Puerto Natales

The difficult journey home began in Chile.

Well, in truth, it had begun much earlier. The complications started the moment we tried to book the tickets.

Flights in South America were remarkably difficult to arrange. Getting to Buenos Aires on the way out had been manageable—it was Argentina’s capital, after all. We had also invoked our usual principle of “since we’re already going to be there” and turned the connection into a two-day stay. That gave us more flights to choose from and made the booking much easier. Had we tried to fly straight through to Ushuaia, even the outbound journey would have been difficult.

On the Chilean side, our connecting itinerary back to the United States had to begin in the small town of Puerto Natales. Our charter from King George Island would first land there on the South American mainland, so that was where the rest of our return journey had to pick up.

And those tickets…

In our online research, we came across some sharply negative reviews of travel sites such as Expedia, including individual accounts from people who said they had booked online only to discover at the airport that no ticket had actually been issued. That sounded both extreme and rather implausible, but the anecdotes were there. They made us nervous enough that we decided to book directly with the airlines.

The Latin American options we could find at the time were mostly on carriers such as Copa Airlines and LATAM Airlines. We checked each of them, then worked through the major American carriers as well, including United Airlines and Delta Air Lines. Eventually, with considerable effort, we found a few itineraries that met our needs.

They all shared one problem: among the routes we found from Puerto Natales to the United States, not one was operated throughout by a single airline. Every itinerary used a Latin American carrier for the portion within Latin America—or, more precisely, outside the United States—and then switched to an American carrier once inside the country.

That was entirely reasonable. These were sold as connecting itineraries, so in theory it should not have presented much of a problem. And yet…

The first warning came when we tried to choose seats. Book through the Latin American airline’s website, and we could not select seats on the American flights; book through the American carrier, and the reverse was true. Since the Latin American portion made up most of the journey, we considered it more important and decided to buy through that airline’s site. Random seats on the domestic American legs seemed an acceptable compromise.

If seat selection had been the only issue, that would have been fine. We skipped it, continued through every page, reached the final step, and tried to pay. The order failed. We tried again and again, in every way we could think of, and received an error every time.

In the end, we had no choice but to book through Expedia after all. We might as well have surrendered earlier and spared ourselves the effort.

That, however, was only the beginning. About four months in advance, we booked the full itinerary: Puerto Natales to Santiago, Santiago to Los Angeles, and Los Angeles to San Francisco.

From the moment we booked it, the schedule never stayed still. On our particular itinerary, something changed about every two weeks. Each adjustment was fairly small—perhaps an hour—but there were so many of them that the schedule gradually became absurd. At first we went online to review and confirm every change. Eventually, we stopped trying to keep track. The one benefit was that, whenever we chose not to accept a change, the system at the time allowed us to modify the entire itinerary without charge.

That turned out to be a lifesaver.

As I described in the previous Antarctica entry, our flight from Antarctica to Chile could not depart as scheduled and was delayed by nearly forty hours. Every onward flight therefore had to be rebooked. The tour operator that ran our ship also offered a flight-booking service, and in circumstances like these, having them manage the connections would undoubtedly have been convenient. I cannot judge the quality because I did not use it, though I have every reason to believe it was good. The price was another matter. Our entire economy itinerary from Chile to the United States cost a little over $1,000; the booking service alone was priced at $500. That was beyond what I was willing to pay.

Once it became clear aboard the ship that our flight would be delayed, we used our free-change option. It was no minor revision: we pushed the trip back by a full day and even changed where we would enter the United States. By then, the timing of the Los Angeles route had become so impractical that there was no reason to remain attached to it.

Rebooking was still far from easy. It worked well online, provided one had an internet connection. Our ship used Starlink. There was free Wi-Fi aboard, but it was essentially unusable; at perhaps three in the morning, with nobody else online, one might just manage to open the Google homepage. Paid access came in several tiers. We bought the most expensive one. It was not excellent, but it qualified as a functioning internet connection.

