Dec 30, 2017-Jan 6, 2018 The Falkland Islands to Buenos Aires, Argentina
Dec 30, 2017: We are on our way back to South America across the Drake Passage. The seas are rough with significant winds, but it is already feeling warmer around the ship. The Drake Passage is once again asserting its authority over us! The day started out foggy but eventually we broke out into fairly clear skies. The temperature is 38-40 degrees.
Today we have a day at sea as we make our way to the Falkland Islands. In the morning we had a virtual tour of the bridge with 2nd officer Marco who is also the navigator. It was very informative as we learned about the gross tonnage of the ship, our five generators, two engines and the role of the side thrusters (to turn the ship). He also had a keen sense of humor. On the bridge, as on Star Trek's Enterprise, there are different sailing stages from green - with a minimum of officers through yellow and orange to red which is typically when we move into port. Then there are additional officers on the bridge including the Captain. Our time in the Antarctic had us under orange conditions for most of the time due to the poor visibility and the ice.
Dr Peter Carey also gave a talk on the wildlife and peoples of the Falklands. At only 3000+ citizens the population is a lot less than I imagined. They still have active land mines left over from the Falklands war, there are no indigenous trees, and the only indigenous mammal was a fox which was hunted to extinction when sheep raising became a big industry. The current GDP is based on selling fishing rights for squid and tourism with more than 40000+ mostly cruise passengers a year. Oil has been discovered but is not yet a viable source of income.
Barry and I had dinner plans for the Pinnacle restaurant and we dressed up for dinner. It is the 29th anniversary of our engagement! It was a very pleasant dinner and converstaion.
Afterwards we met up with our son and played music trivia - music of the 70's. We had one other team member, David from Australia, and we won with a score of 32 out of 34! Barry was pivotal in our victory but Kevin helped out with correctly identifying a Bob Marley song.
Lori and Barry dressed for dinner on their anniversary. Dinner in the Pinnacle Restaurant! The Pinnacle is roughly the equivalent of a Ruth's Chris type steakhouse. Mmmm.mmmmm.Tasty.
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Dec 31, 2017: The Falkland Islands. We arrived in the Falklands overnight and tried to go ashore before our 12:30 tour of the Penguin rookery. But tendering is slow with a round trip time of 55 minutes so it is unlikely we will get there much before we meet up with our tourguide. So we may not get to see much of Port Stanley.
Port Stanley, Falkland Islands.
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Houses in the town of Port Stanley. The population is about 2500 people.
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Driving around in Port Stanley, we saw this. They are pretty fiercly pro-British and sheep are ubiquitous.
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Once we left the small town of Port Stanley and got out on the road, the land is very wide open with lots and lots of rocks. Here is a small rocky rise. And it is very windy. Our guide told us the island has a lot of peat bogs and that used to be the primary form of heating. Oh, and they drive on the wrong side of the road. That was an interesting feeling.
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Our meet-up with the Land Rover Defenders which will take us to the Bluff Cove Penguin Rookery. You see a lot of these vehicles, because it appears that the island only has a few roads and almost everything else is off-roading.
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On our way to the Rookery. Everyone creates their own path. As our guide put it "that's the fun part - why should I drive in someone else's tracks?"
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A group of penguins at the Bluff Cove Penguin Rookery
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Barry standing in front of a group of penguins at the Bluff Cove Penguin Rookery, Falkland Islands. They are very tame creatures and don't seem to be afraid of humans. There was a set of white flags that the human observers had to stay outside of so as to not disturb the chicks.
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Barry captured this penguin explorer moving from one nesting area to another. The wind was pretty awesome as you can hear on the video!
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A Gentoo penguin and chick
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A group of Gentoo penguins
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A group of King penguins with their beautiful orange markings
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A close up of the King penguin
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The beach off Bluff Cove Lagooon with a small group of penguins
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Another segment of the Bluff Cove Lagoon beach.
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A turkey vulture soaring over the beach at Bluff Cove Lagoon, Falkland Islands.
