Monday, January 13th, 2025

A Monday morning is always a Monday morning, even when you are twelve thousand kilometres from home. I always like to think that I greet EVERY day with the same (Lucie would say “childlike”) enthusiasm – but I woke up with a thick feeling in my head at 05:30 when Lucie’s iPhone rang. Someone, somewhere, it appeared, had not read the holiday memo !

Lucie usually wakes with a smile too. I like to tell myself that has nothing to do with the fact that, in order to experience that natural phenomenon, I need to be standing there with an espresso ! No espresso – no smile !

So, at 05:31, we were already two smiles behind – and we had not yet got out of bed. Oddly, we had originally planned to get up at just this time, but the previous day our flight south had been moved back an hour or so and that had meant we could get an extra hour of sleep – some things, as they say, are simply not meant to be. I got up, made Lucie her coffee and a tea for me. This did get a smile – the Cosmic Balance was restored by 05:40 !

Well, when I say restored …..

Now thoroughly in the mood to splash out, as it were, we booked a taxi from the hotel to the secondary airport of Buenos Aires, AEP. Naturally, the receptionist on duty did not speak any English at all, so we had to hope that he had specified the correct airport.

We ate our breakfast, again with no “toaster” incidents. Lucie quickly packed our bags, then unpacked them again because our Passports were at the bottom of one of them (but she did not know which one) and then repacked them again. We still had time to sit in the lobby before our driver arrived. He was little old man with only about five teeth and he knew even less words of English ! Our chief concern was that he might take us to the wrong airport, (EZE and not AEP) particularly as the word “airport” did not seem to feature in his limited vocabulary. Luckily, in a very short time we spotted the control tower and were dropped at AEP – and the fare was a paltry eleven thousand Pesos, around ten dollars US and about 20% of what our incoming taxi had charged.

AEP, as a point of interest (or possibly not) is right by the sea. So I got my first sight of what I still saw as my nemesis, albeit over three thousand kilometres from where I would be floating on it. It was a drab olive colour and I felt my stomach clutch. Still, as Lucie kept reminding me “YOU wanted to do this …”

In his book, “The Motorcycle Diaries”, a certain Che Guevara wrote “the sea has always been a confidant, a friend absorbing all it is told and never revealing those secrets; always giving the best advice — its meaningful noises can be interpreted any way you choose.” Yeah, right ! 

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The baggage check consisted only of us having to unload our water bottles from our backpacks and let everything else pass through the tunnel. We did not have to unpack our tablets or toiletries, but we did have to take off our boots.

The departure hall (as the check-in hall for domestic flights had been) was completely full. The queue for the only open ladies’ toilets was about half an hour long, which Lucie said was just the right Latin American atmosphere. The flight to Ushuaia, which was, in case you care, three thousand and seventy-nine kilometres to the south, was without drama which, if you consider the alternatives, is how I prefer flights to be. For what was a very cheap flight, it was good – and we even got given water, a biscuit and some coffee ….. Lucie said she thought that all the airline and hotel coffee on the entire planet is made in some container in China as, wherever you fly, or stay, the coffee is equally disgusting. However, despite its apparent penchant for changing flight specifics, I have to say that Aerolíneas Argentinas did a good job. Are you reading this, Iberia ?

As we flew south, we were above the snow capped peaks of southern Tierra de Fuego and, during a long descent we were, at times, flying below those peaks which rose on either side of the ‘plane.

There was, unsurprisingly, quite a lot of turbulence, but it was nothing like the landing we had once made in Punta Arenas, in Chilean Patagonia. We landed more or less on time although strangely, as had happened to us twice by then, our luggage got X-rayed after we had landed and before we left the airport …..

It was surprisingly warm outside of what was a surprisingly swanky and modern terminal and, despite the “captive” market, the ten minute taxi ride into the “city” only cost about eight dollars US. I put the word city into speech marks because Ushuaia bills itself as “the world’s most southerly CITY”. Puerto Williams, in Chilean Patagonia, on the other side of the Beagle Channel (where we went in 2017) lays claim to be “the world’s most southerly TOWN”. In truth, both are dingy, run down and shambolic. Ushuaia is bigger and there were lot of tourists, but that was the only real difference.

There are two types of accommodation in Ushuaia. The pricing regime is either cheap or expensive, both preceded by the word fearfully. Lucie had selected one in the first bracket (nothing scares us, we have stayed in the Wigimooltha Roadhouse) where not very much money had actually got us a neat little flat, all to ourselves. It was called the Portal Antartico and its only drawback, to me, was the spelling of Antartico (no first C). This meant I had to make about ten attempts to join its Wi-Fi before I got it right. First World problems, eh….. There was one small boob though about which I will regale you shortly.

We settled in and then walked to the nearby Carrefour supermarket. We wanted to buy some milk and change some dollars at the Western Union office, where Trip Advisor had said we could. Only, of course, we could not ! Trip Advisor was not exactly distinguishing itself for us on this trip. It seemed the only place where currency exchanges could be made in Ushuaia was the”Jupiter” exchange office. This was, helpfully, right on the other side of the city … It took us a good thirty minutes to walk there and those Jupiter boys took full advantage of their dominant local position to give us a rate that was about twenty-five percent worse than our hotel in Buenos Aires had given us the previous evening.

In fiscal terms, it would not affect our lives in the slightest – but it left a sour taste. If you are ever going to Ushuaia, change your money up north !

Back in our hostel, we discovered that there were no towels – and we had not brought any with us – eek ! It had been the same at Wigimooltha, by the way, but that did not matter, because there was no water there anyway !

So, it was back down to Carrefour for a couple of towels. It might be worth pointing out that, perhaps because of its remoteness, prices of domestic necessities in Ushuaia were very high, even when compared to quite up-market parts of Buenos Aires.

Then, as we were already part of the way there, we walked back into town for a meal at a place we had noticed in the afternoon. Situated at the western end of the Avenida San Martin and called “El Turko”, it was a tiny bit like a slightly up-market cafeteria, but the menu looked interesting.

In reality, the food was really good. Lucie had salmon, which was beautifully cooked with a great sauce. I again went for steak, which I have to say was even better than the one on the previous evening in the swanky place in Buenos Aires – and it cost less. I got into the “mood” with a Cape Horn beer ! Before we finished eating, there were people queueing to come in.

To husband our cash, we had decided to pay with Lucie’s card – several attempts, no success. This was strange, as she had paid the hostel with it. Out came my card, to the same story, equally strange as that, too, had worked earlier in the day. So it was payment in cash, after all – we would need to seek out an ATM the following day….

We walked home in the twilight, we were so far south that, even then at half-past eleven at night, it was not fully dark. A couple of cruise ships lay at anchor and the Beagle Channel looked calm and serene. I hoped it would stay that way …..