whole time and despite the tight timeline, I made it to Ushuaia in time to catch the cruise.

When we landed I could see that it was raining. The linen shirt I was wearing clearly wouldn’t cut the mustard, so while we were waiting to get off the plane I grabbed my carry-on bag, popped it on one of those empty seats and pulled out my warm fleecy jacket. 

It proved its worth once I was outside the terminal and in the queue waiting for a taxi. The wind was a bit bitey. There was a guy from Brazil who just had a backpack and a thin coat and trousers. People were laughing, telling him that he’d have to go shopping tomorrow. 

I don’t like his luck. I couldn’t get an Argentinian SIM card at the airport. The girl at the hotel desk’s face fell when I asked if there was anywhere to buy one. “Tomorrow’s Sunday,” she said. 

The drive into town was quick. As we pulled away from the airport I could see mountains behind the town, looking like scoops of ice cream with snow on top. Clouds wreathed their way around them. It was beautiful and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

My room is a strange blend of old, crappy furniture you’d expect to see in a holiday house your family has had for decades, yet it has a bidet in the ensuite. Tomorrow I meet the rest of the group and we’ll be boarding the ship. 

Here’s hoping for a Drake Lake and not a Drake Shake!

If the only time I get a flight delay is on the very first leg of my journey, then I’ll be a happy woman!

We were two hours late flying out of Melbourne, which had the happy result of changing my long stopover in Aukland to a much more pleasant couple of hours. Apart from that, the first 2 flights went well. The movies weren’t much chop, but I caught up on 3 eps of House of the Dragon, played some Angry Birds and slept a LOT, hoping to get a jump on jetlag.

This seems to have worked pretty well.

I arrived in Santiago at around 1:30 PM on a beautifully sunny afternoon. Rookie error… forgot to get a SIM card at the airport, so I was wandering around for a few hours completely incommunicado from the family. Fortunately, Australia is 14 hours in the future so they were all asleep anyway. 

I took a car to my hotel, (pictured above… classy, right?) I haggled on the price, but I thought it’d be worth it just to get to the hotel. Probably still got ripped off, but at least I saved a bit from his first price!

Once I settled in, it was time to explore. I’m at the Pullman, Vitercura, which my driver said was an area of the city “where the rich people live.” This, of course, means that I’m not near the centre of the city, which is a bummer.

Still, not a bad view of the city, hey?

I walked around the neighbourhood. I was getting pretty hungry… if you ever fly Latam, whatever you do DON’T choose the breakfast sandwich. It’s inedible. I was also thirsty.

Yes, my room had water etc in the fridge, but it’s a frugal point of honour not to raid the minibar. I bought a litre bottle of water over the road at the convenience store, which should last me for most of tomorrow as well. Frugality for the win!

A few doors down was a funky little cafe/ bar that looked appealing. I walked in, asked if they could feed me – they could- and I asked for a menu. 

This is when it first hit me that having forgotten to buy a sim was a mistake. Their menu was online. Luckily, my waiter grabbed his phone and pulled up a ‘fish dip”, a name that doesn’t sound terrific but ended up being salmon and tuna sashimi on a bed of nuts and greens, with avocado. 

Seeing as Chile has over 6,000 miles of coastline, ( a fact I picked up on the plane when I watched a documentary), seafood is the only way to go when you’re here. It was delicious.

I mentioned to the waiter that this was the first meal I’ve eaten in Chile and he was excited. He asked where I was going to go while I was here and he told me about a sculpture park, free entry, only 30 minutes walk from here.

He showed me some pictures and it looks amazing, so it’ll probably be my first stop tomorrow. 

After lunch I felt a little sleepy, so I took a little nap. I woke after 6 pm and I was tempted to just stay in the room and read, but two things stopped me.

1. I had to get a sim for my phone. I was supposed to stay in contact with Ryan27 over WhatsApp and I didn’t want anyone to be worried.
2. When I went to England, my friend Scott made me stay awake until nearly 8 pm that day, to jumpstart my body into getting used to the new time. ( That was hard. I was so tired by 6 pm that I literally fell asleep over dinner and just missed face-planting my meal.)

I felt pretty good so I raced down to the desk and got directions to a shopping mall 15 minutes walk away.

What I wasn’t told was that it closed in 20 minutes. Lucily, I was in the mood for a powerwalk so I didn’t dawdle and got there just in time to buy a sim, while shops were closing their doors all around me. Phew!

Home to my kindle app , (I’ve already finished one book of the library books I downloaded) and a sound night’s sleep.

Tomorrow I have the whole day to explore Santiago. Just have to get the phone number of a taxi company from the front desk, or download the Uber app. Never had to use Uber before…