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Some Falkland Island geese. Males are white and females are gray.
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Some Falklands Island sheep and geese. They live at the penguin rookery and all seem to get along sharing the same space.
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Here is the Bluff Cove Lagoon cafe and gift shop. The landowners also raise sheep and cows, operate this gift shop and cafe and allow tours of the rookery. As part of the tour, we got complimentary hot chocolate, coffee, or hot tea and all of the pastries you wanted. The most delicious scones, shortbread, cookies, cakes...and all are baked by the proprietress whom you can meet in the gift shop!
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We found out from our guide that Port Stanley is a very tight knit community that works together to handle the onslaught of cruise ship passengers. Most of the guides have other "real jobs" and act as tour guides on weekends during the very short cruise ship season (early December to early March). If the ship comes in during the week, either folks get the day off from work to be tour guides as a holiday or vacation. Everyone we met was friendly, happy to tell us about life on the island and very upbeat. They seem like a very independent group of folks. They were also not shy about telling you about the Argentine-Falklands war (and how glad they are that Britain won) and what it was like.
We also learned about their educational system. It is modeled after the British system and after graduation from high school, students who qualify can attend college in England, all expenses paid. For those not living in town, the students attend lower school "by telephone" and then come to Port Stanley to boarding school for middle/high school. They have about 80-90 students graduate each year.
All aboard was 4:30 PM and many of us wished we had a longer time to spend in this very charming port. We had issues with the hydraulics on the davits lifting one of the tender boats and ended up spending
the evening in the harbor. There was a beautiful sunset, an almost-full moon and it was a lovely New Year's evening. Barry even managed to spot the Southern cross. It was really the first time it was relatively clear and dark at the same time.
We played music trivia again, this time music of the '60's and won again!
Every evening when we get back to the cabin the room stewards have created an origami animal out of towels. Most of them are the typical ones we have seen on previous cruises. While interesting and fun, they are rarely camera worthy. But tonight was something special - a long necked dinosaur. Shown here with our mascot, Jerry.
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Jan 1, 2018: Happy New Year - a day at sea. This was a really low key day as many passengers slept in after partying in the Mondriaan lounge for New Years Eve. We were up early and pretty much had the ship to ourselves.
We had scheduled a couples hot stone massage, something Barry only indugles in on-board a ship. After breakfast, we showed up at the alotted time and changed into a robe and shower shoes which were sized for six year olds. I couldn't even get the front part of my foot in - so I didn't wear them. Barry on the other hand managed to wedge his feet into the "razor straps" they came equipped with. But other than that minor annoyance, we both enjoyed the massages tremendously. They were quite relaxing in spite of already being in a highly relaxed state resulting from the two weeks at sea.
The other big event of the day was, of course, the BCS semifinals. Because we are in a time zone two hours later than Atlanta, the first game, Georgia versus Oklahoma came on at 7:15 pm. We watched that in the MIX. This is a small bar in the center of the ship. This bar has the only high definition TV on the ship. There were other Georgia fans (none that admitted to being from Oklahoma) and we managed to pretty much take over the bar. The bartenders turned the music down and the commentary up. It was a great game with both sides playing well. Georgia won in the first double overtime in Rose Bowl history. I told Barry it was surreal to be on a ship off the coast of South America watching a championship football game live.
We also wanted to see the Alabama versus Clemson game but it didn't come on until after 10:45 PM local time. It had started by the time the Georgia-Oklahoma game ended. After checking the score as ESPN switched over to the game, we headed back to our cabin and watched a few minutes as we were getting ready for bed. When we turned it off Alabama was ahead. Roll Tide! From the news stories this morning, it wasn't as hotly contested and Alabama won. So the championship will be two SEC teams and we are looking forward to seeing it when we get home.
The bar where we watched the BCS semifinals.
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Jan 2, 2018: Puerto Madryn, Argentina. Today we are in port. We have no shore excursions planned but will go ashore later in the morning and walk around. This looks like a modern city with some small skyscrapers.
