Antarctica , the ultimate destination

We are really happy to welcome you in Ushuaia! the world's southernmost city. Upon arrival, you will be greeted at the airport by a friendly and experienced guide, who'll transfer you to your chosen hotel and then help you and the city become friends. Your afternoon will be spent at your leisure to walk around as you will. A couple of good hints would be to make your way to the End of the World Museum, and/or the Old Penitentiary Museum. Make sure to enjoy the typical dish at these latitudes: the ridiculously delicious king crab.

This morning you'll visit the Tierra del Fuego National Park, the only one in the country with a maritime coast. Within its 63,000 hectares, you will find fire-bushes, beech trees, ñires, box-leafed barberries and endless profusions of flowers such as orchids, violets and other species.

Bordering the mountains, you'll follow a road where you'll come across both peat bogs and beaver dams. After crossing the Lapataia River, a magnificent view of Laguna Verde (Green Lagoon) and the upland geese and ibis that come here every summer will present themselves to your astonished eyes. A walk along the path up to Laguna Negra (Black Lagoon) or the Beavers' Path will be suggested at that point - your camera will be amply rewarded if you take either of these up. At Lapataia Bay, you'll witness the testimony of the original inhabitants of the Island (the Yamanas) at a fascinating archaeological site: the "concheros". On the way back to Ushuaia, you will make a brief stop at Lake Roca, whose colour varies according to the weather.

Afternoon transfer to pier to board the “Janssonius” or “Hondius”. After you have settled into your cabins we sail along the famous Beagle Channel for the rest of the evening.

 Path of the polar explorers.  Over the next two days on the Drake Passage, you enjoy some of the same experiences encountered by the great polar explorers who first charted these regions: cool salt breezes, rolling seas, maybe even a fin whale spouting up sea spray. After passing the Antarctic Convergence – Antarctica’s natural boundary, formed when north-flowing cold waters collide with warmer sub-Antarctic seas – you are in the circum-Antarctic upwelling zone. Not only does the marine life change, the avian life changes too. Wandering albatrosses, grey-headed albatrosses, black-browed albatrosses, light-mantled sooty albatrosses, cape pigeons, southern fulmars, Wilson’s storm petrels, blue petrels, and Antarctic petrels are a few of the birds you might see.

Enter the Antarctic. Gray stone peaks sketched with snow, towers of broken blue-white ice, and dramatically different wildlife below and above. You first pass the snow-capped Melchior Islands and Schollaert Channel, sailing between Brabant and Anvers Islands. 

Sites you may visit include: 

Danco Island – Activities here may focus on the gentoo penguins nesting on the island, in addition to the Weddell and crabeater seals that can be found nearby.

Neko Harbour – An epic landscape of mammoth glaciers and endless wind-carved snow, Neko Harbour offers opportunities for a Zodiac cruise and landing that afford the closest views of the surrounding alpine peaks.

Paradise Bay – You may be able to take a Zodiac cruise in these sprawling, ice-flecked waters, where there’s a good chance you’ll encounter humpback and minke whales.

Port Lockroy – After sailing through the Neumayer Channel, you may get a chance to visit the former British research station – now a museum and post office – of Port Lockroy on Goudier Island. You may also be able to partake in activities around Jougla Point, meeting gentoo penguins and blue-eyed shags.

There are great opportunities also for kayaking and camping in this area, and when conditions are right, you can even snowshoe around the shore and to the old ski-way at nearby Damoy Point.

Scenes of South Shetland: The volcanic islands of the South Shetlands are windswept and often cloaked in mist, but they do offer subtle pleasures: There’s a wide variety of flora (mosses, lichens, flowering grasses) and no small amount of fauna (gentoo penguins, chinstrap penguins, southern giant petrels). In Deception Island, the ship plunges through Neptune’s Bellows and into the flooded caldera. Here you find hot springs, an abandoned whaling station, and thousands of cape petrels – along with kelp gulls, brown and south polar skuas, and Antarctic terns. A good hike is a possibility in this fascinating and desolate volcanic landscape.

As an alternative, you may be able to engage in activities near Half Moon Island. Here chinstrap penguins and Weddell seals often haul out onto the beach near Cámara Base, an Argentine scientific research station. Conditions on the Drake Passage determine the exact time of departure.

 Familiar seas, familiar friends: Your return voyage is far from lonely. While crossing the Drake, you’re again greeted by the vast array of seabirds remembered from the passage south. But they seem a little more familiar to you now, and you to them.

Every adventure, no matter how grand, must eventually come to an end. It’s now time to disembark in Ushuaia, but with memories that will accompany you wherever your next adventure lies.

Transfer to the airport to board flight to your next destination.