We left our hotel in Santiago this morning at 6:15 AM. (5:15 AM wake up calls should be illegal.) After a quick check-in at the airport onto one of the infrequent flights to Ushuaia, Argentina, we meandered through the airport shopping area to kill time and made it back to our gate in time for our departure.
An interesting note here is that we were told by the staff that we had to limit our personal travel items to a weight of no more than 17 lbs. We spent the better part of an hour last night juggling our belongings between our carry on bags and our checked bags to accommodate this weight restriction. As fate would have it, LAN airlines didn’t seem to care at all. We saw people with bags large enough to carry small ponies board the plane with not even a bat of the eye from any of the flight personnel. So much for being compliant with the travel restrictions.
After about a three and half hour flight to Ushuaia we were shuttled from the airport to a catamaran to be delivered to our icebreaking cruise ship. The bus ride turned out to be an interesting trip through the southernmost national park in the world. We learned that Tierra del Fuego has a significant beaver population problem. Apparently some 50 beavers were introduced to the small island several years ago and with no natural predators the population has grown to over 100,000. This population is absolutely devastating the local wildlife’s habitat. The local naturalists and the government are now working to completely eradicate the beaver population and remove the non-native species from Argentina.
The catamaran trip was likewise fun and educational. The photos here show a species of cormorant that look a lot like penguins and group (or is it a herd) of seals arguing on a small rock outcropping.
Finally after over six hours on a plane, bus and catamaran, we reached our final destination of the afternoon – the National Geographic Explorer. The photos here attest to our arrival as we prepare for the real adventure of cruising through the Drake Passage on our way to Antarctica.
We are now posting our blogs through the shipboard satellite internet access – almost as expensive as three fine Belgian ales at Monks in Philadelphia – and that’s for just an hour!
More to come.
P.S. We will be posting lower quality pictures from here out due to the insanely slow internet speeds on the ship.
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