29/12/2017 Flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia (Aerolíneas Argentina)

29/12/2017 Flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia (Aerolíneas Argentina)

We are getting up early and packing our rucksacks. I’m always a bit stressed before another journey so do I am also now. Everything is done quickly as we prepared majority in the evening and heading down from the 9th floor to the reception to catch a taxi. 

The reception and the streets are still quiet. It is not that early. My watch leaning to 7am and I’m opening BA Taxi app on my smartphone. All works fine, good internet connection, location service located us precisely and I can enter the destination: Aeropuerto Jorge Newbury. I got the price back straight away and it says as I expected - 120 pesos. So I can hit the order button and wait for a driver. Buscando... buscando for about 2 minutes now. So I’m going to cancel and order again. Buscando... waiting a bit longer, about 4 minutes and nothing. All the taxi drivers busy? Too early? And as we are deciding if to ask the hotel reception to call us a taxi or not, some taxi just stopped at the hotel and someone got off. Puede tomar me a Aeropuerto? I asked and he said Si. Okay, cuanto questa? He said 180 I asked mas o menos? And we put the bags in. He started driving and took first right. I can see the taxi meter is not on. So I pointed on the taxi meter saying: taxímetro! And he told me that we agreed on price 180 pesos! Another scammer! We are not lucky those two days and I can see that I’m really bad without the availability to speak the language. But we need to get to the airport and 50 pesos is not that crazy money. It is crazy in terms of the BA taxi quote, but not in the value. 

In about 15 minutes we are arriving to the airport and it goes quickly as few days before. This time we are flying with Aerolíneas Argentina. No delay, departure at 9:15am and we got some small snack on board half way through the flight. 

It’s 12:40 and we landed. They are holding us on the plane a bit longer than I’m used to. Everyone already ready to go and we can watch some guy unloading cargo boxes from our plane. Each box has a massive sticker saying Fragile. And each box is handled without any care. Finally, we can leave the plane and making our way to the luggage area. I can see that except our plane, there is another one parked too. And the luggage area is really small and overflowing with people. I have to be standing in a queue to even get in to the room with baggage belt. And after 20 minutes of waiting, we can finally get our rucksacks. 

The accommodation we booked should sort out transport from the airport, so we are looking for someone holding a sign with our names. And here we go. Found one. And the guy is taking us in front of the Airport and talking to a taxi driver about the address. In less than one minute we are on our way to Glady’s house. Should not take longer than 10 minutes as it is pretty close. But the driver, she is having difficulty to find the address. I don’t blame her, it looks like an area with blocks of flats here. Each building about 4 stories tall, so I’m trying google and showing her on a map. She is speaking to me in Spanish. I have no clue what about, but she is stopping her car based on the location showed on google maps. And then she goes to that building to find out. There is no sign or anything. I booked this place through booking.com, so i didn’t expect Airbnb in a block of flats. And here we go. The taxi driver coming back and saying that this is the correct place. And she is asking about who is paying. I’m like, well the booking says free transport, no one told me about paying. And it came to 230 pesos, not cheap at all. So I don’t know what and how to say it, so taking money out and asking for the receipt. She gave me the receipt promptly and she can see we are lost, so she is going to lead us to the building. First floor, flat number 4. No signs or anything. 

There is a young girl inside. Called Cristina. She wants to pay to the taxi driver, but the taxi driver says we paid, so Cristina is giving money to us saying Sorry. The taxi driver is really nice, smiling and leaving the flat. Cristina gave us a key from the flat and showed us our room. 

We know we need to get our laundry washed and buy tickets for bus to Punta Arenas. Leaving our bags in our room and taking dirty clothes into a smaller bag and heading towards the centre. I found some lavandería close to Carrefour, about 30 minutes walk from here. It’s sunny and not windy. At 3pm we are entering Lavadero Qualis. I can see the prices and changing the plan. We wanted to do the same as in Buenos Aires. But here is the washing (without drying) 160 pesos. So leaving everything there in one bag to wash only. Will be ready to pickup tomorrow at noon. 

First thing done here and walking quickly to city centre. Getting a map from tourists information centre and asking where to buy bus tickets. The bus ticket office is very close to terminal omnibus. And it is called Marga Taqsa located on Juana Genoveva Fadul. We had to wait a queue inside of the Marga Taqsa office and then we are finding out that Tuesday’s bus is sold out and they have only 8 places left for the Wednesday bus. The bus to Punta Arenas leaves at 8am. So we bought the tickets, each for 1000 pesos. And the guy told us we cannot pay by card, only in cash. 

Another thing is sorted and now shopping in La Anima supermarket, some pasta for our dinner. We then cooked in our accommodation. 

Summary:

- Aerolíneas Argentina flight from Jorge Newbury to Ushuaia

- Departure 9:15am

- Snack on board, no onboard entertainment, no usb charging

- Ushuaia Airport tiny, long queues to get luggage

- Lavadero Qualis 160 pesos for wash without dry

- Bus ticket office to bus ticket from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas is called Marga Taqsa, if you don’t have ticket yet, get it first thing you arrive to Ushuaia. Bus company we got is Barría buses, cost 1000 pesos, departure 8am and takes 12 hours