19/01/2019 – Ushuaia to Buenos Aires, Argentina

We woke up and went for breakfast downstairs. The breakfast in this hotel is great, and there was French toast on the menu today to our delight! Mum helped out a Canadian couple heading to the national park today, and showed them the map. We went upstairs and finished packing. I have a bite on my leg that is red and swollen so have been put on antibiotic standby by dad, so mum drew around the swelling with a biro. We packed our stuff into the car and thanked the host. Mum said she had found the place a little bit creepy, and to be fair it was a bit weird when the cleaner had taken our toothbrushes out their case and re-arranged them for us earlier in the week! Josh drove us to the petrol station and filled up the car and then we went in into the town. We are still on a mission to find a church with a candle for mum to light in memory of her friends mum. We went to the most Southern Catholic Church in the world, which was a bright yellow, but there were no candle! There was a man setting up his microphone on the stage so we quite quickly turned around and left so as not to get caught up in the Sunday service. Everything was pretty quiet as it is a Sunday, just a few souvenir shops around, which we wandered around just passing the time. We walked back to the car along the port with views across the channel and to the mountains. Josh and Dad were optimistically wearing shorts, but it was pretty wet and windy. It is hard to believe it is their summer and I can’t imagine what it must be like to live here if this is the best their weather gets! We drove to the airport. When dad went to the Hertz counter to return the keys there was no staff member present. Afetr hovering by the desk for a good 15 minutes we were told by a staff member from the neighbouring kiosk that the Hertz person had gone to clean a car. It was quite funny! We left dad waiting at the counter and went and got into the luggage drop queue for our flight. Dad sorted the car return and joined us at the front of the queue. The lady checking us in asked to weigh dads hand luggage (because it is a little wheelie suitcase and not a rucksack like the rest of ours.) It was too heavy, but all he did was hand me his Ipad and electrical bag to hold, re weighed it, and then we put his stuff straight back into his bag again, what a silly system! We went through security and sat by our gate, where we grabbed sandwiches and a coffee to see us through. Before long we were on the plane, and had started the 3 and a bit hour flight back to Buenos Aires. We read, slept and watched the Ipad and I think mum and dad read the paper on their ipads. Sound cancelling headphones are so great! Latam airlines are also really good, very comfortable and you get a complimentary snack and a drink. We landed in Buenos Aires and the heat hit us immediately. The girl sat in front of me had a little dog in its carry case on her lap for the whole journey! We went and picked up our luggage and ordered the taxi using the touch screen computer system that prints out the cost on the ticket. We queued up and wandered how we were going to fit all of us and our luggage into one car, but we did manage it, with some suitcases on our laps! We got driven to the Hilton, which we had stayed in 20 years prior when I had been sailing in a competition here. It was so weird how I remembered it, I could even remember where the swimming pool was! The hotel has a huge foyer with glass lifts and glass balcony’s, and looks very similar to when we stayed here before. It still looks modern and in good nick now, so it must have been state of the art back then! I don’t remember the surrounding area but mum said it had all been like a building site, and is now a complex of high rise modern buildings. The guy who brought our luggage up to the rooms for us (could get used to this!) was quite interested when mum explained that we had stayed here 20 years prior. We dropped our bags and put our swimming stuff on and went up to the pool. Dad bought us all Caiprinia cocktails to drink poolside - the sun was out and the pool warm, it felt like a real final blast of sunshine and holiday. We had a swim and drank our cocktails, which went down all too well, the perfect drink for the evening sunshine! We sat on the balcony and had some biscuits, we were all hungry by this point. We showered and then headed out to walk to a restaurant for dinner. It was dark by 20:00, which seems very early now! We walked along the marina until dad recognised a restaurant that he and mum had been to when they had come here with Uncle Mario. Dad wanted steak and Malbec for the final night in Argentina, and it seemed like good value, so we got an outside table and ordered more food and drink. Well, dad and Josh managed to polish off two bottles of Malbec between them, and we all stuffed ourselves full with a three course menu. It was a lovely meal to end an incredible trip with Mum and Dad. I am going to miss this tomorrow when they have gone! We waddled around the marina and popped into a souvenir shop on our way back to the hotel. We didn’t last too long in mum and dads hotel room before we were all ready to close our eyes.