When I started to understand that travel is going to be ‘the
thing’, it was still the continental Europe that my extremes stretched to. In
September of 2010, I was asked to arrange a trip to South America, and my
immediate response was, no! I am not ready yet! I did however find myself with 7 elderly, eager tourists
walking on the streets of Buenos Aires that September. Twenty days later on my
departure from Sao Paolo, Brazil, there was something I realized. The fear of venturing into an unknown
country, in this case also a continent, had started to diminish.
There has been a lot that has transpired geographically and
more on a psychic level since 2010. However, not in my wildest of imaginations
that I ever think that the February of 2014 would get me to travel to the 7th
continent, Antarctica!
This time it was a group of fourteen that I had with me on
the voyage. We had to first board the flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, the
southernmost town in Argentina. The southern region of Argentina is known as
Patagonia and though we travel to the centre of Patagonia in our tours to this
continent, I hadn’t been this further south before. In the town of Ushuaia.
Ushuaia
Apart from its title ‘Fin del Mundo’ which means ‘End of the
world’, it is famous for being the boarding point for the 7 – 8 cruise
companies making their sailings to Antarctica every summer from November to
early March. The Andes mountain
range starts from around Ushuaia and the majestic snow covered mountains
promise an ideal landing setting around the Ushuaia airport.
Ushuaia has all the right elements to make it very touristy
along with the travel agencies, cruise company offices, restaurants and souvenir
shops. We were left to our own after being picked up from the Airport by the
cruise company, Hurtigruten. Most of the restaurants around town have a crab
displayed not only in their menu but also on the name board. So it was obvious
what we had for lunch on our pre sailing day, CRAB!
The worlds southermost Post Office!
MS Fram, a cruise ship would be our home for the next 10
days from the 15th Feb. The Drake Passage is some three to four
hundred nautical miles area around the convergence of the Antarctic, Pacific
and the Atlantic oceans where the sea gets choppy with waves rising to 50 ft at
times. The ships have an index of sea waves with 1 being the lowest with normal
winds wave height and 10 being a hurricane kind of a situation. There is a lot of talk that I had heard
about getting past the Drake. The next 36 hours would reveal how much of a ‘sea
appetite’ I really had.
The Fram(red) docked at the Ushuaia Port
Our guide on arrival in Ushuaia said, Fram is a beautiful
ship. Actually a lot of people I met said the same. We boarded the ship at 1500
hours and it was true, all the things they said about the Fram. It was classy
.. and very Norwegian. As I settled in one of the more comfortable chairs in
the lounge deck, I looked at the sea and thought .. In 36 hours I would be in
Antartica!
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