Ushuaia and Antarctica

As some of you have noticed, the blog sounds different and the experiences are not as bright. Well, instead of hiding how I feel, I'll incorporate it into the blog. I've not been feeling well since I left Toronto, and although Argentina has not sounded too exciting, it's just me, not Argentina, so hopefully you didn't get the wrong impression.
On the 29th of January, on an evening before the bus ride to Ushuaia, I went on the internet to book a hostel. ALL the hostels were fully booked! Both in Ushuaia and in Puerto Natales where I was staying. I tried to relax, and think that for sure there will be space because the majority of hotels/hostels do not advertise themselves online. But after checking a few more sites, I found one where 1 hostel was free, I booked it right away. It was very strange, because the same hostel was booked on another site ... I wonder how that works!?!
I was happy because I saved $40 on a dolphin tour which I didn't take in Puerto Madryn! The bus to Ushuaia went through the lake on a ferry, and during that hour suddenly everybody run outside, I followed their example, and there were 10s of black and white dolphins in the water all around the ferry. They got so close, and as always they swam in packs which enhanced the experience. The railing were pretty low, and everybody was hanging out so much from the boat to get that perfect shot, that it was a bit scary to watch.
On the bus ride I was reading a book, which made a 12 hour ride very bearable.
OMG!!! The frozen tiger got stolen !!!!! That was at the point when we started to enter a very beautiful scenery, that even with such a turn of events, I actually put the book down, and couldn't take my eyes from the window. What do you know? It turns out that I like green and snow capped mountains more than palm beaches .... surprise, surprise!
In Ushuaia - "the end of the world", right away I went to all the agencies to find a last minute deal to Antarctica. Didn't take long, even in the super high season, there is 100% chance to get a last minute deal within 5 days. There were spaces on 3 boats within a week. All boats drop the price by 50% starting 7 days before the departure date. I was hoping for a maximum of $2000 trip, but it turns out that all the internet info about the really cheap cruises were all rumors, and the cheapest of the cheapest, of the "it doesn't get any lower" was $3149, with a normal last minute price being between $3500-$4000, that's for of course for the most basic boat, with the most basic room. I found a 10 day Gap Adventures cruise for $3149, and booked it a day before the departure.
The hostel was one of the worst hostels I've stayed at. It was very small, rooms were dark, it was cold, no common area, bad location, strange crowd, but that's not the worst of it. At the New Year eve the owners and some friends who've they made, had a huge New Year dinner, took up most of the space in the dining room, didn't invite anybody else, and were eating, having fun, singing all by themselves, while all the guests scrambled around the hostel looking for just anything to do. That was so rude ! I gave them a few looks, until I was actually invited to join, but I refused. I've never done this before, but this hostel is gonna get some bad reviews!
In preparation for the New Years I started to talk to an Israeli guy earlier in the day, so I would not spend it on my own. It worked out for him too, cause he didn't meet anybody either.
Who knew that everything would be closed on New Year's eve?? Not us! We just walked and walked around all town, no people, no places open, no lights. Then the alarm sounded, boats were honking ... we're in the middle of an empty street... Well ... I guess, happy New Year to you. Half an hour later we found the only bar that was open. It was funny that I didn't tell him that I lived in Israel and that I know Hebrew, I didn't see the necessity of saying that, cause it will lead to a very boring conversation such as: "why did you leave, where did you live, did you like it, etc, etc". At first it was ok, but then we met more Israeli guys in the bar, and he would translate everything to me what they were saying, and at this point it was already too late to admit that I don't require any translation :)
Met another French guy in the hostel, quite older, and very sarcastic, but I didn't mind that, it was a fresh breath from all the other weirdos in the hostel. He asked me what I'm doing tomorrow, and I casually replied that I'm going to Antarctica. He told me something that I still remember 2 weeks later "You're saying it like a word, not like a dream. Only 17,000 people go to Antarctica a year, and you're saying like, you have nothing better to do ... gee, what am I going to do tomorrow? Like buying a bus ticket ... hm ... where should I go?? Why won't you give me one ticket to Antarctica" ... I was laughing and laughing ... but it's not that funny after all ...
