Argentina/Antarctica: Day 3: From Buenos Aires to Ushuaia

We woke up early to get our flight to Ushuaia, the southern-most city in the world. We figured we had plenty of time, but we didn't anticipate two things: it was the week before Christmas and everybody in Buenos Aires was trying to get away, and the complete craziness that is Aerolineas Argentinas. We got to Aeroparque, their domestic airport that we literally could have walked to from my hotel, with about 90 minutes to spare, and we figured that would be fine. But when we got into the terminal, we were confronted by a massive amount of people in what may or may not have been lines. I seriously have never seen an air terminal that filled and with seriously no order to the chaos.

Aerolineas Argentinas is really the only domestic airline, and it was nationalized recently, and if there's any example of how governments shouldn't own companies, this airline is an example. They had a ton of flights leaving, but there was no sense of urgency, no trying to get people onto their flights. Basically, we had to get on a line and take our chances. People were, for the most part, completely resigned to the whole thing, and whenever someone would go to the counter to complain that they were going to miss their flight, the counter person would basically say, "Too bad."

We got to the counter at 9:15, the time our flight was supposed to leave, and we were informed that our reservation had been dropped and we had to buy a new one. I showed them our reservation and said no, and the guy just put us on the next flight at 10:15. No problem, I thought. Remember this incident for the day we try to leave Ushuaia.

In any event, we did get on the 10:15 flight. It's about 4 hours to get to Ushuaia, which shows you how long this country is. Basically if you turn the country around it would fit in nicely into the lower 48 of the U.S. When we landed at the airport, it was pretty clear we weren't in Buenos Aires anymore. The temperature had dropped about 20 degrees, and their were mountains and clouds. It was quite lovely, actually.

We went to our Bed & Breakfast, called the Galeazzi-Basily B&B, which was "outside the center" of the town, which meant that it was four blocks away. It was actually the family's private house, and all 3 of their sons were in from BA for the holidays, so at first I felt a little awkward. But the owners were really nice, and house was really cozy. It was nice.

We walked around Ushuaia for awhile; it's a very small town and very quaint. It reminded me a lot of small mountain towns, with the added quality of a port. There's one main street and we walked up and down it, buying some winter gear for Greg and underwear for me. I don't know why, but I always end up having to buy underwear whenever I travel.

We went back to the B&B, and met this Swiss guy, Markus,who was going on the cruise with us. He had just spent about 6 months or so in Africa, and now was starting a few months in South America. We went and had pizza with him, and then went to the ubiquitous Irish bar for some beers. The crazy day and ended very pleasantly, and when the sun went down at 11 p.m.!, we went back to the B&B, and slept very soundly in the absolutely quiet end of the world.