After a proper send off last night, it was time to officially leave the Expedition this morning.

We were on a tight schedule this morning as I said previously, this take their disembarkation seriously.

Up at 7:00 with our baggage outside our doors by 7:30, go to breakfast, and then that’s it.

Time to leave the ship.

Apparently the reason for this is that they literally have to repackage this ship for the next expedition leaving this afternoon.

New people would soon be in our cabins but, the joke’s on them, we got all the good weather.

Let’s just say they’re in for an adventure and not necessarily the good kind.

Disembarkation

After leaving an envelope with cash in it for Angel our room attendant on my bed, I headed over to breakfast.

A couple more tips slid into the hands of Randy the head waiter and Frances the waiter who has been looking after me mostly.

Seriously, those guys made my dining experience top notch!

After breakfast we all just kind of waited in the lounge for our groups to be called.

Sad goodbyes all around and I, for one, hated it.

I hate saying goodbye.   I hate how it feels.   It just feels so final.

I sat and watched as group after group was called and everyone I had gotten to know so well over the last 2 weeks were slowly leaving me.

And then it was my turn.

My last swipe of my card letting them know I was off the ship.

Only this time, it was for good.

As I walked down the gangway onto land where my bus was waiting to transport me, I was met by the entire expedition crew standing in a row to say goodbye.

Man, what a great team.

A great bunch of personalities and so, so knowledgeable about everything going on down here.

I’ll definately miss talking to them every day.

So, after some handshakes and some hugs, it was on to the bus and driving away from the ship I had called home for the last couple of weeks.

Train to the End of the World

Ushuaia was founded as a penal colony.   Back in the day, some of the most notorious prisoners were sent here in the deep, deep south of Argentina to pay for their misdeeds.

They were literally sent to the end of the world.

There’s a prison and maritime museum in town as well as the last leg of the train route that brought the prisoners down here.

I’m not that big into museums so I opted to go visit the train this morning and, if I felt like it, I’d go to the museum in the afternoon.

There’s a shuttle bus tour that takes you to the train station 11km out of town but, you know me, I like to do things on my own.

The train only runs 3 times a day at 9:30, 12:00, and 3:00.

I grabbed an Uber and took a $10 ride out of town and arrived at the train station about 9:15.

Sold out for 9:30.

Well, shit.

No worries, been there, done that.

Just need to pivot.

So, I bought a ticket for the 12:00 train and got back on the Uber app.

Turns out my driver was still at the train station so he drove up giving me the quizzical look like “what’s going on?”

I just laughed and told him I was going to the prison museum instead.

Okay, how about the Maritime Museum and Prison?

So, another $10 ride back into town and I arrived at the museum just a touch before 10am.

There were a few people milling about outside the entrance and, it turns out, I arrived right before they were set to open the doors for the day.

I paid my 36,000ARS ($36) to enter and I was actually one of the first ones inside.

It was actually kind of nice to be by myself in most of the areas as there weren’t those pesky tourists getting in the way of my photos, ya know.

As I said earlier, I’ve never been a big museum guy.

If there’s some cool displays inside the museum, oh, I’m so in but otherwise I just kind of speed run through most museums.

This one is built inside the actual prison that used to house some of the first settlers to this area.

It’s crazy to say that they were settlers but this town was literally built on the backs of prisoners.   In fact, at one point there were as many prisoners and citizens who lived down here.

Parts of the museum are dedicated to the maritime history of Ushuaia and other parts depict some of the more notorious prisoners who resided here.

And, of course, a gift shop, cause, hey, why not?

Was it worth $36?   Um, no.

Is it an absolute must see?   Also, no.

But, if you have free time then why the hell not, ya know.

Okay, now the train…

After an hour of scuttling about, I grabbed another Uber back to the train station.

I got a new driver this time and, despite me telling her a couple of times in my best Spanish that “no entiendo Espanol” (I don’t understand Spanish), she kept trying to have a conversation for me.

It was awkward.

To go on the train you need to pay the entrance fee for the Tierra del Fuego National Park (30,000ARS, $30) as well as the train ticket itself (60,000ARS, $60) so it was a tad expensive.

El Tren del Fin del Mundo wasn’t at all what I expected.

It was almost like one of those miniature trains the kids ride on through the park during Christmas time.

The seats were small and cramped with only 14 of them in my carriage.

As each person boarded the train, two staff dressed as convicts, or at least I hope they were staff, posed with each person for a photograph.