It's been 4 Christmas/New Year holidays that I've been away from Toronto, and this year I finally missed the holiday atmosphere. There are no decorations, no lights, no music, nothing. This day would be as any other day if you haven't known the date. Now, I know it's very commercialized in other places, and jingle bells starts playing 2 months before Christmas, and before Christmas arrives you wish that it would be already over just to hear something new on the radio, but it actually does give a holiday atmosphere, and some sense of anticipation.
On the bus to the port nobody sat beside me, I was the only one without any partner or a friend ... that started worrying me a bit, since it's usually difficult to break into a formed group. So when we got onto the ship, I went to the deck right away to find somebody who's still by themselves. That wasn't too hard to do, then that person met other people, and by dinner we already had a well formed group. The problem was that there were 2 couples, and soon enough I got bored.
There were 2 single guys on board from Holland. They said that they travel for half a year, and they have 2 hour relationships, but considering that half a year it's all their life, then 2 hours is quite a long time. He gave me a pat on the back while saying that, I laughed and thought "yeah, good luck getting anywhere with this attitude", and haven't spoken to them since.
Everybody on the boat is smiling, everybody is in a great mood, and the staff goes extra mile to make everybody happy. It's interesting how the staff behind the scenes, all speak with a big accent, and everybody who's client facing and "expedition" team, speak perfect English.
Did a safety drill. The safety staff said that they've been working many years on different ships, and this ship is equipped above and beyond with safety measures and equipment. Got into the safety boats which has enough water and food and a week, but of course the first day we can't eat or drink, and that's to bring the body into saving mode. Actually, they haven't told us anything about washroom on these boats, I wonder how that works!?!
The expedition team got us all excited about this trip being a trip of a lifetime and Antarctica is not something you visit just once, and that it changes people. It didn't really change me much, and I could think of 2 reasons for that. 1 you already know, and the 2nd one is that I'm already a changed person. I'd like to believe the second option.
The boat was very nice. It was especially rebuilt for those kinds of trips. It has a lecture room and dining room that fits all the 124 passengers with big windows all around. A deck around all the ship, a mud room for all the wet and dirty clothes with dry air circulating for faster drying, and a bar.
The schedule was as following:
Breakfast
lectures/landing
lunch
lectures/landing
snacks
dinner
movie

The breakfast and lunch were buffets, and a dinner was a 4 course menu: choice of 2 appetizers, a soup, 5 mains and 4 desserts.
During the night we started to cross the Drake passage. If you look at the map of the earth from below, so that Antarctica is in the center, you'll see that the distance between South America and Antarctica is the smallest. The water moves around Antarctica, and when it goes through that region because it has less space, it means that it needs to accelerate thus creating the roughest waters in the world. Everybody dreads this part of the trip, and we all took pills and glued patches to make the days pass by better. During the night it became very wavy, and I could feel the pressure in my head build up every time the ship moved up and down. In the morning I could barely look at food, let alone smell it, so all I could eat was a fruit salad. After the fruit salad, the day didn't turn out to be any more exciting. I half slept through "Birds of Antarctica" lecture, half listen to "Ice of Antarctica" lecture, went to sleep, ate lunch, slept, missed a lecture, slept till 4pm, got up for Pinguinology lecture, went to sleep, got up for captain drink, could actually eat dinner, saw blue planet movie and went to sleep again :) The captain is from Bulgaria, and while introducing high management staff he said "surprisingly, the hotel manager is a woman!".
The boat is ready for the Drake passage. The armchairs are very heavy in the common area, and in the dinning room the chairs and tables are actually tied to the floor. On top of every surface, there are rubber covers to prevent glasses from slipping, and everything seems to be in order except the tourists who straggle to walk in a straight line, we were all zig zaging from one wall to another :)
After a whole day of sleeping, the next morning we received very good news! The passage doesn't usually get calmer than that, and we arrived at destination half a day early! Doesn't get calmer? What's gonna happen on the way back??
