Date Explored: February 17, 2016

We last left off exploring Wulaia Bay on our Patagonian cruise. The next morning, a Wednesday, we disembarked in Ushuaia, Argentina, on the southernmost tip of South America, otherwise known as The End of the World. It was during embarkation that we let one of our guides know that “Canadian beaver” might be slang for other than the animal. Throughout the four-day cruise, Cristobal had been telling stories about “getting chased by Canadian beaver” during his visit to the Great White North. Did his eyes ever widen we finally told him the slang meaning. He had been speaking about encountering the animal in one of our national parks.

Ushuaia is beautiful. The only problem is it’s tough to get pictures of the gorgeous mountains without phone wires, etc. getting in the way, so I didn’t take a lot of photos. You can arrange flights over the mountains and nearby glaciers, but we only had one night, so we were up for some good food and relaxation.

We guessed the Stella Australis would feature some fine accommodation, so for our overnight in Ushuaia, we decided to take it down a notch and went through Booking.com to reserve rooms at Mysten Kepen B&B. Mysten Kepen is a lovely B&B, but be forewarned that they don’t offer shuttles or taxis from the port. While we could have easily arranged a taxi at a taxi stand we found after finding the B&B, for reasons that made sense at the time (as in we didn’t realize how far we would be hiking), we decided to drag our suitcase the “few” blocks to the B&B. “A few blocks” wound up being a hike up steep roads. Finally, just when it seemed all hope was lost, we found the Mysten Kepen. SILly and BILly had a room in the main house while DH and I were in a lovely newer room with a private bath at the top of an outdoor staircase. Definitely, I would recommend asking for that room.

There’s a very tiny house beside the B&B. Animals might be in the yard next door and such. If that sort of thing bothers you, Mysten Kepen is not for you. But we found Rosario, our hostess, delightful. She and I were able to communicate through her rusty English and my awful Spanish. Plus, she really went aboveboard when I accidentally left my headphones in our unmade bed the following morning, when we flew to Buenos Aires. Both thanks to Rosario and also to our hotel staff in Buenos Aires, Rosario arranged for another traveler to bring my headphones to Buenos Aires the following day, where we took a taxi (while en route to dinner, exploring a new neighborhood) to pick up the headphones at the other traveler’s hostel. So I had my headphones for our long flight back home from Buenos Aires! Truly exceptional customer service on the part of Rosario of the Mysten Kepen as well as the Casa Calma in B.A.

For our one night in Ushuaia, we wanted to go to dinner at this little place called Kalma Resto, which might now be in a different location (Jorge, the chef and owner, was busy fixing a new place after his shifts at the restaurant). We found it after storing our luggage in our B&B and walking about town, visiting a museum and searching out wine for those in our party who could not do without. 😉 SILly and I walked into Kalma Resto to arrange reservations, but unfortunately the place was booked solid with a group of about 20 either on their way to or back from Antarctica. The lovely hostess discussed our situation with Jorge (that we only had one night in town), and even though he needed to work on renovating his new place, he asked us to return at 9:45 p.m., once he expected the large party to be gone. We did, and only one other table was still occupied. Once that couple left, Jorge put out the Closed sign, and we basically had the entire restaurant to ourselves. He was our chef and server, and it was like being on The Food Network or something. Truly a wonderful experience. Like Rosario at the Mysten Kepen, Jorge of Kalma Resto went out of his way to accommodate us. What exceptional people! And Jorge is an amazing chef and an amiable fellow. I wish him much success in his new endeavors!

Next and final stop, Buenos Aires, a beautiful city, certainly my favorite of the major South American cities I’ve visited so far.

Date Explored: February 16, 2016

Following our excursion to Cape Horn, the Stella Australis took us to Wulaia Bay for the afternoon, where we had a choice of three hikes. The Captain gave a compelling lecture (previous to our visit to Wulaia Bay) about the Yamana aboriginal settlements. Wulaia Bay was the site of one of the largest Yamana settlements, was also sketched by FitzRoy and described by Darwin during their voyage on board the HMS Beagle (yeah for beagles!). Here’s another link for more information.

There is an old radio station at Wulaia Bay that has been converted to a museum, and it’s very good. For the hikes, BILly decided to take the Difficult option while SILly, DH and I opted for Medium. Really, BILly’s hike just took him to a higher vantage point.

This would be our last time setting forth from the zodiacs. Awwwwwwwww….

On the last evening of the cruise, the crew auctioned off the navigation chart sued for sailing to Cape Horn. My motion sickness was still bothering me, though not as badly as the first few days. I’ve done three cruises now (Galapagos 2012, Cuba 2014 and now this one), and the Australis Cruise was by far the shortest, at only 4 nights. It’s a great cruise, not cheap but was well worth it for us. Since we backpacked through Europe and touched the westernmost point of Europe in the 19080s, we have wanted to check out other “direction-most” points. We’ve been to the easternmost tip of North America (Cape Spear, Newfoundland) and to the highest navigable body of water (Lake Titicaca), so visiting the southernmost point of South America was definitely on the Bucket List. Now, I need to get to the Dead Sea, but no idea when that will occur!

We had one more night on the Stella Australis before she docked at Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city on the continent, the following morning. We disembarked and had some more adventures before flying up to Buenos Aires for a couple of days. So we’re not finished yet!

Date Explored: February 16, 2016 – In Other Words, 02-16-2016. Kinda Cool.

Last I left off, we were visiting Pia Glacier and cruising through Glacier Alley. Preparing for today’s post, I see I noted in my travel journal for the night before February 15 (Pia Glacier):

Had some rollers during the night –> my full water glass fell to the floor, not sure where the water went!

Funny how we forget the little things. It’s a good thing I can read my handwriting (it’s very messy).

For Tuesday, February 16th, I wrote:

Woke @ 6 a.m. after a night of huge rolling waves and suited up only to receive the disappointing news that the winds were far too bad to go on Cape Horn. We got great views & photos but it’s not the same as stepping on the piece of earth itself.

• 200 km/hr winds was the max. they hit charting the course during the night.
• Gusting to 88 knots/100 km an hour in a.m.

So there you have it. Yes, a bit disappointing, Cindiana Jones did not get to walk on Cape Horn! But thanks to her (well, my) zoom lens, which is actually pretty old in the scheme of zoom lenses, she/I managed to get some great shots from the ship. The captain made every effort to circle the Cape and allow for amazing photos (considering it was such a blustery day) and we had some wild fun when the ship, um, leaned a little more than perhaps was anticipated. We were told that there was no way the zodiacs would stay afloat trying to get us to the stairs up to the Cape. Even if the zodiacs managed to get us to the stairs, the winds were so strong we wouldn’t be able to walk on the Cape.

Everyone was a good sport about it. There was one fellow who decided to take the return trip from Ushuaia (our drop off point the following morning) for a second run at the Cape, because he had piloted (I believe was the word he used) ships himself and had never landed at Cape Horn. It was on his bucket list, as it was on my mine. But Alan was very determined. I wonder if he got there?

Oh, if you look back up at Picture 1, you can see I’m wearing gumboots. The Stella Australis provides gumboots throughout the expeditions, if you wish, but I chose only to take some for the Cape Horn excursion, and then it didn’t work out. According to this article I found about the Via Australis (sister ship to the Stella), the Via manages to land at Cape Horn around 75% of the time. I believe we were advised that the Stella manages to land (lately) around 70% of the time. So we were among the 30% of the time where the weather conditions do not permit landing.

Would I take another cruise that offered the opportunity to land at Cape Horn? If I were independently wealthy and could combine another shot at Cape Horn with a trip to Antarctica, definitely yes. But unless I win the lottery, no. I consider myself very lucky to have circled the Cape. I would love to land there, but…funds.

Here’s a cool video of folks aboard the Stella Australis landing at Cape Horn the month before us, January 2016. The crew determines whether or not you can land, for us, at about 2 a.m. So even though the passengers, at 6 a.m. thought, “We can do this!”, they said no.

So imagine if these folks on YouTube were able to land and we weren’t a month later…how extreme our weather was when they were charting the possibility of landing.

I am a little jealous of those people. If you visit the YouTube video, that’s what the wind sounded like as I was trying to remain standing on the ship.

Yes, I am pretty amaze-balls. I wasn’t standing very steadily when I took the shot.

Agh, I wish I could have gone up top to the monument and signed my name in the book! Oh, dear, it seems if I were a millionaire, I would go back.

I’m wondering why they didn’t let us sleep in instead of making us get up and be on-deck at six only to find out we couldn’t disembark. I guess it’s like allowing a woman to “try and push out the baby” if he’s, say, a surprise breech, like my first one was, so she’ll feel like she actually accomplished something. If they didn’t get us up so we could see for ourselves how windy it was, and if they didn’t give us the report from the weather station about the 200/km hour winds during charting…maybe we wouldn’t have believed them?

I do know from my experience giving birth that, yes, as the OB said, it was advantageous for me “to try” pushing out my baby, even if I didn’t succeed.

And so it is with Cape Horn. “That Cindy, at least she tries.”

Et, voila, to show for it:

The rest of our morning was spent having a siesta, which I sorely needed. My motion sickness was having a great time with my head and stomach. It was like being spun around on a horizontal Ferris wheel at high speeds. My head hurts just thinking about it.

But, yeah, I would go back if I had the chance.

Next time, our afternoon excursion at Wulaia Bay, which was beautiful. The weather had cleared completely and we had a wonderful time.