Irene & Chris' Travel: December 2010

SOUTH AMERICA CRUISE

Oct. 9 – Nov. 21, 2010

This trip was a 34 day cruise plus additional 6 days in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

To start our adventure we were serenaded by a taxi driver in New York, who sang Mexican Ranchero songs (which we really like) and had a Karaoke machine which he played. This was a delightful drive from the airport to the Pier!

We had hot sun and beach weather to cold icy winds off the Antarctic and snow in Ushuaia. We also had very smooth seas except for the very south of South America – in fact from the Falkland Islands to Montevideo, Uruguay it felt as if we were not even moving. It was a very interesting cruise as the places visited ranged from beach, primitive Indian village to very Spanish style European cities, to German settlement villages in Chile, to the historic Strait of Magellan, Darwin Channel and Cape Horn. When transiting Cape Horn we had 50 knot winds, 20' waves and 300' between swells. The weather just added to the ambiance of rounding the tempestuous seas of Cape Horn.

We had 23 city visits including highlight viewing of Glaciers and the Cape. This was a trip that would be impossible to do except on a cruise ship. To get a glimpse into the 10 countries, transit the complete Panama Canal, and scenery that we visited in that time period would be impossible. We took only 3 organized and expensive excursions and the rest of the city visits we did on our own or joined another couple using local transportation or taxis.

We had beach sand, desert sand of the Aticama Desert, the cool to coldness of the Humboldt Current and the large number of Pelagic birds flying and feeding in the rich Humboldt. I stood for hours on the deck with my scope watching the birds flying and trying to identify the species. We also had a hundred plus sea birds land on the ship one night. They were confused with the lights. We saved almost all of them and the next night the Captain reduced the brightness of the lights and we didn't have any more visitors.

In Puerto Montt, Chile we took the local bus to Fruitillar and a guitar playing and singing busker joined the bus. We really never had any security problems except in Buenos Aires on the first day a “lady” sprayed Chris with green gunk and wanted to help us clean it off and then possibly rob us. It is an old tactic for robbery and when we refused to follow her she quickly disappeared.

We were very impressed with Montevideo and Buenes Aires. In Montevideo we viewed the range finder of the Graf Spee. This was one of the most famous German Naval Ships of WWII, which was scuttled by the Captain in the Bay of Montevideo in order to save his crew. Check Wikipedia for this most historical event.

We stayed 6 extra days in Buenos Aires. Our Hotel was located in the old downtown and we walked the pedestrian zones, looked at beautiful expensive shops and shopping mall and huge historical and impressive buildings, vendors in the middle of the wide walking zone, walked to the very large city park (Costanera Sur) within the city for birding and met some very interesting local people who were birders and/or photographers. We also visited with friends we met on the ship who rented an apartment about 3 blocks from us and will stay there until March. They will then take another cruise back to the USA.

Our Air Canada flight from Buenos Aires (with a stop in Santiago, Chile) to Toronto was uneventful except for a little turbulence over the Andes. We arrived in Winnipeg to snow and cold weather and planes being de-icing on the tarmac.

The following are a few pictures of our trip: