Day 32: Booort! (Bigger boy's toys!)

Mood: Excited
Music: Bright Eyes - I'm wide awake, it's morning

Today started late (hurrah!) as the only thing I had to do was pop into town to a cash point to pay the extras that I'd racked up in the hotel (a bag of washing and a couple of cans of coke (On an irrelevant side note, cans of coke in Chile were 350ml and in Argentina they are 354ml)).

After that it was a taxi ride to the airport for my flight to Ushuaia. The only mildly exciting bit of the day was when I realised that I'd left my coat in the hotel (it was very hot and sunny and I'd thrown it down the other side of the bed). I managed to get the hotel to stick it in a taxi and bring it out to the airport for me, by which point I'd discovered that I'd checked in most of the money that I could use to pay said cab. In the end he accepted the 7US$ and 12ARS$ that made up all of the money in my posession and left me to go get on the flight.

An hour later I was in Ushuaia being taken to the office to check me in for the cruise. After this was complete I went for a stroll up and down the main street, popping into a very nice camera shop and buying half the things I was missing (including the (now spare) lens caps that are being brought out to me and a new tripod). I also stopped into the worlds furthest south irish bar for lunch (king crab ravioli with a side helping of crab) and a drink.

At 5pm I was driven down to the docks and we boarded the cruise ship. The Stella Australis was completed in December and this is only her 9th sailing. She was docked in front of Paul Allen's plaything named Octopus. This was almost as big as our cruise ship itself and had been used to go to the Antarctic with Mr Allen in a couple of weeks prior. Rolf is pictured in front of this teeny tiny motor yacht...

This evening was spent with welcome drinks and safety videos, interspersed with a tango show for no apparent reason (other than we were departing Argentina). Dinner was quite nice and I met the other people I'll be eating with over the next few days. There are 18 nationalities among the 180 of us on board and I'm sat with two Americans, a Canadian and a Belgian couple on my table. I'm the youngest by quite a bit although the wife of belgian guy is probably 20 years younger than he!

In terms of the whole cruise, I'm not the youngest as there are a Chilean family on board with two young children... Other than that it's between me and two Austrian guys who were in the room with us for the briefings. It has been that way most of the time I've been away though. This cruise is hardly something that most normal backpackers could afford too.

Anyway... Tomorrow Cape Horn!