Puerto Madryn, Argentina with some low-rise skyscrapers.
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A view of the port buildings of Puerto Madryn from our ship.
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A street in Puerto Madryn, Argentina
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A monument in the town square to General Don Jose de San Martin, Liberator of Argentina
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Lori and Barry enjoying the central square in Puerto Madryn
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Advertisements of the latest movies playing. We were tempted by the Star Wars, dubbed in Spanish with subtitles...
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A scrap metal sculpture along the tree lined beach path. Our cruise ship made cameo appearance in the background.
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The beach at Puerto Madryn. It was a lovely warm day - mid 70's with sunshine and a light breeze.
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We had dinner in the Canaletto again and then went to music trivia, hoping to sweep with a win for the 80's. David our team mate met us there and he and Barry did really well. But there was another team who scored a perfect score and we didn't win. It was still a lot of fun. There were bonus points for dancing to certain songs and Barry took one for the team and participated in that.
Jan 3, 2018: Today is our last day at sea on this trip. It is also one last gala night. We picked up our passports this morning and said good bye to one of our cabin stewards, a young woman named Ufiq. Her contract is up and she will fly from Montevideo to Jakarta tomorrow for 2 months off to visit her family near there. She was very excited to be going home for a while.
As passengers who have previously cruised with Holland America, we got to go to the Captain's lunch today. It is a fancy affair in the Rotterdam dining room where he says a few words and proposes a toast. Our tablemates were from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. They were a very interesting couple. When they heard we were from Atlanta, asked if we had ever visited the giant panda exhibit at the Atlanta zoo. She followed the panda-cam when our first baby panda was born.
The rest of the day has been low key and somewhat bittersweet. We are excited at the prospect of going home but also a little sad that our adventure is coming to an end.
We won music trivia again - this time movie tunes. There were some pretty obscure ones - Kevin got "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" and "Braveheart" while Barry got "Back to the Future". One more music trivia tomorrow night.
Today the roof to the pool area was opened for the first time since Santiago. We are definitiely heading into warmer climates. This is a view of the pool from the deck above, through the open retractible roof.
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Jan 4, 2018: Montevideo, Uruguay. A rather modern city with a pretty skyline. As we came into the harbor there was an increasingly narrow passage. Then at the end the boat made a right turn and slide sideways into the dock, avoiding another cruiseship, the rock jetty and the opposite dock. It was a pretty amazing feat of docking.
Montevideo, Uruguay as we came onto port.
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An interesting ship scrap yard located adjacent to the port where we docked.
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Midmorning we explored old town Montevideo with plans to eat lunch ashore. Walking around reminded us of the architecture and vibe of New Orleans. We found a small restaurant and had lunch - Barry had a Hamburgesa and I had a Chivito - a local sandwich which had a steak-like meat, cheese, egg, lettuce, tomato, mayonaise on a crispy bun. It was huge and I shared part of it with Kevin, who had ordered a salad. It was excellent. The meat had a wonderful flavor and very tender After lunch we strolled back to the ship, trying to stay in the shade. It was every bit as hot and humid as Altanta on a sunny July day!
Strolling through old-town Montevideo, Uruguay. The buildings have a French colonial look, much like New Orleans.
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This area of old-town Montevideo is a pedestrian mall with kiosks and small shops selling handcrafts, food, books and clothing.
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This beautiful building in old-town Montevideo is the home to Los Beatles Bar.
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Coca Cola is big in Montevideo. This storefront had some interesting vintage advertising.
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Barry relaxing in the small restaurant we selected for lunch.
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As we walked back to port, we passed through an open air museum with anchors and naval memorabilia. This is the anchor of the Graf Spee a German World War II battleship which was damaged in a
battle with the British on the Rio de la Plato or Plate river. It pulled into the port of Montevideo for repairs. The Captain became convinced that the British forces were overwhelming and set charges to
scuttle the ship in the harbor so she couldn't be taken. It was interesting there was a shore excursion centered around the history of the Graf Spee but it was only in German - for the German speaking passengers
(who seemed to be a rather large part of the ship's population).
