Leaving off mere hours from Day 2….

Up at 2:40, breakfast at 3 am, and in the bud by 4 am.  Although we were tired, this was relatively easy considering there were no bags to pack!

It was, as our British friends say, “chucking buckets” in BA with quite a wind (in other words…raining hard with a blustery wind)!  Thankfully this didn’t affect our drive to the airport, nor did it hamper our flight from BA to Ushuaia.

Flying into Ushuaia had a different look than when we flew out last year as there were still a lot of snow-covered peaks in the Andes.  Some pictures of the Andes:

It was kind of neat to arrive and know your way around the airport.  (In all fairness the airport has only 2 gates and isn’t a huge structure.)

This is the main (and only) terminal for Ushuaia:

We left the airport and drove to Tierra del Fuego National Park.  Again, a place we visited last year but was still nice to see again this year.

After a nice lunch consisting of onion soup, and a chicken pie (a cold hand pie), we once again hiked the path to Lake Acigami which is a fresh water lake.

Here are some shots of the trail and Lake Acigami:

We finished our park tour by once again going to the very end of the Pan-American highway (originating in Alaska and ending here, in Tierra del Fuego.

After enjoying the park and the weather (no rain, just wind) we drove to the port where we boarded the MS Roald Amundsen.  We are finally on the ship!!  This is the sister ship to the one we were on last year – the MS Fridtjof Nansen – so it was like returning back to the same ship a year later.  There are subtle differences but overall it’s the same ship.

Knowing that tomorrow will be filled with meetings about Antarctica landings, vacuuming sessions (yes, we have to vacuum everything we’re taking ashore to ensure we don’t pollute the ecosystem, which we’re happy to do!), and other tasks we played a quick game of Phase 10, grabbed dinner, and then called it a night.

Might not be many pictures tomorrow considering we’re at sea, but we will hopefully have a few as well as some stories to tell!  But we are FINALLY on the ship!