Barbara’s Retirement Adventures

My 13 hour flight went well, I managed a little sleep and 2 movies - such a great performance by Emma Thompson in ' Good Luck to You,  Leo Grande'.   I met a couple also traveling to join an Antarctica cruise, it was their belated honeymoon which had been delayed for three years. It sounded like we were going to have similar experiences but they were surprised to hear that I was going to do a polar plunge!  Immigration went smoothly, and I was relieved to see my orange suitcase appear on the carousel as soon as I walked into baggage reclaim.  The hotel had organised a driver to pick me up at the airport and for the first time in my life there was someone standing with my name on a card in arrivals. So w ithin 30 minutes of landing I was in 34 degrees of summer heat on my way to the hotel and beginning my adventure.  The driver spoke excellent English, which apparently is rare in Argentina as it is only taught in private schools. Now wish I had learnt more Spanis...

    This is the first of a number of posts I will be writing about my trip to Argentina and Antarctica. For anyone else thinking about a trip like this I have included links to the products I chose after much research, am happy to answer any questions.  When I decided to retire slightly early, I knew my pension would give me a cash sum. But what to do with it? A slightly better car? Put it away for a rainy day? Or a holiday - but where?  I wanted to go somewhere different, a once in a lifetime trip. The idea of going Antarctica seemed to draw me. So vast, so far away. I had never been on a cruise, but knew I didn’t want to be on one of those large cruise ships, I wanted an adventure. And having recently started wild swimming I wanted to swim in the Antarctic!  So I started researching companies that would take me there. After hours of reading about different companies I contacted Quark . I booked a Zoom call with their team who spoke passionately about the trips...