Had our first landing at 2pm. I bought wind/waterproof very thin pants in Ushuaia, and it was my first time testing them out. Man, what a difference a 1mm layer of clothing does. It's so warm! The ship stops somewhere in the deep waters, and everybody gets taken to the shore with zodiacs which are small rubber boats. All the landings are wet, and the ship provided nice rubber boots for that purpose, and in case if you fall hip dip into the snow :) It was very cold and windy that day, so I pulled my scarf up to my eyes to shield the face somehow. It was one of my favorite landings. There were thousands of penguins with their chicks. There were 2 types on penguins there, the Gentoo with red beak, and a Chinstrap, it has a black line under their chin which gives them that name. There was so much action! Those penguins really need to work hard on raising their chicks, it's not as simple as in Punto Tombo. The birds are flying around and constantly trying to steal either an egg or a small enough chick. As soon as the bird flies by, all the penguins on their nests extend their heads, yell and follow the birds with their heads, remember, they can't get off the nest. If the bird gets close, and it does, the penguins hiss at them, just like a cat, and try to bite it. Sometimes if there is a single penguin around, it will chase the bird away. There is a constant nest change between the parents, and the chicks are always hungry and get fed. Usually there are 2 chicks in the nest, but only 1 will survive, the smaller one will be intimidated by the larger one, and won't get any food, and pretty much starve to death. They constantly make noises in there. Especially the chinstraps who are known for not taking shit from anybody, very very feisty penguins, although smaller in size than most others. So they'd extend all their body upward, point their head up, flap their wings, and would make the eeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeee sound. And once one starts, everybody joins in, of course nobody knows why they do it, but we don't care, it would be so interesting to watch, like a whole orchestra playing in front of your eyes.
During the dinner we saw whales, actually we didn't, but the bridge did. Humpback whales, quarter mile at 3 o'clock... literary nobody left sited at the table.
Next day was a hiking day. In the morning we went climbing a mountain to enjoy the views from above. After all, I'm not in such a bad shape at all! Every time I went hiking, I was always the last, but that's among hikers who always do it and enjoy doing it... but among normal people, I was running to the top, while everybody was a psychic trying to predict how long left till the top :) On the way up it got hot, so I took off a hat, my gloves, and unzipped the jacket. It actually got hot in Antarctica! Never mind the other 3 layers of cloths that I had underneath :) On the top didn't see much, since it was very cloudy and foggy, and a few minutes later, everything around us was white. On the way down, the staff picked some spots for sliding, and we slid down a mountain on our backs, facing backwards with crazy speed completely out of control :) at the top we were told that only crazy people who do rafting or bungee jumping should slide down that slide ... well, I wouldn't really compare it to bungee jumping, but it was pretty extreme :))
The day cleared up a little bit, and we had a lunch outside on the deck, with bbq, sun, "Macarena", and "Holiday" songs playing, it really felt like a holiday :)
On our next hike we went up to see a glacier, it also broke off, but not with the same force as Perito Moreno, but still cool, and the cooler thing was another slide that they made, that one went completely vertically down :))
This island is still covered with snow ... the effects of global warming. Warm air means more moisture, and when normally this island got 2 inches of snow, this year it went up to 10 feet ! That means that penguins try to mate, but they can't on snow, so they have to wait for a month for it to melt. They have what's called a nest fidelity. So they return to the exactly same beach where they were born. Long story short, they nest later, and by the time they have to leave, the chicks didn't grow up enough, and they all die. Another effect is that there is less ice, thus less krill, less food for penguins, the effect is the same. And yet another effect, from the internet, emperor penguins nest on ice, the ice melts much quicker than usual, the chicks didn't yet learn how to swim and thousands have drowned.
Next day ... went to see yet another penguin colony, but those are my favorite ones, Adelie penguins, they're completely black and white with blue eyes, the look like the cutest and cuddliest ones :) I wish I could hug one, but nope, had to keep a 15 feet distance from them.

That day I met Josh, a guy from New York, with whom I hung out till the end of the trip.
