Preparing for Antarctica

By Fernando -

Tuesday morning we woke up in the Patagonia in Chile excited since we were finally going to start our adventure. This was the day we would prepare for the cruise…gather our equipment, watch the required videos, have our outer wear disinfected, and attend the mandatory welcome dinner to meet everyone. The cruise is small (101 people) and we were already meeting several of the people in the hotel.

The view at breakfast was great.

After taking care of the requirements, we decided to go into Puerto Natales (about a mile away) for lunch and to check out the town. The lunch was delicious. We both ordered a filet that came with scalloped potatoes. We shared a bottle of wine, and the whole meal was less than $60. 😁

After lunch we wandered around, doing some sightseeing and checking out some shops. The town is small so it didn’t take long. We then decided to walk back to the hotel to join everyone for dinner.

Dinner was a buffet that was OK, but we were able to meet more people. After the meal the organizers gave us the update about our flight to Antarctica the next day. His message…we’re not leaving yet!! The weather was forecasted to be bad so we can’t fly that day. Damn!!

Once we were able to process the news, we were told that they would offer a couple of excursions. One was an all day tour of the local national park, Torres del Paine.  As disappointing as it is to delay the cruise for a day, we were excited to be able to tour the park, and especially to see the famous “three towers.” Hopefully it will be worth it.