More on that later.
We were looking forward to a hot shower, a real bed and a meal that was not pasta. Steve decided to take a quick look at his email when we got in.
You do NOT ever want to get an email from a travel agent that has "I truly regret to inform you" as part of the title. Apparently, our Antarctic ice breaker / cruise ship blew an engine! Our Antarctic voyage, which we have been thinking about for the last six years, was cancelled.
The last 24 hours we have both been on our iPads constantly. Internet access here is verrrrrrrrrry slow, and on top of that we found out late on a Friday afternoon,which is a holiday in the USA (their Thanksgiving, a holiday devoted to shopping orgies) where many of the booking agents are located.
Fortunately, we found an amazing trip with a Dutch company. Their booking agent works from home, and we have been in touch with her constantly over the last 24 hours. Our new tour leaves 3 days earlier ( December 5), and is couple of days shorter than the one that we originally booked. We are getting 1/3 off for booking last minute, and we got the VERY last cabin on the boat. The boat travels to the same remote region of the Antarctic that we wanted to see (the Weddell Sea). The one difference:
This ship carries
A helicopter!
We get to spend three days flying to remote Emperor Penguin breeding grounds in addition to making many other shore landings via zodiacs.
In the last 24 hours, we booked accommodation here in El Chalten, evaluated 6 potential new cruises, changed our hotel reservations in El Clafate, got our laundry done, booked our new cruise, dealt with a credit card problem, completed our booking documentation, found a hotel in Ushaia, booked a super cool mountain bike trip for tomorrow and spent an hour on the phone trying to change our El Calafate - Ushaia flights (we are certain that will get resolved on Monday).
Phew.
We don't get to do the second planned backpack trip south of the Fitz Roy group, but we are thrilled that we are still going to the Antarctic, particularly since everybody else on our ship is likely scrambling to find alternative voyages as well. The original cruise company does not even know when their ship will be back in service, so future trips may be cancelled as well, which will make other last minute trips very hard to come by. The new trip sounds perfect for us - not quite as luxurious as the other boat (no gym!) but very focused on adventure and exploration in an area that very few ships travel to.
And they have a HELICOPTER!
We figure we should celebrate tonight!
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