25th February 2017 – Back on Terra Firma…….or not

25th February 2017 – Back on Terra Firma…….or not in Janettes case.

This was going to be a long day!

Wake up call this morning by Boris was 6am just as we docked back in Ushuaia. Luggage was off loaded and after breakfast at 7am it was time to say farewell to our new friends and the crew. It had been like a big family and we had all been through such a mega experience together it felt terribly sad saying goodbye to everyone especially as we had seen some sights that many people don't get to see on these expeditions.

Back on dry land, we had a couple of hours to kill before heading to the airport. It was then Janette discovered that while she had been fine at sea, she developed motion sickness on dry land !! Fortunately one of our boat friends suffered from this too and told her to put on a sea sickness patch so Janette spent the next three days looking like she had her bolt removed as she sported a little circular plaster.

Off to Ushuaia airport to catch the flight to  El Calafate airport, the gateway for our land transfer across the Chilean border into the Torres del Pain National Park. 

All was well, we boarded and the plane pushed back and then stopped………….turned out there had been an emergency landing at El Calafate of a private plane which had problems with its landing gear and they had closed the airport to get this plane down and repair the damage to the runway.

After 3 hours at the airport, (great view from the airport..) they flew us to the nearest airport to El Calafate, which was Rio de Galleos and then bussed us through to El Calafate which took 4 hours.

We arrived at the bus station at midnight !  Mercifully our pick up transfer was there waiting for us so by 1am we were checked in and having a Patagonian beer at the bar across the street ! 

The joys of travel... but at least we made it without messing up our next plans.