Then the circumstances changed. Because the flight was delayed and everyone needed to rearrange their travel, the ship opened internet access to all passengers. The result was simple: when everyone had internet, no one had internet. The expedition staff repeatedly announced that anyone who had already rebooked, or did not need to, should please stay offline and leave the bandwidth to those still trying.

At around ten that evening, once we knew the flight would not leave the next day, we began working through the changes. By roughly eleven, everything was done.

We postponed our itinerary by only one day, which was an aggressive gamble. Our thinking was that if we still could not fly the day after next, we would stop trying to predict events, wait until a departure became possible, and then pay to rebook everything at once. The larger problem was that if we could not fly the following day, our ship would have to return to Argentina. At that point, changing the date would no longer be the real challenge. How exactly does one change a flight departing Chile into one departing Argentina?

On the third day, we finally flew to Chile. Those of us already aboard the ship were in reasonably good spirits. Many of the passengers, especially the white-haired retirees, appeared entirely unconcerned; they would have been delighted to spend a few more days in Antarctica. The captain had even arranged an additional landing on our bonus day, which everyone appreciated.

The passengers waiting in Chile clearly had a different experience. Their expedition was scheduled immediately after ours—the itinerary I mentioned earlier that flew both ways from Chile. It was already a relatively short trip, and now two days had been removed. I had never imagined that flying in both directions could carry this particular risk.

One of the options we were told they were offered was to withdraw from the shortened expedition, receive a full refund, and receive roughly $1,000 in credit toward a future booking. It was better than nothing. A thousand dollars sounds substantial, but in many cases it would not even cover the airfare to and from Chile. The journey would have been for nothing, and the vacation days had still been spent.

The version I heard was that, out of more than 140 passengers, only four chose the refund. Everyone else continued with the shortened expedition. I do not know whether they found those missing two days too limiting, but I felt sorry for them.

All I could say was that we had been fortunate that itinerary was already sold out when we booked. Otherwise, I would have been among them. Sometimes luck works in strange ways.

A serious warning, then: anyone booking an Antarctica expedition that flies both ways should allow for the possibility that it may not operate as planned. Most disruptions may amount to only a few hours rather than the extraordinary delay we experienced, but a prolonged closure can create a logistical disaster.

We arrived in Puerto Natales at around ten in the morning and went through Chilean immigration there. The airport was very small and basic. Immigration processing certainly existed, but there was none of the enclosed inspection area one normally sees at an international airport.

After leaving the aircraft, we were taken as a group into a large room and formed a line for immigration. The line was too long to fit straight across the room, so it curled around on itself. This created a curious situation. The door leading into the terminal—that is, beyond immigration—did not appear to have anyone stationed directly beside it. It was simply an automatic door that opened when someone approached, and our looping queue passed directly in front of it.

From what I could see at that moment, it looked as though anyone in the group who felt so inclined could simply step through the automatic door without being stopped on the spot. It gave me the absurd impression that one could accidentally “immigrate illegally” without even leaving the room.

Which raised the more important question: why would anyone go to such lengths to enter Chile illegally? I do not know whether this airport handled any international flights other than charters from Antarctica. If it did not, and someone were determined enough to travel through Antarctica for that purpose, I hardly knew what to say.

Then again, passengers returning on this charter had already had their information checked and submitted by the ship’s operator. Under normal circumstances, everyone’s travel documents should have been reviewed well before arrival. Otherwise, we presumably would not have been allowed to board in Argentina in the first place…

Our onward flight departed at two that afternoon. Puerto Natales is tiny; the drive from the airport into town took about five minutes. We considered going in, then decided against it. A 26-inch checked suitcase was too cumbersome to drag around, and in an unfamiliar place where we did not speak the language, there was little reason to create extra complications for ourselves.

We then boarded the flight home without difficulty. At last, nothing else went wrong, and we made it safely home. Only then did our Antarctic journey feel truly complete.