On the other side

After what seemed like a loooooooong flight, we arrived in Buenos Aires this morning. We were met at the airport by Cintia, the Silversea rep, and driven to our hotel, the Park Tower. It's a posh hotel with a capital P. 

It boasts both an indoor and outdoor pool, and a restaurant (the St Regis) that ranks in the top 5 in the city according to Trip Advisor.  We will not be eating there today though, as we have special plans for tonight.
Denise and I were pretty exhausted after the journey, and treated ourselves to a brief nap, then it was time to go out and look for an ATM. I had been unable to acquire any pesos before coming, so we walked across the road to the Banco Patagonia and I was able to use my bank card to withdraw some pesos. It was pretty expensive though - It cost nearly 100 pesos to withdraw the money, and then warned me that this didn't include any charges from my own bank. 
With cash in our pockets we are now ready to go out and hit the town.

Buenos Aires or Bust

Buenos Aires or Bust isn't just a fun title.  It shouldn't come as a big surprise to people that a vacation to Antarctica is not cheap. So not being there on time when the ship sails would be a very expensive mistake. Unlike cruises to more popular destinations you can't just hop on a plane and catch up with the ship at the next port of call. There aren't any commercial airstrips in Antarctica, so if you're not on board when the ship leaves Ushuaia that's the end of it.

When I was looking at flight options I noticed that direct flights from New York to Buenos Aires were pretty thin on the ground. There seems to be one direct flight daily, which leaves JFK late at night and arrives in Buenos Aires mid-morning on the following day. The original itinerary had us flying from Montreal to JFK on Feb 14th, taking the flight to Buenos Aires on the evening of the 14th and arriving mid-morning on the 15th.  Then on the 16th we had an 8.55am flight to Ushuaia, which would get us there with a couple of hours to spare before boarding the ship.  I realized that if our flight out of Montreal was delayed for some reason and we missed our connection then we would have to wait 24 hours for the next fight to Buenos Aires. That flight wouldn't get us in until mid morning on the 16th - after the plane to Ushuaia had left! Even if there were alternative non-direct flights to get us to Buenos Aires, the additional travel time involved in making the extra connections might still not get us in on time. With this in mind, Denise and I decided to travel on the 13th instead and spend an extra day in Buenos Aires. This would allow us to see a bit more of the city, and set our minds at rest that even if we missed one connection we still had an extra 24 hours travel time in hand to make it to Ushuaia on time.

I am so glad we made that decision, because traveling today has not gone as planned. I can't imagine how stressed out I would have been if we had not had an extra 24 hours in hand. We got to Montreal airport nice and early, only to find that our 5pm flight from to JFK had been cancelled. Being early was a blessing, as the check-in attendant was able to rebook us on an earlier flight to JFK. The earlier flight was supposed to leave at 1pm, but was running late and was now scheduled to leave at 3.45pm.  It seemed to take ages for our flights to get re-organized. Then the 3.45 flight was delayed again, and we only finally left Montreal at 5pm (the original time our cancelled flight was due to leave). At least the flight to Buenos Aires left JFK on time, and I don't have any other connections to worry about.
The flight from JFK to Buenos Aires is a long one: 10 and 3/4 hours. It may very well be the longest flight I've ever been on, the previous record being held by a direct flight from London to San Francisco 20 years ago. I meant to write a blog entry part way through our plane journey, but we really didn't have much luck with the wifi connections along the way. JFK had no wifi at all. There is wifi available on this flight, but they want to charge you money for it, so I'm sitting here composing this entry in Notepad, and I shall post it when we land - assuming the hotel has working wifi that is! For now I'm off to try and catch a few zzzs.

Pondering the "trip of a lifetime"

A lot of people have asked me how did I even decide to go to Antarctica? So here's the background to my Antarctic trip:
12th February 2017 is my friend Denise's 60th birthday.  Denise has always loved to travel. When she was a child she decided she wanted to visit every country in the world. As she grew up she realized that this was not practical, so her subsequent resolution was that she would at least visit every continent. In the first 59 years of her life she did pretty well at this, visiting South America on a cruise, going on safari in Africa, taking vacations in Australia and China, and traveling extensively in both Europe and North America. But the 7th and most remote continent, Antarctica, was still missing from her list. As Denise had recently sold her Mother's house and now had the funds to afford it, her thoughts turned towards the vacation of a lifetime for her 60th birthday. 
I'm not as extensive a traveler as Denise.  Yes, I've done the whole European tour bit, and I've covered a fair amount of Canada and the US. I like the idea of travel, but I'm also quite keen on my own comfort and safety.  Much as I'd love an African safari I'm not willing to undertake the risks of traveling to areas of the world that I consider dangerous, not to mention the fact that I'm not interested in "roughing it" at my age.  That said, I've always had a fascination with really remote places.  So when Denise tabled the idea of my accompanying her on a vacation to Antarctica I was enthusiastic, despite the cost.

