More Delays In The Air

Thursday 22 February

Time is now rushing by, and it doesn’t seem possible that this tour is reaching its final destination later today. We had a leisurely breakfast, and I decided to blog till booking out time at 11.00, when we would sit and chat to others in the group who had also decided to spend the morning in the hotel. But at 11.30 Mike came and informed us that yet again the plane had been delayed, this time for more than three hours, and take off time would now be 18.35! He also advised us to eat something a good lunch as the food on Argentinean Airlines was pretty poor.

We decided to catch the free shuttle bus into the town to pass a couple of hours, but as we had breakfasted late, we didn’t fancy visiting a cafe - yet. The bus dropped us near the port, and we wandered along San Martin – the main shopping street – towards the Naval and Prison Museum at the far end of town – we thought a bit of culture might stimulate our appetite. The Museum was in the old prison building, with spokes radiating out from the centre like the sun on the horizon. The first rooms told the history of the visiting ships from the time of Magellan through to Darwin, Amundsen and up to the first half of the twentieth century, with models of all the different styles of ships, such as corvettes, brigantines, clippers and schooners. The models had been made by one local man in the 1950’s and 1960’s and illustrated the differences between each type of sailing vessel – some were built for speed, while others were made to carry cargo or people across the Atlantic Ocean. The first “white” settlement in this area was in the mid 1700’s at the Estancia Harberton, about 20 kms along the coast from present day Ushuaia (which means “bay that stretches to the west” in the native language), which was not founded until 1884, when it was chosen for a naval base.

When Magellan and his fleet, and a couple of decades later the many trading ships, arrived in this part of the world, the islands of Tiera del Fuego were inhabited by native “Indians” known as Yamana, who lived in canoes and ate mainly sea lions and shell fish. They were short stocky people with large heads and long arms (possibly became indigenous from paddling the canoes in rough seas). These natives could not adapt to the new life style that the pioneers from Europe of the 18th and 19th centuries brought with them and they were also susceptible to the new diseases – in the mid 1800’s vast numbers of Indians died from a measles epidemic, and deaths from TB and pneumonia accounted for many others. The invaders also seriously depleted the native food sources, by killing the sea lions for their blubber and skins, and over fishing the waters all around the islands. Sheep took over the feeding grounds of the guanacos that had sustained the hunters. The natives were persecuted by the new inhabitants and many had to be confined to the religious institutions for safety. By the middle of the 19th century just a few hundred natives survived and by the turn of the century only 70 were left.

Many photos of Amundsen, when he visited here before his expedition to Antarctica and the South Pole in 1911, were displayed around the walls, showing the living conditions of the ordinary folks in Ushuaia at that time. The landscape was invariably covered in snow and ice, and the clothes the people wore always looked thin and unsuitable. We didn’t have time to explore a further exhibition devoted to Antarctica on the first floor above the prison.

The first group of fourteen convicts arrived in the area in January 1896 and were housed temporarily in wooden and tin huts. The idea was to start a penal colony – based on the successful British colony in Australia – and immediately a further eleven men and nine women volunteers were sent to join the original group. The colony eventually failed for humanitarian reasons and was moved to Ushuaia in 1902 and nine years later was fused with the military prison. It first consisted of forty houses, while the prisoners built the five pavilions that held 380 single cells – although at its height, the prison held at least 600 prisoners. The Prison Museum inhabits one of the original pavilions and has exhibits about individual convicts who were sent here - most for the rest of their lives – and described the work they undertook in the town, running the first printing press, telephones and fire station. A railway was built in 1910 running for 25 kms into the forest where timber was logged for building purposes. The President closed the prison in 1947 and the buildings passed to Naval control.

A couple of hours passed very quickly while we were here, and it was time to look for some lunch, if we were to make it back to the hotel on time. We hit on a bar / café in the main street, whose menu seemed fine when we scanned it outside, but when we got in and studied it more closely, really didn’t offer what we were looking for. But we decided to stay – we had one eye on the clock – and Colin ate tagiatelle with bolognaise (a slight change from spaghetti I suppose!) while I chose sirloin steak in pepper sauce - medium rare - with cheesey potatoes. Colin’s dish arrived and appeared to be something like the dish he had ordered and hot – mine was a disaster – the steak most definitely wasn’t sirloin, it was charred and not pink, swimming in a glutinous pool of brown gravy with a couple of black lumps (peppercorns?), and the cheesey potatoes were cold! I asked for a hot portion, but I am sure the whole plate just went into the microwave – steak and all - as when it returned everything was steaming and the plate was too hot to handle. It was still edible – just – and we left as soon as we could without leaving a tip. We caught a taxi back to the hotel, and had only a short while to chat until it was time to go the airport. Mike informed us he had managed to book us all a seat on the plane (this airline frequently overbooks seats) so we only had to hand over our luggage again – more prayers needed that it would go through for free. Marcello collected us at 16.30 and we arrived at the airport to hear that the plane was now arriving from Buenos Aires at 18.30 and would take off again, hopefully, around 19.00. This meant that we would not arrive in the capital until nearly 23.00, and miss yet another night of the tour. South American flights are often delayed or cancelled – and here there is always referred to as “manyana”!

The airline provided us with water and more of those ironed out ham and cheese sandwiches because of the delay, but everyone had eaten a good lunch, so it was hard to give them away. The airport building was seething with people – how were they all going to get on the plane? - which did actually arrive soon after the expected time. When boarding was called there was a mad rush to get everyone on. We were lucky enough to have two seats together, but some of our group were sitting at opposite ends of the aircraft.

We first sighted Buenos Aires in the distance by the myriad of lights in a huge grid pattern, where the plane seemed to land, somewhere in the middle – there was definitely a hotel very close to the runway – which was a bit scary. We had to get on a bus for all of a couple of minutes to transfer to the terminal and the luggage arrived very soon after. We piled into minibuses – the group appears to have much more luggage than anticipated and it has often been difficult to load it all in the vehicles provided – the front seats are always used and often the gangways too. We drove through the city, brilliantly lit, with lots of sky scrapers and darker areas of parks, to find our hotel just off the main square. It was just midnight as we registered. We had to wait quite a while for our luggage to arrive at our room – we have been specifically told not to take it ourselves – so I found a tennis match on the television for more than half an hour. We were yet again exhausted by the time we climbed into bed. We had been told the rooms were minimalist – ours is a little larger than the one we had in Punta Arenas, but not a lot, and does only contain a bed, two small bedside tables, and a desk on which the television sits. It has a fitted wardrobe and a reasonable size bathroom. Not up to the Los Hayas Hotel in Ushuaia, but definitely fine for the couple of nights we will be here.