In the afternoon we took a zodiac cruise around the icebergs. It was a nice change from all the penguins :) During the tour saw a seal feeding on something. We guessed that it was a penguin. The guide said that it's very rare to see something like that, and our boat was the only one who saw it. It looked like it's just splashing in the water, playing around ... maybe he was playing ... with its food.
10:30 pm, the first time the sun came out :))) Everybody rushed on the deck to take beautiful pictures. Finally we were able to see the whole mountains, and the full vastness of Antarctica. Did I mention that the sun doesn't set in Antarctica? It was a very strange experience. First of all, I noticed that I never yawned. I had much more energy than usual. Usually I will feel the evening setting in around 9, and get ready to wrap up the day, there, I'd only start feeling it around 11. Sometimes I'd wake up at 3am, thinking that I slept through all the announcements. Also, usually it would take me an hour after I wake up to start my day, and here, I'd be fully awake at the time I got out of bed.
Next day we went to another penguin island. There were cool bones in there of this huge whale, and the birds were constantly circling around the penguins nests. One was fighting with it, dragging it my the tail from its nest from behind, the penguin is helpless in this situation, unless somebody else helps him out. He would just pull his head up and scream. But that doesn't help much, and the bird got its egg, and then ate it on the shore.
Then we went to a post office island. Before it was a British base, but now there is only a gift shop with a small museum left. So if you'd like to live in Antarctica for 4.5 months, this would be your opportunity! It's not much of a post office island, yeah, you can buy the post cards and stamps in there, but at the end, our ship took it all onboard and brought to Ushuaia to mail them.
In the afternoon we saw the most amazing thing ever ... Orcas in training! I've seen it on TV. There were about 10 orcas in the water, and they would teach the kids to hunt for penguins. The poor penguin would swim so fast, in all directions, jumping out of the water while the orcas would casually swim behind them. All the people were on the deck of course cheering for the penguin. penguin, orca, penguin, orca, penguin, orca, on and on and on... the orcas would zoom in, make splashes, all the crowd went OOOOOOOHH, then the penguin would reappear .. YYYEEEEEIII !!! Then the penguin found the boat, and it was all happening less than 10 meters below us, it would circle the boat like 3 times, and all of us would run from one end to another... a minute of silence for the penguin please ... ahhh ... boooooooh! After they finally "caught" the penguin, so many birds appeared feeding on the oil and the remains, it was chaotic. The birds would fight in the air for the food that they got. After the kill, the orcas made a semi circle, and just floated on the water as discussing the conclusions of the hunt. A few minutes later the bridge announced "swimming for my life by Gentoo at 12 o'clock, part 2", and here we go again. In total the orcas killed 3 penguins in about an hour. Needless to say that they along with their chicks will die, because the partner will have to leave the nest to feed, and no way the chicks can survive on their own without protection of a parent. One of our expedition stuff told us that in 20 years in Antarctica, he would put what we've just seen in the top 3! Here is a youtube video of something similar, but different ending - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJaMtBKnN-I.
Every evening we had a briefing of the things that happened that day. Frank - the guy who held the meetings always encouraged questions, and said, we used to say that there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers, but then again, we used to say it :) He gave us an example of somebody asking him if there are female sperm whales? So this evening we all ganged up on him and started asking one stupid question after another. It was funny to see him trying to reply politely at first to a question like "I've noticed penguins have wet feet, is that so it will help them jump on the rocks?", it might not sound funny right now, but we were all crying in there. "Is the penguin black with white spots or white with black spots?", Frank finally got what's going on, "ok, who gave out a list of stupid questions???".
In the evening we played a game. There were some special Antarctica words, and 3 expedition stuff were giving us definitions for them, and we'd have to guess which 1 says the truth and which are lying! Man, they're good ! They'd tell you all kind of very convincing bullsh*t, which sounds very believable, go figure! We got only 3 right out of 9! I don't think I'll be able to date a guy like that, you'd never know what's on his mind :))
Next day woke up at 5am (which wasn't a big deal, since it was light out anyway :) ) to go to an island, because we had conflicting schedule with another boat. This was a whale island. 29,000+ blue whales were killed there in only 1 season. There were a lot of volcanic eruptions lately, so a lot of the bones were covered, but some of them emerge little by little. The International Whaling Commission banned all hunting of blue whales in 1966 and gave them worldwide protection. By this time their numbers had fallen from about 200,000 / 300,000 in pre-whaling days to less than 2000.