So how does one visit Antarctica? Well unless you're Ranulph Fiennes or a member of a scientific research team, pretty much the only way to visit is on a cruise ship.  
Tourism companies are required by the International Antarctic Treaty Organization (IATO) to have a permit to visit Antarctica. Large cruise vessels are banned from operating in Antarctic waters, and the maximum number of people that are allowed to go ashore at one time is 100. This means that the companies that offer trips to Antarctica operate very small cruise ships (200 guests or less).

After agreeing to go with Denise I did a bit of research on the various companies that operated Antarctic cruises. Suprisingly they differ quite a bit in terms of the type of traveler they are aimed at.  At one end of the range are the "cheap and cheerful" (although even these are relatively expensive) type ships, usually converted research vessels, where you share a room with 4 bunk beds. These are probably aimed at the younger traveler with less money who doesn't mind "roughing it". Then there are the National Geographic type cruises for the people who are really into an enriched educational experience, and so on.  After much investigation Denise and I plumped for Silversea, an up-market cruise company that specialized in smaller cruises to less mainstream destinations.
We booked a year in advance, and I must admit that after paying my deposit I had one of those "OMG what have I done" moments.  It's quite a monumental undertaking to commit to a trip of this nature, or at least it seemed that way to me.

One of the things that attracted us to Silversea in the first place was that there was a lot of support offered up front for the apprehensive traveler. Silversea offer a package, from certain North American airports (including Montreal), that includes flights to Buenos Aires, an overnight stay in a hotel, airport/hotel transfers, and a flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia with a bus from Ushuaia aiport direct to the ship.  Despite being forced to watch 100s of episodes of "Dora the Explorer" when my daughter was a toddler, I am unable to speak a word of Spanish, so this kind of door to door hand-holding was very attractive to me.  The company also provide a set sail guide with advice on what clothing and equipment to pack, and provide options to rent boots, waterproof trousers, walking poles, etc. This is very useful, as a lot of the equipment and clothing needed for an Antarctic trip is heavy, and baggage weight allowances on internal Argentinian flights between Buenos Aires and Ushuaia can be quite restrictive.

For any North American contemplating an Antarctic cruise sailing from South America (there are some that sail from New Zealand) be aware that there is a "reciprocity" fee required for North Americans entering Argentina. A form must be completed, and the payment made ahead of time. A print out of the completed transaction will be required before you are allowed to board the flight to Argentina.  The fee does not apply to UK citizens. I must admit that I found it a bit strange that Canadians (who must be one of the least offensive nationalities out there) have to pay this fee, but UK citizens like Denise do not, despite Argentina's long term disagreement with the UK over the Falkland Islands.

For those of you who followed my blog during my Hawaiian cruise last October you can probably guess by the length and nature of this post, that on this trip I'll be making more detailed entries than the kind of "we did this today" posts I made on my Hawaiian vacation.  If you don't want this level of detail just watch my Facebook page for some one-liners and photos instead. (Assuming Facebook doesn't lock me out of my account again like it did when I tried to log in from Hawaii!).

So here I am, all ready (I hope) to set out on my "trip of a lifetime". Wish me luck!

Ice ice baby

I have today off work and took my friend Denise downtown to see the ice sculptures.  Some nice ones this year. 

A limo ride

Back in 2013 when Dariel was only 12 we went for ride to a hotel in a stretch limousine as part of the celebrations for my parents' Diamond Wedding Anniversary.  Dariel was so impressed by the car that she decided that she wanted to do something similar for her 16th birthday.
So last week (a week after her actual birthday) I hired a limo for her and her friends to go driving about town in as her 16th birthday present.  I think all the girls had a good time!

Happy Birthday Sweet 16

Today was my youngest (and most favouritest) daughter's 16th birthday.  We went out to the Heart & Soul cafe in Dunrobin for breakfast. On the way home we stopped in a large parking lot and she had her first go at driving the car.

Equipment for Antarctica

Exactly 4 weeks today I will be boarding the Silver Explorer ready to sail the Drake Passage to Antarctica.  Silversea sent me a packing list filled with all sorts of "necessary" items, like thermal underwear, thick fleeces, etc.  Then I found out it is only going to be about 0 degrees on the coast of Antarctica in February (that's high Summer down at the South Pole).  I manage in Ottawa in much colder weather than that without thermal underwear!


Anyhow, some equipment is a must.  Nordic walking poles - for when I'm trekking across the ice during our landing excursions, waterproof binoculars, waterproof packs for keeping stuff in - including my sea sickness medication for the Drake Passage (I'm not generally sea sick, so touch wood I will not need it).  I even took the photo of this stuff with my nice new waterproof camera....