Montevideo, Uruguay – Arrived February 24th

Having no preconceived idea of what Montevideo would be like, it was a surprise to me that this is such a large, modern city of over 1 million people and seems to be so well hidden. We had booked ourselves on a tour that included a ride on a steam train but it was pretty lame. The train was a restored English train that was quite well done inside. We took a slow ride for about 45 minutes and all we saw were cargo containers, small depots, and low class housing. It was very disappointing.
After the train we got into a bus and toured around the outskirts of the city for 3 more hours, stopping along the way to view the most interesting parts. As we drove through the suburban neighborhood our guide kept saying “this used to be a nice place”. According to her, Montevideo’s heyday was the end of the 19th Century when the economy was booming and life was easier. Now, as in most of the world, they face an economy that is slow and life is more difficult.
We drove by the president’s house. He chose not to live in the Presidential Palace in the city and lives on a quiet suburban street in a small wooden house surrounded by a fence. There is one police car parked outside the fence and that is the only security he has. The President is a practicing oncologist and goes to work as a doctor every day, all the while running the country of Uruguay! His biggest agenda seems to have been an anti-smoking campaign which has been pretty successful because the incidence of lung cancer has dropped during his administration. Now he should concentrate on the “”Ey” campaign like they have in Buenos Aires because there is quite a lot of trash being thrown around the city, although probably not as many cigarette butts as in the past.
After the tour we had some hours to see the city on our own before sailing, so we walked to a touristy area that was bustling with shops, restaurants, and street mimes. We walked and shopped and finally settled into a little café to have a drink. Jan and Karen came by and joined us and we had a hilarious time looking at the things Jan had bought. He is quite the shopper and can find the most unusual things.
Tomorrow we get to Rio which everyone is looking forward to. We’re taking a short morning tour to see the world famous Christ the Redeemer statue and then going out tomorrow night for a Night In Rio for dinner and samba dancing. Should be interesting!! Stay tuned.

Buenos Aires – Day Two

Today the weather was the complete opposite of yesterday; sunny and warm. Our tour started early in the morning with our guide, Esteban, who was raised speaking English so he communicated very well, which can make or break a tour. I was particularly interested in this tour because I’d never seen Evita and knew nothing about Eva Peron. I was astonished to learn she had died of uterine cancer at the age of 33; she made such a mark on the world in a very short time. We visited the “pink house” where she made her famous speeches and then to the Eva museum. Usually we both dread museums but this was a good one; we had a very knowledgeable guide, there were several films and many pictures of her, and lots of her dresses and hats on display; all things women love. Now I can’t wait to read a book about her. Finally, we visited her grave at the most interesting cemetery I’ve ever seen. It was one mausoleum after the other, all connected, and built on little lanes. It looked like a city of miniature houses.
Our tour also included a journey around the city and this is when we discovered the beauty of Buenos Aires. There are monuments everywhere, even one that is a copy of the Washington Monument in D.C.; there are huge parks with enormous trees. The architecture is varied as there is a large European influence here. The boulevards are extremely wide and lined with shops and cafes. When our tour was over we walked around the city and stopped at a corner café for a drink and people watching. We remarked at how good-looking the people are with the European features and dark Spanish hair and eyes.
The only blight on the landscape was a good amount of trash and dog doo on the streets, but Esteban told us that there is an advertising campaign to clean up the city. The ad tells people that if they see someone throwing trash on the ground or leaving the dog droppings they should yell “Ey” loudly so the person will be embarrassed enough to pick it up. He says the campaign is working very well and the city is cleaner than it’s ever been.
Back on the ship in the late afternoon it was hot enough to sunbathe by the pool and what a joy that was after freezing our tushes off in Antarctica. After a scrumptious poolside barbecue that evening (to my amazement Jan ate 24 jumbo shrimps) we set sail for Montevideo, Uruguay.