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Our ship at the dock in Montevideo, Uruguay
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Back on board the ship we ate dinner and met in the Crow's Nest for one last round of music trivia. This time was the 70's again. And we won an unprecedented fourth time. The juggernaut of Barry, David and Kevin were unstoppable! The rest of us were just along for the ride.
After trivia Barry and I went out on deck to look at the stars. Unbelievably, this was our first and only completely clear sky of the entire cruise. It was a gorgeous night, beautifully clear skies and a warm breeze. The Rio de la Plata (Plate River) was very calm and it seemed like the boat had very little motiion. Barry got out the tripod and tried to take some photos.
Orion - but he's upside down to how we normally see him. And in spite of how calm the water felt, this 30 sec exposure shows the ship was moving. This is why you can't really do any serious astro-imaging from onboard the ship.
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A view of the Southern Cross (the four star kite-shaped pattern in the center of the picture) which not visible in the northern hemisphere. The stars make a sine-wave pattern from the motion of the ship.
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The large and small Magellanic Clouds are companion galaxies to the Milky Way. They are also only visible in the southern hemisphere and were first reported by Magellan in 1520. They are more distinct to the naked eye than in this 30 sec exposre.
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Moon rises on the water can be as spectacular as sunsets on land. The first indication is a small orange glow on the horizon and then the moon slowly gets to its full shape.
The orange color continues until it gets pretty high in the sky.
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Jan 5, 2018: Buenos Aires, Argentina. We are here for two days with disembarkation tomorrow morning. We had two shore excursions planned - Argentina cultural highlights and the El Ateneo Grand Splendid
bookstore in the morning and a Tango show in the evening. The ship was located in a working industrial port so Argentina officials required ships passengers to
board a shuttle bus to be driven to the main terminal, get off the shuttle, go through the terminal building and immigration, and then find your tour bus at the other end. They control the number of
shuttle buses and the entire process was painful as it is slow and very inefficiently run.
Once on the tour bus, we drove through Buenos Aires to the Recoleta neighborhood, where the wealthy live and Recolata cemetary where they are buried.
The neighborhood and some of the avenues reminded me of Chicago with highrise apartments and condominiums and upscale retail stores and restaurants on the ground floor.
The traffic, at 10 AM on a Friday morning, was about what would be expected in a large urban center. Rather than turn signals the liberal use of horns seems to be the primary means of communication
between drivers.
Driving through Buenos Aires.
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Driving through Buenos Aires.
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A McDonalds on Avenue 9 de Julio, a main thoroughfare in Buenos Aires.
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The most famous (outside of Buenos Aires) mausoleum in Recoleta cemetary is Evita Peron, former first lady of Argentina.
Every one in the cemetary is "buried" in above-ground structures holding multiple members of the same family, somewhat like you would see in New Orleans.
But, the opulence and granduer of some of these family burial sites is simply breathtaking. The guide told us that, currently, a plot might sell for two hundred fifty thousand US dollars to
several million depending on location and then you start building. After that, there is a yearly tax bill. Considering a typical plot was about 6 ft by 10 ft, that is probably the most valuable real estate on the planet.
The entrance to Recoleta Cemetary.
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A rather impressive mausoleum just inside the entrance to Recoletta Cemetary
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Multiple tombs in Recoleta Cemetary.
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A side street in Recoleta Cemetary
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The mausoleum of the Duarte family, including Eva Peron (Evita). She was moved here in the early 1970s (after her body was returned from Europe where is had been stolen and secreted) and
is not buried with Peron. It is a rather modest structure by Recoleta standards. Her plaque is at the lower right hand corner.
As you exit Recoleta Cemetary.
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After visiting the cemetary we moved on to the El Atenao Grand Splendid bookshop, a bookstore housed in the former Grand Splendid theater which was built in 1919. The former stage is now a coffee shop where people can have a coffee and browse their purchases. In spite of the decline of brick and mortar bookstores in the US, Argentina had at least one every block, always combined with a coffee house. The booksore is in an older neighborhood with some spectacular architecture.