Later on all the crazy people on the boat went for a swim!! It wasn't really a swim, it was a quick run to the water, a big splash, then some screaming and running quickly back to wrap themselves in a towel, then shivering and unable to speak later with robotic movements trying to wear all of their cloths :) I took part in this activity by taking pictures and videos :) AND also voluntarily, I put my hand in the water! There! It completely froze, and I could feel it for good few hours later :) Good that our ship had a sauna which got packed in our return. Oh, yeah. For those who were wondering, the temperature of the water was 0.5 degrees Celsius.
After breakfast, went to another volcanic island. It looked like we were walking on the mountains, because they were all black and brown, but nope, it was all ice with a layer of dirt from eruptions, unbelievable. Then we got to the beach which had an ice cliff. I've never seen that kind of beach before, so that was pretty cool.
After lunch we went to what was the best penguin island for me. It was in a very beautiful setting with some yellow cliffs populated by birds and penguins. A lot of walking penguins on rocks, which is the funniest thing. I could just sit there for hours watching them. And a huge colony of nesting penguins. Again, so much action, fighting penguins (for no apparent reason); they nest so close, that when any penguin tries to squeeze by, everybody will be biting him, cause he crossed into somebody else's territory. Seen penguins having sex :) Actually I wouldn't say sex, I would say making love. In most of the animals it was like the male catches the female, and pretty much forces himself into her. And here, it was so gentle and caring and it looked like they were kissing all through it. Also in the nest, the partners would go and pick up the rocks and gently put them in the nest. So it looks like there is a genuine relationship going on there :) Also on this island, nobody knows how, there was a Macaronee penguin! It's the one with yellow feathers on its head. He was a little bit further away, so it was a bit difficult to see him. But he would come to the same spot every year. He tries to mate with a chinstrap, but he has no idea what he's doing. The expedition team've seen it once, when he was standing on the head of the female .... facing backwards :))
The trip and the weather, turned out to be great. The expedition team said we had the best conditions that are ever possible. In the agency, they said that we'll have either 7 or 8 landings depending on the weather, and we had 10!
In the evening we were heading back, and before I knew it, we hit the Drake passage. I took the pill to late (it also takes an hour to work), started feeling bad. Didn't have any appetite for dinner, not that I needed it anyways, since I lost it all, right after ... but I felt better, so that what counts :) The next day, I was in bed all day long, getting up only to nibble on some food, and headed straight back. Josh was there to support me, and helped me through this day as much as he could way above and beyond I expected from somebody whom I've just met, so if you're reading this Josh, thank you, thank you, thank you :))
In the evening we already arrived in Ushuaia, and had our last karaoke party. I actually sang 2 songs, and nobody had to convince me to do it :))
So there it was, my trip to Antarctica. All in all, most of the passengers thought it was the best trip of their life, but for me it was just ok. Before the trip, the French guy said that it was like a dream, but for me it had a different meaning, it was as though it had never happened.
In the last 2 weeks, I read 3 books. It looks like I'm trying to lose myself in the lives of the characters to forget my own, or trying to figure out my life based on the lives of the characters ... I think it needs a psychiatric analysis.