Buenos Aires, Argentina – Day One – Arrived Monday, February 22nd

It won’t sound like it from the description of our first day, but we really enjoyed Buenos Aires. It’s a city we could have spent many more days exploring. It’s a big, sophisticated city of around 3 million people. The first day Ed and I were on our own and took a shuttle into the main tourist section. We had a couple of hours before an afternoon tour would start, so we walked the down a wide boulevard with a huge park in the center. There was a long pedestrian shopping street and we continued down there, not really shopping for anything specific, just browsing. They specialized in leather and expensive jewelry.
We were picked up for our tour, which would take us about an hour out of town for, of all things, a boat ride. You’d think we’d had enough of water, but noooo. Almost as soon as our tour bus left the port, the rains came, and did they come. Our guide told us that they had had more rain this year than he had ever seen; a year’s worth in two hours. And it looked like we were experiencing that again. The water was teeming, streets flooding; it was so amazing that our guide kept saying “Ohmigod”. We were scheduled for a short stop in San Isidro, which was an exclusive little resort town. From what I could see it was very cute and I was sorry that we were unable to stay and have a look. But it was raining much too hard.
We got to the boat dock and ran as fast as we could to the boat, but most of us were soaked to the skin in places that were unprotected by rain gear. It was a flat river boat with windows all around and immediately the windows fogged up and we couldn’t see much. The boat ride would take an hour so we set off, wiping the windows every couple of minutes, trying to see what there was to see. They served delicious coffee and Argentina’s favorite pastry, called Alfajor, which is two sugar cookies with chocolate in between.
Miraculously, the rain stopped and the sun came out about halfway through the ride. So we could see that we were traveling through a canal that was lined with small homes and cottages, most of which were weekend escapes for Argentinians.
On the way back to the ship we saw more of the city and were looking forward to the next day when we would take a short tour called In the Footsteps of Eva.

Stanley, Falkland Islands – Arrived February 19th

Thursday was Karen’s birthday and Jan invited us to the Pinnacle Grill Restaurant on aboard the Prinsendam to help celebrate. We went to their stateroom for a pre-dinner champagne toast and then to the Grill for our 6:30 reservation. The service and food there are 5-star; we had a fabulous steak dinner with more wine and champagne.
The Falklands Islands were the site of a war in 1982 between the British and the Argentines. The area surrounding Stanley was heavily mined and there are still some live minefields there. We steered clear of that; in fact, we had had a tour scheduled but cancelled it. We were to travel to the opposite side of the island from where the ship was anchored to see some penguins, but since we had seen so many in Antarctica, we decided to use our time doing something else.
The four of us, plus Karen and Jan, tendered over together. The day was cold and very windy so we had to bundle up. The town of Stanley, which has about 2000 people, consists of one main road with very little on it. No trees are native to this long, low island so any that are there were introduced by immigrants. The focal point of the town is the Anglican Church with an arch made of whale bone in the front yard. Otherwise, there are a few shops, a couple of hotels and guest houses, a post office, a visitor center and a pub or two. To get out of the wind we decided to visit a pub and have a drink and sample the local favorite fare, fish and chips. Since the Falklands are mostly British, the pubs have that English pub flare, with the dark wood and the cozy booths. The fish was mullet and I didn’t really like it but the beer was good and so were the chips. And the company, of course! That was pretty much our day in the Falklands.

The Antarctica Experience – February 15, 16 and 17

Day One February 15
There is no possible way to describe what we saw on these 3 days. Hopefully we can put up a few pictures that will be amazing but none will be able to do it justice. We were lucky to have pretty good weather all three days so we could see the unbelievable beauty that lay before us; the snow covered mountains, the clear blue water reflecting the hills, the penguin colony traipsing up the mountain to feed their young, and the glorious sunset to top it off.

Day Two February 16

The next day the weather wasn’t quite as good, it was a little foggy and misty, but we began to see some things we hadn’t seen before; icebergs floating by, animals riding the ice floes, whales and flocks of penguins cavorting in the water, as curious to see us as we were to see them.

Day Three February 17

Day One was the most awe-inspiring but Day Three was the most exciting. We entered a wide channel on our planned course and found that we couldn’t make it through because of the drifting ice. We were in contact with a Russian ship that was trying to get through from the other side and not succeeding. We tried for almost an hour to find a way through but the captain and our ice pilot deemed it too dangerous to proceed so we had to turn around and go in the opposite direction. So we didn’t get to see several places that were on our itinerary but our silver lining was a large whale and a lot of huge icebergs that were so amazing that people were running out of the dining room to see them. The biggest of all was estimated to be one mile wide, 100 feet above the water, about 600 feet under the water and millions of tons in weight. It was called a tabular iceberg because it was completely flat on the top as if it had just sheared off from the side of a mountain. It was breathtaking and a wonderful end to our Antarctic Experience.

