We go back to the room, and see that all the bags are now gone. We grab the rest of our stuff, and make our way down the stairways one last time to Reception, then outside, down the gangway, and off the ship for the last time. We all feel a bit of separation anxiety – it is really a bit sad to leave the ship that has been home to us through such an incredible adventure.
The Peregrine staff are outside and we say goodbye and thanks. We board the bus waiting for us, our large bags already loaded, and it is off to the hotel here in Ushuaia. The Hotel Del Glacier. It is a really neat hotel, high on the mountain side below several glaciers and with an incredible view of the town, the docks, and the bay far below.
We choose not to go on a Marathon Tours-organized bus tour of the National Parque, which is supposed to be a nice spot near the Chilean border, and do our own thing instead. We go into town to find an internet café so we can let the world know that we have returned alive. Then we go back to the hotel.
We wake up in time to watch our ship sailing up the final stretch of the Beagle Channel and into the harbor of pre-dawn Ushuaia.
Back at the dock in Ushuaia.
Sunrise in the harbor.
Our captain, surveying the harbor view. Another successful voyage completed.
Hotel Del Glacier, our accomodations for tonight.
Our room in Hotel Del Glacier, with a stunning, panoramic view of the town and the harbor below.
View from our hotel window.
Using the camera's maximum zoom, we can see the Ioffe far below, still at the dock.
For our big event of the afternoon, we decide to hike up to the glacier behind the hotel. It is a VERY rigorous and strenuous hike! It is a 1-mile walk up the road behind the hotel to the start of a cable car. We ride the cable car for perhaps another two miles or so further up the mountain, and then get off and start climbing from there. It is a hard 1-hour climb up a rock-strewn canyon that has been carved out by glaciers over the millennia. As we climb higher, it gets colder and steeper. We finally stop at the underside of a ledge that marks the start of the glacier. We are perhaps 20-30 meters from the ice itself, but the climb up over the ledge to get to it, with runoff streams pouring off of it, looks too difficult and dangerous to try, and just a bit unnecessary at this point in the trip! We meet a young lady up there who is from Wales and who is traveling around South America for 6 months or so. She takes our picture. Then we head back down, and get back to the hotel at around 4:30 pm.
We spend the afternoon hiking up to one of the glaciers on the mountain behind the hotel. We took a cable tram up as high as it went, and then had a significant climb from there. Here, Joan looks tiny against the backdrop as we make our way higher up the mountain.
The trail we followed worked its way up through a "V" carved over the ages by the glacier and its streams of runoff melt-water. Here we look backward at the distance that we had already come.
This is as far as we would go. On the ledge above us was the start of the glacier's ice field. It would take a precarious climb up the rock and through the rushing water to make it up there, and we decided we did not need to do that on this day.
From the hotel, we look down to the bay, and still see the Ioffe at dock there. It is hard to reconcile that another whole load of passengers are boarding it today, and are about to set sail on THEIR adventure. Their adventure on OUR ship. We cannot help but feel just a little possessive about it. In addition, we develop an appreciation for the tasks of the crew and staff. During the summertime, there are no rest or down days. Upon completion of one trip in the morning, they take on new passengers and are back out at sea that same afternoon. We think of the waitresses and the maids…. Whereas we might have thought initially that they had a neat job in that at least they could see wonderful scenery from their workplace, we realize now that there is no time for them to enjoy it. It is a lot harder life, being attached to the crew of a ship like this, than we would have ever imagined. (Joan had asked the woman who cleaned our room one day if she ever gets seasick… she said “oh yes!”. Can you imagine spending 4 days out of every 10, all summer long, in the Drake Passage???!) Eventually, around 7 pm, we see the Ioffe pull away from the dock, and head east down the channel. There was a bit of a lump in our throats as we watched it move away.
After a short nap, we head down to the hotel dining room for the final marathon dinner. The focus here is on all the participants who plan to run another marathon tomorrow… the Fin Del Mundo Marathon, and get in a South American continent run ….. sold by Marathon Tours at the beginning of the trip as two continent marathons for the price of one! We never considered running this one, but there is a bit of peer pressure/envy now as we look at all of our new friends who are already moving on to their next marathon. But that is ok. We’re happy with what we have done. We have dinner, and it is incredibly lousy!! We miss our Ioffe cooks and servers.
Back at the hotel in the late afternoon, we look out the window to see the Ioffe, steaming out of port and toward the Beagle Channel again. With its new load of passengers, it was heading back to Antarctica, for a new set of amazing adventures. 
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