Well, here we are, on board of The World, probably the most luxurious way possible to sail to Antarctica!!! We leave port in about 3 hours. First stop: South Georgia (UK). Penguins here we come 馃檪
On December 31st we were on the road by 10am; Stephen was impressed. Stopped for fuel and to buy lunch in Cmte. Luis Piedra Buena and continued onto Parcque Nacional Monte Leon. Best stop there was the Magellanic Penguin Colony. It involved a 2,5km hike in puma-infested territory (at least to me); after all the ranger did say: “Si, si!! Muchos pumas!!!”. Which to Stephen was the wrong answer for me to hear. And there were warning signs everywhere. Luckily a) there were lots of cute, slow little penguins – very yummy to pumas, and b) it was the heat of the day and pumas prefer early morning and late evening meals. So not a puma to be seen.
And then we saw our first penguins – in their natural habitat that is. They were so close we could have touched them but we nicely stayed on the designated path. There were thousands on the beach. Apparently there are some 75,000 pairs of them there (according to the Lonely Planet). Definitely worth braving puma country for!
We drove up to our hotel in Rio Gallegos around 7pm and got ready for New Year’s Eve dinner and champagne.
On New Year’s Day we flew from there to Ushuaia where we were joined by Alison. We spent one night in a hotel and the next day joined The World. We’ve now had 2 days to get ready before departing on our Antarctic Expedition at 6pm.
I have stocked up on motion sickness medication.
Greetings from Ushuaia,
Caroline.
Photos
Love reading about your travels. Keep up the amazing work on your blog. Leslie