The plan was to fly to Buenos Aires where I’d spend 2 nights before getting on another plane to Ushuaia. And having decided to splurge so I had gotten first class tickets on my flights to BA. Having a layover in Frankfurt I left the main terminal building and walked over to the first class terminal where I checked in. Very few people come over here, likely because it’s a bit inconvenient to get to. So for the amount of people here it’s quite a large building with a fully stocked bar, a la carte and buffet restaurant, snacks of various kinds, beds and showers. All included in your first class ticket of course. Starting off with a few hours’ sleep and a shower I followed up with a delicious dinner and multiple snacks before getting picked up with 4 other people and driven straight to the gate. Here we got the elevator up to the long boarding queue, got pushed past and straight on board where we were personally welcomed by the cabin crew. Lufthansa has quite a few high-end Porsches and Mercedes to shuttle their passengers around like this.
The view of the plane on arrival at the gate.
Reaching my seat I was presented with champagne and nuts, amenity kit, pajamas and slippers, and after takeoff I was presented with more champagne and a snack while waiting for my food. The table was made with a cloth, salt- and pepper shakers, cutlery, bread rolls and drinks – just like in any other normal restaurant. I went with a selection of starters and their classical caviar which was served with a generous glass of vodka (one might as well go all in). it was an amazing start. It was followed up by tournedos and apple crumble (which, was all something I had selected from their menu). After a glass of port I went out to change into the pajamas and returning they had made my seat into a bed. After a few movies I managed to get 6 good hours of sleep before waking up and having breakfast. Rarely has a 13hour flight been this comfortable.
On arrival in BA immigration took close to an hour of waiting, but when arriving in the baggage retrieval area the first class luggage had already been collected and a crew member was just waiting for it to be picked up. Quite a different experience than travelling among the rest of the plebs…
To be honest I don’t find BA particularly interesting, but having 2 days in the city did mean I’d have the chance of two steak dinners so in the end the extended layover wasn’t too bad. On arrival I ended up walking around in a small national park near the hotel. It was along the side of a small island (it actually takes up half the island if not more) and the vegetation meant that you lost the sound of traffic when walking around there. Being along the water you could get a mild breeze at times, very helpful against the blistering heat.
The following day, still full from yesterday’s dinner, I had a slow morning before heading out on a 5-hour walk and ending up in the Grand Mausoleum Park. It was quite interesting walking around and seeing the huge variety in design and level of maintenance of the various mausoleums. I returned to the hotel and had – of course – my second steak dinner.
To get to Ushuaia we had a flight at 0745 on the following morning so at 0530 we checked out from our hotel and left for the airport. Fortunately, we’d be departing from the smaller domestic airport so transport between the airport and hotel was significantly shorter than from the international airport. The flight was 3½ hours with no hiccups on the way and on arrival in Ushuaia we were fortunate enough to be able to check in right away at our hotel there.
After checking in I decided to go for a walk. Having been here before I don’t really feel there is much to do having seen the prison museum so my aim was just to kill time. Going outside I realized that the weather was fairly nice with comfortable temperatures so I ended up changing my mind and went for a run instead. Following the roads in a southbound direction you reached a viewpoint with views of the channel and Ushuaia. Coming back I circled around a small local airstrip before returning to the hotel. I was nice getting a bit out of the town as there were two large cruise ships that had unloaded all their passengers so it was getting quite crowded.
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