Christmas in Ushuaia

Hip Santa with his orange beard

Merry Christmas and Happy New year, wishing you a wonderful 2013. In Argentina Christmas Eve is the big day. So Ruth and I headed out to 8pm mass which was neat. It was packed and the sign of peace in Latin America is not a hand shake but a kiss on the cheek for everyone.  Our hostel had a traditional Christmas dinner of empanadas and beef, how sweet. It was just like the old days of Manning Ave Christmas’ where everyone is packed around the table sitting on benches with no elbow room. Nice memories. At midnight there was a champagne toast and hip Santa with his orange beard arrived and gave us all a Christmas card with Christmas wishes in three languages and a chocolate attached.

Christmas Day in Ushuaia

Christmas day we planned on a meal of spaghetti, the simplest and best traveling meal to make in a hostel kitchen where space is of the premium. We met an Aussie girl who had Christmas crackers and wanted to share them with us, so we enjoyed the cheesy jokes and paper hats. Another enjoyable day. Now I am just finishing up some last minute stuff and heading back to Antarctica, this time on a different boat and to The Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Antarctica. Talk about living in the moment, booked it and less than 24 hours later I will board the ship. Happy New Year from Antarctica, wishing you all the best.  

These photos are of the last day on the boat where we had to rescue our sister ship that broke down in the Drake Passage. We knew Dave was on the boat so we were taking photos of the people on deck and we saw him. They sent a zodiac to our boat and took our engineer with them to fix their boat. He was successful and they arrived a day later than planned in Ushuaia. There is a cool photo of the zodiac being lifted up onto the boat. The other photos are of Christmas in Ushuaia. 

Click on this link for photos from the boat rescue and Christmas Day in Ushuaia

Some day I will figure out how to upload the cool videos of penguins walking, swimming, a penguin chick hatching, cutting through the ice and the Humpback whales breaching, but it will be at least another month before that happens as I will not have internet for the next 20 days. Happy New Year!

PS you know how I had such troubles with ATM's and credit cards not being used in Uzbekistan? Well they take credit cards in Antarctica. The shop that is run by four UK volunteers for four months of the year living in Antarctica with no running water takes credit cards and Uzbekistan doesn't, go figure. If the workers are lucky they get to hop on the odd ship and take a shower and the ships supply them with drinking water.