Not with your camera, mind you.

Nope, you could pick up a framed copy of your print at the next station down the line for the low, low price of $25.

On the ride, there was an audio tour in different languages that you could hear through earphones that were supplied to us.   It told the story of the prisoners and the birth of Ushuaia.

We crawled through the park at a snail’s pace of 8km/h taking photos of the beauty of our surroundings.

Convicts were put to work doing all the logging in the area felling trees for firewood.

Turns out that firewood is just as important a commodity as food is down here especially in the cold winter months.

Ironically, the convicts actually preferred to be put to work able to get fresh air instead of freezing in their small cells.

If they misbehaved their punishment was to be denied the ability to work.

In the end, if the train had not been built and the convicts had not come, Ushuaia would not have come to be.

We had one stop at the La Macarena station after about 20 minutes where you could look around for awhile and, of course, pick up that beautiful photo of yours for $25.

Did I buy the photo?   Nope.

Somewhere out there, in some scrap pile, there’s a photo of me nabbing a couple of convicts.

After an hour on the train we arrived at the end of the line.

This is where alot of people got off the train to either rejoin their tour bus heading back into town or to wander further on their own through the park.

If, however, you were like me, just doing it solo – you could enjoy the return trip back to the start which was included with the ticket price.

I won’t lie, I found myself scrolling through photos of penguins on my phone as we made the return trip.

Already reminiscing and I’m not even home yet.

Look who I bumped into!

After another $10 Uber, I was back in town around 2:30.

Time for some lunch.

The first place I went to turned out to be just a cafe where you ordered at the counter.

I wanted somewhere I could sit down and order off a menu.

I remembered there was a “gluten free” area on the menu of the place I went a bunch of us went last night for drinks, so I headed back there.

And, wouldn’t you know it…

I was literally one foot in the door when I heard “Todd!”

It was my former roomie Harper and the gregarious Billy sitting at a table watching a football game drinking beers.

So, I pulled up a chair.

What I thought would be a quick lunch by myself turned out to be two hours of chatting away about life and, of course, the trip.

The lunch, by the way, was amazing.

A nice juicy steak with fries.

Turns out that would be the last thing I’d be eating for awhile…

An evening flight

At 5:30 I left the boys and walked over a couple of blocks to where I had stored by bag for the day.

It was also the pickup point for the free transfer to the airport for those of us who had evening flights out of Ushuaia tonight.

There were a handful of flights that people were catching including mine that didn’t leave until 9:23.

The ride was short and it was also pretty quick getting through security so by 6:00 I found myself with almost 3 1/2 hours of spare time to kill which, ironically, was actually the length of the actual flight itself.

I spent that time monopolizing the airport’s free wifi to catch up on blogging and all things internet.

Before I knew it, it was already 8:30 and I headed to my gate which had scheduled boarding at 8:33.

I got to the line and noticed that our plane was actually just pulling in.

I don’t think we’re boarding at 8:33.

Oh, how little I knew at the time…

By 9:23, our departure time, we still hadn’t boarded.

There were no announcements, no change on the departure board, and no agents around to answer questions.

So, we all just kind of waited around staring at our plane literally sitting right there.

And then at 9:48 we all finally got some communication in the form of an email.

Now, when I say communication, I’m using the word rather loosely.

This is what they emailed:

Hi Todd, we want to inform you that your flight JA 3204 has been rescheduled. We understand this change may affect your plans and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.

We are working to provide a further update through this channel at 10:24 PM.

No real update.   Just an update to let us know there would be another update at 10:24.

Well, at least they haven’t forgotten about us, so I guess there was that.

At 10:24 we got another email that said they’d update us at 11:30.

And you’ll never guess what that email at 11:30 said.

Yup, another email was coming at 1am.

And then, just as we were all giving up hope, an announcement came over the speakers at just before midnight.

It was in Spanish naturally so I had no idea what it was but I noticed people started to scurry around.

My first thought it was an announcement saying the flight had been cancelled but the Spanish guy next to me explained that they had just announced the flight would begin boarding.

Halleluiah!

At 12:40am, which was actually close to the time we were supposed to be landing in Buenos Aires, our flight finally left Ushuaia behind.

And, finally, at 3:30 in the morning, we finally arrived in Buenos Aires.

An hour later I was back at the hostel I had called home for a week previously on this trip.

Considering today was just kind of supposed to be a nothing day, it turned out to be quite an adventure.