Tierra del Fuego
Day 11 : Dec 20, 2019
We disembark at Ushuaia port and take a quick tour of Tierra del Fuego National Park before heading to the airport as our voyage ends.
Docked at Ushuaia Port
At 2:00 am we got up to find the ship docked at the pier at Ushuaia port. The twinkling lights of Ushuaia town were visible through the balcony window. The ship’s voyage had come to an end. We went back to catch up a few more hours of sleep.
We woke up at 6:00 am and started the day with a cup of hot tea that Reynaldo had served in the suite. After freshening up we started taking photographs of Ushuaia town from the balcony. At 7:00 am, we went upstairs to La Terrazza on Deck 7 for breakfast. This was our last meal on the ship. We enjoyed our breakfast at a table next to the deck French window. A curious Seagull had precariously balanced itself on one leg on the deck railing and was intently observing us through the glass window. After finishing our breakfast we bid final goodbye to the serving staff and returned back to our suite. After the finishing touches to the packing of our hand baggage, we were ready to disembark.
At 8:15 am, we finally exited our suite and headed towards the reception for joining the queue for disembarkation. At 8:30 am, the disembarkation process started. Our access cards were swiped for one last time and we slowly climbed down the ladder to the pier. At the pier, coaches were waiting for us and we boarded the coaches in an orderly manner. We were in Coach No. 1.
Tierra del Fuego National Park
At 8:45 am, the Coaches started their journey to Tierra del Fuego National Park. Each Coach had local guide who shared the map of Tierra del Fuego National Park and filled us with a short history of the area. After a 45 minute ride, we entered the National Park. At the entrance gate, the guide got down and bought the entrance tickets for all of us. The coach made 2 stops inside the National Park. Both were extremely picturesque locales and we took a lot of photographs. Around 12:00 pm, the coach took us to a traditional Argentine restaurant just outside the National Park, for lunch. After the lunch, the coaches headed towards the Ushuaia airport.
Peaceful check-in at Ushuaia
We reached the airport at 1:30 pm and made our way to the LATAM’s check-in counter for picking up our boarding passes. We were relieved after getting the boarding passes in our hands. We had been allotted seats next to each other. Thankfully, we were spared from reliving the ordeal that we faced while flying into Ushuaia. We were among the first set of explorers to pick up the boarding passes. We didn’t waste time to look around the small airport and swiftly cleared the Security and Passport Control. We found seats in front of the boarding gate and settled down to wait for the boarding.
Uneventful flight to Santiago
Our return chartered flight was scheduled for 3:00 pm. The incoming aircraft from Santiago, bringing the next set of explorers scheduled to sail on the Silver Cloud that evening, arrived 30 minutes late. Our boarding got further delayed as the deboarding took a lot of time due to limited capacity of Passport Control processing. As it was the case when we had arrived at Ushuaia 10 days ago, the queue of explorers disembarking the arriving aircraft stretched all the way back to the insides of the aircraft snaking through the aerobridge. Finally, once the disembarking passengers cleared the aerobridge area, we were allowed to start boarding the aircraft. Inside the aircraft, we had seats on the 37th row (2nd last row) and once we reached to our seats, we found the overhead bins blocked by the cabin baggage of the crew. Our request to the LATAM crew to allow us some space to keep our backpacks were responded with cold hostility by the cabin crew. Finally, we jostled around the bags, found some space to put our backpacks and we settled down in our seats. All our co-explorers seated in rows ahead and back of us, trying to find some overhead bin space, received a similar unfriendly treatment bordering hostility from the LATAM cabin crew.
Our flight departed at 4:15 pm, an hour behind the schedule. Thankfully, it was an uneventful flight and we reached Santiago at 7:15 pm. A long queue Santiago Passport Control resulted in a 30 min wait to clear the Immigration. Thereafter we walked up to the baggage carousel that was displaying our flight number and waited for our baggage to arrive. A good 40 minute passed but the baggage carousel remained stationery without any baggage popping out. As people became impatient, someone discovered that all our baggage had been delivered to a different carousel at the other end of the baggage hall. We hurried to the end of the hall where our baggage had been piled up on the floor by the LATAM baggage handling personnel. We picked up our suitcases, cleared the customs and came out in the arrival hall.
Mandarin Oriental Hotel
Our hotel stay in Santiago was booked at Mandarin Oriental Hotel Santiago, which is located on Presidente Kennedy Avenue in the upmarket Las Condes area. We had booked a pickup service through the hotel and our airport pickup driver was waiting with a placard. We quickly located the driver and made our way towards the parking lot with him. It was a quick 30 minute ride to the hotel.
After completing the check-in formalities, we headed over to our room. It was already 9:40 pm and we were pretty hungry. We quickly freshened ourselves and headed towards Senso – the Italian Restaurant in the hotel, mindful of the fact that it closed at 10:30 pm. Senso was deserted at that hour, but the staff was warm and welcoming. We ordered a Bruschetta selection and Grilled Chicken Breasts for a quick dinner. After finishing our dinner, we retired back to our room and called it a day.