Our trip to Antarctica officially kicked off when we landed in Ushuaia and were greeted by a G Expeditions local representative, who were here to transfer us to our hotel, Las Lengas. Months of planning and anticipation had finally crystallized.
Approaching Ushuaia
At the hotel, we received our Welcome packet where we learned that our itinerary had changed. Instead of traveling counter clockwise visiting Antartica, South Georgia Island and ending in The Falklands, we were reversing the trip: The Falklands, South Georgia Island and then the Antarctic continent.
Our Original Itinerary
The explanation for the change was due to the detection of the HPAI or Highly Pathogenic Avian Flu on South Georgia Island. The flu has absolutely been devastating bird populations throughout the world. Besides birds, it has also spread to seals and sea lions with catastrophic results including hundreds of elephant seals pups this season having succumbed to this disease. The International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO) with the South Georgia government have been closely monitoring the situation and decided to close parts of South Georgia Island to prevent the spread. So there was a good chance that if the disease spread even more that the island would be closed off to visitors to protect the animals. Things were on a day-to-day basis in terms of our daily itinerary. The worry was there that HPAI would impact our trip and we would not be able to go on shore or visit any sites. It’s a very sad development but I would rather have the wildlife protected than to get mine.
The Welcome Packet included:
- Meeting Point Map: Where to meet to take a bus to the ship for embarkation
- Things to do in Ushuaia
- 2 Luggage Tags: To tag our luggage for transfer to the ship
- Public Health Questionnaire: A survey asking if we exhibited any symptoms related to Covid
Data and Money Transfer Fail
Two minor developments took up the rest of our time in Ushuaia. Gus’s iPhone was unable to connect to Wifi and Claro’s data plan and Western Union and my bank rejected my second request for a money transfer. So much for our productivity in Buenos Aires. But this was serious. We were depending on the data plan to map us around the Salta/Jujuy area, our post-cruise trip. And more importantly, Gus was going through Pokémon withdrawals and he needed his fix. We suspected it was an eSIM card issue so we went in search of the closest Claro store.
The Claro rep pressed lots of buttons, reset settings, and reviewed the configuration trying to troubleshoot the problem. After 10 minutes, she gave up and told us to take it to some guy around the corner who fixes iPhones. So we took the phone to a local guy who runs a small run-down shop that sells iPhone accessories and services iPhones. We left Gus’s phone and reluctantly gave the Apple guy the password praying that this guy was legit and not going to drain us of our life-savings, sell our house and adopt our cats.
We also had issues trying to initiate a money transfer from Western Union and spent most of the morning trying to send and resend the money. After a call from the WU fraud department trying to convince them that I was not a scammer or laundering any money, the transfer went through.
We used the rest of the day to walk around Ushuaia. The last time we were in Ushuaia, it was bleak, dreary and felt very unwelcoming. This time around the sun was shining and showing off the surrounding snow-capped mountains that eluded us the last time we were here. We also used this time to turn in our Public Health questionnaires and had our Covid Vaccine Certificates checked by a G Expedition representative at the Hotel Albatros.
We picked up Gus’s phone and the local Apple guy said the eSIM wasn’t configured correctly. We paid only $16 and wonder how much the Apple genius guys back in the states would charge? Let’s hope the rest of the trip goes much smoother.
Fun Fact: We featured the pic on the left side of the Mc Pipi sign in the End of The World post, which Gus thought was funny. Seven years later Mc Pipi became Max Pipi. Nice to see that Pipi has grown.
Stay
This is the hotel that G Adventures booked us in as part of our Antarctica trip. It’s relatively new and was built to accommodate the increase in tourism for Antarctica. It was fancy and way nicer than most places we stayed. The lobby had huge windows and seating area overlooking the Beagle Channel. It was at the western side of town so was a 10 min to get to the main part of town.
Eats
We went here after our non-productive visit to Claro. We were starving since we hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast and spent our time trying to fix Gus’s phone. The cuisine is Modern Argentinian. Gus had Bondiola, a hunk of pork with BBQish sauce and mash while Daisy had Ola de Bife and tomato salad. Gus enjoyed his Bondiola while Daisy’s Bife was OK.
We had coffee and dessert here as our dinner since we had a late lunch.
It's Opener There 
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