Creeping further south to Punta Arenas

The first part of our journey to Antarctica finally arrived with a flight scheduled for Punta Arenas. Today was going to be a bit of a travel day, but neither of us cared as we were too excited. There is not much to do in Punta Arenas, the connection city before our trip south.

The flight over from Santiago with Sky airlines was better than we both expected and the views from the plane of southern Chile were amazing. Steaming volcanoes followed by massive glacier filled lakes. We arrived at the southern end of Patagonia with the wind howling and a very bumpy landing.

Once in Punta Arenas, we met up with the tour organiser to have our bags weighed for the flight ahead. There are strict protocols for travelling to Antarctica beyond the obvious weight restrictions for the small charter plane. We were below the 15kg weight limit only because Adrie kicked her hand luggage under the table and out of sight of the militant in charge of the scales! We then had to get our clothes vacuumed. They are trying to preserve the environment and not introduce any foreign seeds etc. just in case you have been using your gear elsewhere. Fortunately we are only off to Patagonia after this so there was no need to suck the fluff out my beanie.

We also received enormous (and very yellow!) parka jackets that should keep us warm, not only in Antarctica but also on the rest of our trip, and some waterproof muck boots.

Now all that remained was to get to our room and catch up on sleep. But our room was only going to ready at 3pm. It was 1pm now. Hotel lobby cocktails, anyone?

Later that evening we had a briefing covering everything from how to get in and out of the zodiacs to biodiversity of the continent. Everyone was very excited to get going. The only thing left to confirm was exactly when we would leave. In this part of the world that pretty much depends on the weather. Fortunately the weather forecasts were looking good.

However, at dinner we received good and bad news. Good news: we were scheduled to fly out tomorrow. Bad news: one of the aircraft had a mechanical fault so would not be flying. This meant all of us had to use the one plane. Group 1 would leave from the hotel at 1.45am to take off at 4am; Group 2 would leave at 7.45am for a 10am take-off. Thankfully, we were in Group 2!! Yippee – a late sleep!