Ushuaia, Argentina – arrived February 13th

We cruised through the Cockburn and Beagle Channels on our way to Ushuaia and caught our first glimpse of glaciers. The channels were narrow and we glided through so slowly that at times we couldn’t tell we were moving.
This is our first time in Argentina! Ushuaia claims to be the southernmost city in the world. There are other contenders, but Ushuaia is certainly the largest of them, which isn’t saying much since there are only around 16,000 inhabitants.
It’s a charming little town nestled at the bottom of enormous snow-capped mountains. We docked just a few blocks out of town on cold, rainy, foggy day which made the mountains more difficult to see. We had booked a tour called “Off the Beaten Track: Trekking in Ushuaia”. There were 12 of us on the tour and we were picked up in a bus by a darling guide, Daniela, and rode about 20 minutes up into the mountains to a shelter house where we were given rubber boots up to our knees. It was going to be a 2 hour walk through a peat bog and up into a forest where we would see some cascades.
It was barely raining when we set out but we could immediately see why we needed the boots. The peat bog was really just a swamp that was at times 18 inches deep, almost reaching to the top of the boots. We sloshed our way across the bog trying to reach the forest.
Beavers had been brought to the area 100 years ago for their pelts but this turned out to be a mistake as the vegetations was not sufficient to keep the pelts thick and healthy. The beavers adapted and their fur became unusable for the inhabitants. Consequently, beavers have been proliferating at a high rate and have done a lot of damage to the area. We saw a lot of evidence of this on our trek through the bog. They are amazingly hard working animals and their dams are perfectly constructed.
We finally reached the forest which was dense with very thin beech trees. We had to climb a hill that was muddy from the rain. It was pretty taxing for those of us who weren’t in such good shape, but to Ed and me it was invigorating. All that walking paid off!!
The cascades were just another waterfall, really, and we looked at them for a moment and then started back to the shelter. The rain had gotten heavier and by the time we got there we were soaked to the skin. A blazing fire, hot tea, coffee, sandwiches and apple pie awaited us and even though we were wet and tired everyone was in a good mood.
So that was our day in Ushuaia. Right now we’re cruising across 560 miles of the Drake Passage and will pass over the Antarctic convergence where the cold waters of the Antarctic meet the warmer waters of the Atlantic and Pacific. This can make for a rough ride but also these waters attract a large variety of birds and whales. Around 1PM we are scheduled to stop at Palmer Station, a marine research station, and pick up several scientists who will guide us through and conduct two lectures for the passengers about what we are doing and seeing. Most other activities have been cancelled so that we can spend a lot of time either outside on the deck or inside at the observation windows. One of our speakers told us these are the three days that we’ll remember best after the cruise is over. We’ll be seeing glaciers, icebergs, and lots of wildlife. Later this evening we’ll drop off the scientists, but not before we load them down with fresh produce and a supply of whiskey, commodities which are scarce in Antarctica.

Pictures cruising through Beagle Channel February 13th

Antarctica Part 2

The weather improved more and more as the day went on. By the time it was announced that we should prepare for the Zodiac, most of the clouds had disappeared and it was sunny and warm. One of our guides said that he had never seen a day that was warmer in Antarctica than Punta Arenas. It was very rare and we were extremely lucky.
Our group donned life jackets and gathered on the beach to await our boat. As often happens in a group, some people started to complain when they felt the wait was too long. Just as some of the grumpy ones began to verbalize their displeasure, we spied a little black head coming toward us in the water. Then a little black head and torso emerged and we realized it was a lone penguin. He looked at us a moment, decided it was safe, and waddled in that adorable penguin way up onto the beach. It was a Chinstrap Penguin, the one with the black stripe around the mouth that looks like a great big smile. He just stood there with his little arms outstretched and it broke the tension immediately. It was almost as if he’d been hired to come out and shut up the big impatient Americans. After a few minutes he turned and dived back into the water and just then the Zodiac appeared.
It was about a ten minute ride across the bay to Ardley Island. We passed a huge iceberg that was the true definition of ice-blue. It was gorgeous. The first thing you notice as you reach Ardley is the odor. It’s the penguin perfume. Thank Heavens the nose become accustomed to odors or we wouldn’t have been able to stand it very long. The next thing you notice is thousands upon thousands of penguins, both Chinstrap and Gentoo. They cover every surface; the beach, the hills, the rocks. Babies are chasing their parents squawking to be fed. Others are standing still in the process of molting. A “kindergarten” class of juveniles is being guarded by a group of adults. It was totally fascinating to watch.
A fur seal was hiding behind a rock and all we could see was his enormous head. Betsy warned us to keep our distance as fur seals are known to be dangerous. She approached him a little to try to draw him out but he stayed put so we walked on and came to a couple of young elephant seals sunning themselves. They are just big lugs who are lying on top of each other and have snot running out of their noses, but their soulful eyes are so beautiful that it makes you believe that they are a lot more intelligent than they look.
Sadly, our time was up and we had to get back on the plane for the flight back to Punta Arenas. But we were a happy group walking that mile back to the airstrip. We’d been to Antarctica, we’d seen the penguins and we’d had the most beautiful weather the Chileans could ever remember. We certainly couldn’t complain about anything. On the plane back we had a wonderful king crab dinner, which is the main export of Punta Arenas. There was open bar and a champagne toast and we arrived back at the ship completely exhausted but absolutely exhilarated.