WARNING: This blog may contain traces of useful tourist information for anyone who wants to go to Antarctica. I know my blog is not usually a wealthy source of travel advice, but given how hard it is to find anything useful on this part of the world I thought I should offer my assistance. Don't panic though, there will still be enough of the usual waffle beforehand, and normal service will be resumed next time.

Despite being quite literally Poles apart, my first impression of Ushuaia was that it reminded my very much of the small town of Höfn in Iceland which I visited in the summer of 2008; although Ushuaia has a lot more tourists wandering around, which you would expect with it being the Southernmost town in the world.   So, here I am in Ushuaia, on the island of Tierra Del Fuego at El Fin Del Mundo... the most popular launching point for trips to Antarctica. As you all know it is one of my "things to do before I die" to get over to the white continent, and never before have I been closer. I have a permanent grin on my face, and the cold fresh air makes such a nice change to the hot city air of Buenos Aires.  Ushuaia is the opposite of most places I travel: outside is cold and you step into a shop, or a restaurant and you are instantly warmed by the fire; rather than sweating like a beast in the blazing heat outside and stepping into the fridge-like air conditioned environment indoors. I am also going to take a rest from eating steak, as here is it all about the Patagonian lamb stews, mmmmmm.

The hostel in which I am staying has the following motto: “Here there is no religion, no languages, no skin colours, no ideologies or moral ideologies, a very friendly and family feel to this very well run hostel”. Therefore, as you can imagine it attracts all the “interesting” people on the road, we have a wide variety here from the old to the young, and from all over the World... however there are many many Israelis here and I think the most common language I have heard spoken recently is Hebrew, and if this hostel were to have a language then that would be the one. None of the staff here speak English and I even got to help them out with some translation when someone phoned trying to book a room and they could not understand the receptionist... my Spanish is coming back slowly. Finding so many Israelis is something I have been expecting to encounter a lot as I travel through Patagonia, as the region offers some of the best trekking in the world which seems to be right up their alley. See, my holiday is not all about beautiful beaches, cocktails and tropical fruits, there is some hard work to be done... but not yet, first I must arrange a trip to Antarctica. Now, this is easier said than done and I have summed this up at the bottom of the blog should anyone wish to extract the information a little easier. It is strange to think that people actually read my blog ahead of visiting a place to get some idea of what to do and what it is like, but they really do and it is so great to hear from them. In short, I bought a ticket and have to come back to Ushuaia in a month’s time. It is by far the most expensive thing I have ever bought in my life, and has cost me more than my whole trip did any other time I have been backpacking. But, it will be worth every penny I am sure; words cannot describe how excited I am, so I will not even try!

One evening I decided to check out another hostel for when I have to come back to Ushuaia for my Antarctica trip. Here I met a couple of guys from Buenos Aires who were in Ushuaia for work. They invited me to go along with them to get some food and drink, as I hadn’t eaten I thought I might as well go along. We went to one of the few Irish pubs in this town, a type of establishment I haven’t actually seen for a while. I had a pizza and some beer, then got a picture with the little dustbin-like-fella from Star Wars. Apparently one of the owners bought this in an auction and it is an original from the film. Sorry to all Sci-Fi fans, but it is not my thing at all and I can never remember its name... at least I knew it was Star Wars not Star Trek which is a start (seems going out with Rees for 4 years taught me something at least)! Whilst we were eating dinner the sun finally set – it is still light here until about 11pm which is so confusing, especially as it rises again before 5am. It must be quite different in the Winter when it’s completely the opposite and there are just a handful of daylight hours. After the pub we headed to a “nightclub”... the kind of nightclub you only find in a very small town. I think by the time I left it had filled up with about 20 people! There was a guitarist/vocalist performing lots of songs in Spanish that I did not know, and also “Another Brick in the Wall” which went down very well. The bouncers on the door were all stood around in T-Shirts whilst I was inside wearing a jumper, I guess it’s all relative and as it’s their summer the weather must seem quite mild... it is 1°C after all, so it’s not even freezing. I couldn’t help but think of family and friends back in England in the snow!

The day I left Ushuaia I got to see the rare sight of the sunrise as my bus departed at 4.30am. After my heavenly bus experience from Iguazú to Buenos Aires I was quite looking forward to taking another Argentinean bus, but I was rather disappointed as there was almost no legroom, the seat was very hard and the back barely reclined. To add to this I had been assigned seat number 44, but the numbers only went as far as 42 :s I asked the conductor and he said I could sit anywhere as we would have to change buses at Rio Grande and that is what my number referred to – this one was the fancy buses I had been looking forward to, but it was no match for the amazing one I took from Iguazú!

For obvious reasons they are quite big on “Las Malvinas Son Argentinas” in this part of the country, and although I had seen subtle hints of this in Buenos Aires, nothing compares to the massive sign I saw at a roundabout in Rio Grande – I was gutted I could not get my camera out quick enough as it was a beauty! (Note: after reading my blog Marc from http://www.asadoargentina.com sent me a message along with a custom-taken photo of the sign, see in the extra photos at the bottom... thanks Marc!!) To get from Ushuaia to my next destination of El Calafate you have to go through Chile, which means border controls and an inability to sleep on the bus for any length of time. When I eventually arrived in El Calafate it was 2am and therefore too late/too early to go hostel hunting so I cozied up in the bus station for the night... something I’ve not done since I was in Iceland, the similarities are endless! When I arrived at the bus station there were quite a few people also bunking down on various floors/benches, but most people left at 3am on a bus... by most people I mean everyone except for a tramp who I assume sleeps there every night, so at least I had company until I left at 7am.

ANTARCTICA TOURIST INFO
Last minute places for trips to Antarctica are not that difficult to come by, especially if you are interested in what is referred to as the “Classic Antarctica” trip of 11 days/10 nights. The prices range from US$3,200-3,995. Prices are the same with all agencies and are always given in US$, but not all agencies have connections with all of the boats, or have the desire to really seek out these last minute places for you. I visited a lot of the many agencies in town and by far the best one I found was Ushuaia Turismo (ushuaiaturismo@speedy.com.ar http://www.usuhuaiaturismoevt.com.ar). The best thing to do is email them with the dates you’re available and they try to get a ticket for you on one of the boats that leaves within your window as coming the day before a boat leaves may be too late to get a place. 90% of the trips to Antarctica go on this trip and there are quite a few different boats that do it. Generally “last minute” places on these boats are made available 5 days or so ahead of departure and work out to around half the full price ticket.

The reason I have to wait and return in a month is because I did not want to do the “Classic Antarctica” trip... I wanted to go on a boat that will actually cross the Antarctic Circle rather than just visit the peninsula. The boat I am going on is the newest and strongest of the boats in the current fleet. I will be away for 14 nights and the trip has cost a fair bit more than the other trips: US$5,500, hopefully the extra money will be worth the extra opportunity, comfort, distance and time this trip offers. This is one of two boats which crosses the circle and last minute places are pretty hard to come by as it all gets booked up at full price and people rarely cancel. They leave much less regularly than the “Classic Antarctica” trips, which is why I am now having to travel around Argentina for a month before I get to visit the last continent on earth.