The day started with breakfast at the hotel, which was included with our reservation and quite nice. They offered croissants and other breads, eggs, pancetta, grilled tomatoes, yogurt with granola/nuts/seeds/raisins, plus coffee and juice.

We then set off for the Recoleta Cemetery, which was about 25 minutes away by foot. It was an interesting walk through the neighborhood, which is home to posh old apartments and several embassies. It felt very European.

We also passed these amazing, 300+ year old trees. The root structure was incredible. Some branches were as thick as trees themselves.

Back at the hotel, we went to the Hurtigruten hospitality desk, which was in a meeting room in the basement. They had delivered paperwork to our rooms that morning with some information about embarkation; the QR code on the sign in the meeting room led to the same document (for those who were just arriving that day).

We were assigned the charter flight that left a little later in the morning. Sadly, that didn’t allow any more time to sleep in than the other flight; everyone had to be on buses at the same time since the later flight had a bit longer of a drive to EZE instead of AEP. We were given little cardboard Hurtigruten luggage tags for our checked bags and a sticker to put on our bag as a backup. The very first thing we did upon entering the room was get rapid COVID tests; printed copies of those negative results were provided while we got briefed on everything else (they said it would take an hour to get the results but it really took about 10 minutes). Our voyage was the last that would require COVID testing; the policy changed starting in January.

Many people had just arrived on a red eye flight that morning; since their hotel rooms weren’t ready they were free to hang out in the meeting room. Or they could leave their bags with the front desk and go explore the city. They had juice, coffee, and pastries available for folks who needed food after their flight.

After finishing up with the hospitality desk, we were free for the rest of the day. We headed to the National Railroad Museum across the street from the hotel. It’s small, but filled with items relating to trains, along with a timeline of the railroad in Argentina. Most of the display signs were in both Spanish and English, and Google Lens helped with the Spanish-only ones.

Dinner was at El Mirasol, a steakhouse a couple blocks away from the hotel. It was one of several restaurants situated underneath the nearby highway overpass (this was more scenic than it sounds, trust me). The food was DELICIOUS and the portions were enormous. The filet was 21oz and the sirloin was 12oz. Even the sides were far too much for one person. Bottled water, three empanadas, the filet mignon, and two sides (which more than fed 3 people) came out to a stunning $52 total (at ~320 pesos to 1 USD).

Our checked bags had to be put outside of our rooms by 8pm so that Hurtigruten could collect them for the charter flight. We were directed to keep passports, medicines, passenger locator forms, COVID test results, and warmer clothing for Ushuaia in our carry-ons since we wouldn’t see the checked bags again until we landed. We then tried to get some sleep before our very early departure.