Antarctica's White Wilderness (2012)

Your overnight flight to Buenos Aires departs in the evening.

When you arrive in the morning, an OAT representative meets you at the Buenos Aires airport and escorts you to your hotel. Relax until mid-afternoon, and then join a short orientation walk in the neighborhood around the hotel if you wish.  Then join your Trip Leader and travel companions for a trip briefing.

We’ll all get better acquainted at this evening’s Welcome Dinner, hosted by your Trip Leader at a traditional Argentine steakhouse.

After breakfast, set off on a tour of Buenos Aires, an elegant mixture of Spanish colonial architecture and several traditional European styles. See the monument-filled Avenida 9 de Julio and the Plaza de Mayo, where many buildings important to Argentine history stand. Our exploration continues in La Boca, a colorful bohemian district where we’ll stroll streets filled with artists selling their work and performers practicing their tango. We’ll then visit Recoleta, where we’ll see elegant homes, fashionable shops and restaurants, and the famously ornate cemetery where Eva Peron is buried.

Your afternoon is free. Later, you’ll enjoy a discussion on the economy of Argentina. Dinner is on your own this evening, or join our optional tour to take in a tango show with dinner.

We rise very early this morning and transfer to the airport for our flight to Ushuaia, Argentina. Known as the “City at the End of the World,” Ushuaia is a former penal colony whose name is a Yamana Indian word for “bay that stretches into the sunset.” Today, it’s a small but busy port with a frontier atmosphere. The snowcapped Andes rise on one side of town, while the magnificent Beagle Channel extends from the other.

 

We’ll take a tour from the coastal area, overlooking Beagle Channel to Main Street in the city center. Then we’ll visit the End of the World Museum, with exhibits on the area's natural history, aboriginal life, and the early penal colonies. Dinner tonight is on your own. Try one of the many great restaurants specializing in local king crab.

After breakfast, enjoy a tour of Tierra del Fuego National Park. This is Argentina’s only coastal national park, remarkable for its remote location, raging winds, and rugged landscape. The park protects unique flora and fauna including Austral parakeets and the Fuegian fox. After the visit to the park, we enjoy a traditional Argentine asado de cordero (lamb barbecue) lunch.

In the late afternoon, we embark on our Antarctic expedition ship, the Corinthian II. Our cruise begins with a thrilling passage through the scenic Beagle Channel as we head east for the storied Drake Passage. Onboard, we meet our Expedition Team, an enthusiastic group of explorers, researchers, and naturalists, many of whom return to the Antarctic every year. At this initial session, they’ll preview our journey, outlining the course our ship will follow and detailing the stunning sights that lie ahead. Then, as we travel, they’ll become our steady companions, teaching us about all aspects of our voyage.

All meals are included while we cruise aboard the ship.

Our first full day at sea takes us across the Drake Passage, named after the 16th-century English navigator Sir Francis Drake and the point where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet. This passage is notorious among sea captains and voyagers worldwide for having some of the most turbulent waters on the planet. If sea conditions are characteristically rough, the ship will roll considerably and, depending on the intensity, you’ll need to stay in your cabin until calmer waters are reached. For safety, all portholes will be closed while cruising the Drake Passage. (If you have problems with seasickness, we recommend that you carry—and use—patches and pills for seasickness.)

During much of this part of the trip, depending on the time of year, our ship may be accompanied by an impressive variety of seabirds—such as the magnificent Wandering Albatross. We have a good chance of spotting whales and dolphins; many different species have been encountered in these rich waters over the years. We also cross the Antarctic Convergence, a biological barrier where cold polar waters sink beneath the warmer waters of the more temperate zones.

The following itinerary for your Antarctic cruise is for guidance only.  Due to constantly changing weather, ice conditions, and wildlife-viewing opportunities, no two Antarctic voyages can ever be exactly the same—which is precisely why this trip is such a unique adventure. Flexibility is the key to creating the best possible experience. The Captain and Expedition Leader continually assess daily weather conditions and wildlife opportunities to take full advantage of the almost continuous daylight and to maximize time ashore. Visits to research stations depend upon receiving final permission. Although it is impossible to guarantee precisely what we will see and when we will see it, because sightings and encounters inevitably vary from trip to trip, we are confident that your voyage to Antarctica will be an unforgettable experience.

When we sight land for the first time after crossing the Drake Passage, we'll have reached the South Shetland Islands. This impressive group of islands, lying to the north and roughly parallel to the Antarctic Peninsula, is a haven for wildlife. We visit vast penguin rookeries, land on beaches ruled by Antarctic fur seals, and observe wallowing southern elephant seals. We also hope to visit one of the many research bases in the archipelago and look for either of Antarctica’s only two flowering plants, Antarctic hair grass (Deschampsia antarctica) and Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis), which thrive here during the short southern summer. A highlight of our visit to the South Shetlands will be sailing through a narrow passage into the flooded caldera of Deception Island.

 

We continue cruising the region of the Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetlands. As we go, you’ll have plenty of time to experience the special magic of this awe-inspiring wilderness of snow, ice, waterways, and mountains, and we can expect to see a wide variety of Antarctic wildlife. Enormous rookeries of gentoo, chinstrap, and Adélie penguins; blue-eyed shags; kelp gulls; Cape petrels; snowy sheathbills; and Antarctic terns are just some of the many birds found here in abundance. You are also likely to see Weddell, crabeater and leopard seals. Depending on the season, you may also encounter orcas, humpback whales, and Minke whales at close range.

We continue cruising the region of the Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetlands. The Antarctic Peninsula has a remarkable history and, during the voyage, your Expedition Team will regale you with tales of the most important and dramatic expeditions to this remote corner of the world. As you watch from the ship and make excursions in Zodiacs, you will certainly feel the same sense of excitement as many of those early explorers.

Begin your journey back to Ushuaia, crossing the Drake Passage. Known as the “Drake Lake” or the “Drake Shake” (depending on the severity of conditions) this famous passage is a travel milestone. Depending on the degree to which the seas are rolling, you may need to stay in your cabin during the crossing.

As we cruise the Drake Passage, you can watch for birds and whales, enjoy some final lectures by our Expedition Staff, and relax and reflect upon your adventure.

We disembark the ship after breakfast, to board a return flight for Buenos Aires. If you are ending your trip at this point, you will depart for the U.S. in the late evening.If you are continuing on the optional post-trip extension, you transfer to your Buenos Aires hotel for the night.