Back in Ushuaia, me and Josh went to the prison museum, which was Argentina's answer to Australia. That's how Ushuaia came to be. When the prison had closed somewhere in the 70s, the government decided to populate that area, opened a few businesses in there, and the population grew from 4,000 to 70,000. The museum also housed a very nice art gallery, naval museum, and Yamana (indigenous people). There were about 2500 Yamana people before the Europeans got there. They were nomads, and built their huts on the go, because of that, their huts were not waterproof, and they couldn't wear cloths. With the constant damp and wet conditions the cloths would never dry. They were mostly naked, and the rain would serve as a natural disinfectant. They would have fires everywhere that would keep them warm and dry, they would even have fires in the canoes where they've spent half of their time. When the Europeans arrived, they saw a lot of fires, so they called this place "the land of fire" which still holds its name. The Europeans considered Yamanas to be savages, tried to cloths them, feed them, teach them some modern ways. They brought with them diseases, and Yamanas have gone extinct in only 30 years. So to answer your questions dad, I didn't take any pictures of the indigenous, simply because there is no one left to take a picture of. But I'll post some from the internet.
The next day Josh surprised me with a helicopter tour which was beautiful :) We were supposed to make a landing on a mountain, walk a bit, take pictures, but the wind was so strong that when we approached it, it was throwing the helicopter in all the directions, even something started beeping. I almost screamed, but didn't want to scare anybody, so just grabbed hard into the seat, and hoped that it was a normal helicopter behavior :) Thank god we didn't land, the pilot said there is too much wind ... Duh !!! so we continued in a valley above lakes and forests.
After the ride, we went for a hike in the national park. The hike was beautiful and surprisingly flat, of course there was a mountain to climb, but we chose a different route :) The first part of the hike was supposed to take 3 hours, but with our speed, tree climbing, and 100s of pictures, it took us 5 and a half! Those were long 2.5 extra hours, where every 5 minutes we thought that we were already there. After that there were 3 hours more to go, but with our progress we would not have made it out by night, so we went straight to the end, taking every possible shortcut on the way. Reached the end of the road! Literary! That's the point where the road ends and it's 17,848 kms from Alaska! Thinking about it, it's not that long. If the road is in good condition, and there is no traffic, it's possible to make that route in 2 weeks on a car, just to cross the whole earth south to north. In my opinion, it makes the world a very small place.
My flight from Ushuaia was in a week time. What am I going to do here for a whole week? I tried to change it, but there were no places. So, I decided to go to a tango class, like I didn't have enough in Buenos Aires. But it was so nice this time. The teacher came up with different choreographies, so it was interesting to dance them, not just walking back and forth. One of the guys knew a little bit of tango, so he was incorporating his moves into what we learned in the class. It seemed like a test, I know that I'm supposed to cross on 5 say, and he would continue walking. This requires so much concentration, that after 1 song, I needed to relax, otherwise it's easy to get a headache :) After the class, I thought how I missed salsa, and in the hostel I put an ad up for a free salsa class. I had 5 students, and it was a lot of fun, I wasn't even nervous :) Later, I asked how I did, and was told that I'm very patient, a good teacher, constantly reminding how to do it right which is important in the beginning, and using a lot of analogies so it would make sense. … HA !
In order to clear my head again, and to do something, I went to the "glacier" hike, there is no real glacier, just some brown snow, but the hike up there was very relaxing, beautiful and peaceful. I took a taxi to the foot of the mountain, but walked back to town on the road. A taxi stopped offering me a free ride, but I declined, it was too beautiful to sit in a car. I listened to the music all 5 hours of the walking. I find that music helps me a lot. I use a lot of the lyrics and apply it to my problems. So long walks are some sort of meditation for me.
The government of Chile raised the prices of natural gas by 17%, so a lot of the government workers went on strike, and that included the border control people. There were so many people in Ushuaia not able to get out. All the hostels were full each night, and pretty much people were stuck. Bad for them, good for some of us, because for a whole week we were 1 group who always hung out together. I thought about how people don't like other countries, I really don't know why? (I mean France aside :) ). There is always, oh, Canada is so much better than US. People from Wales don't like the British, those don't like these ... why?? We were a group consisting of US, Canadian, German, British, 2 Israelis, 2 Argentineans, Spanish, Brazilian and we all got along very very well !!
"What am I going to do here for a week?" turned into, what, a week passed by already? I really don't want to leave. I was sad not only leaving Ushuaia, but leaving South America. It feels like it's been my home for 1.5 years. I really fell in love with the people, nature, culture (not the food :)), and hope that I’ll be back one day!

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