The El Ateneo Grand Splendid Bookstore
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A view of the ceiling fresco in the El Ateneo Grand Splendid bookstore.
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Buildings lining the street near the El Ateneo bookstore.
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Across from El Ateneo bookstore.
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After leaving the bookstore we drove through additional areas of Buenos Aires as our guide described life in Argentina. We found out that Evita Peron is still extremely popular among the citizens for her charitible works and support of the unions. The Andrew Lloyd Weber production of Evita never played in Argentina. And health care and museums are "free". Also they never miss an opportunity to impress upon the tourist that the Isla Malvinas (the Falklands) are illegally occupied by the British.
A mural of Evita Peron on the side of a building.
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The British Tower - a gift from local British citizens in 1910 to Argentina to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Argentine independence. Since the 1982 war, it is only called Torre Monumental (Tower Monument). Originally it was called Torre de los Ingleses (Tower of the English).
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An interesting juxtaposition of old and new combined into this building with a tower from the early 1900s attached to a very modern glass structure. There were numerous examples of this in Argentina.
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The Argentine Supreme Court building. Our guide indicated much of the "old" architecture came from the early 1900's when Argentina was a very rich country.
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Typically you saw only really tall doors in buildings, like the one on the right. Or you saw normal size doors like the one on the left. This building incorporated both.
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This was a very interesting "live" wall growing vertically above the top of this store. The plants were amazingly healthy and lush.
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When we returned to the ship, we held a family caucus and decided that with it being the last night combined with the hassle of leaving the ship, we would skip our "Tango" shore excursion. We had packing to do and we were all tired. So we had a quiet evening on the ship and went to bed relatively early. We had to be up and on the dock between 6 and 6:15 AM to catch our shuttle to the airport.
Jan 6, 2018: Heading Home. Everything had gone so well up until now you just knew something would go badly wrong today. We were on the dock at 6:05 AM, suitcases in hand, with a bonus breakfast in our tummies and our expedited departure tickets in hand!
We were confused as we came down the ramp as there was a terminal shuttle sitting, with doors open, suitcases clogging the aisles and only one-quarter of the seats occupied. There were more people waiting and no one providing information. We found out that the terminal shuttle couldn't leave until the other shuttle arrived and there was no more room on this one because they couldn't accomodate any more baggage. So we waited.
When the new terminal shuttle arrived, everyone hustled aboard anxious to get to the terminal where we could get on the airport bus. It is an hour drive to EZE (Ministro Pistarini Airport, Ezeiza, Argentina) International Airport and it is recommeded that you are there 3-4 hours before flight time. Most of the folks with expedited departure were on the 10 AM flight to Miami. But the shutle didn't move. We waited and waited. Then several Holland America employees start loading some equipment for a handicapped passenger whom we had seen around the ship, further delaying our departure. What was confusing is that the passenger in question was not there. The shuttle finally drove to the terminal, we exited, walked through the terminal and immigration and got to where the airport bus was supposed to be waiting.
There was no bus, but instead a large passenger van. It did not have the capacity for all of the people and luggage who were now standing there. Priority was given to the handicap equipment. And then a Holland America representative tells us there is a "problem" - essentially we missed the airport bus because it left at 6:30 AM promptly and we (and the other 15 people) should have been there "on time". Wrong answer. He then informed us they'd load the equipment and then he'd have to "see what he could do." It was now 7:05 AM and Kevin was at risk of missing his flight.
After a quick family caucus, we headed for the taxi stand. We negotiated with the drivers as they decided whose small taxi could handle three people and 5 suitcases. But we were soon on our way to the airport. And as they used to say in the old westerns, "Don't spare the horses!" Well our driver, bless him, got us to the airport in 45 minutes and for his trouble, Barry tipped him generously.
Kevin got through the American Airlines line, checked his bag and then headed for security, immigration, etc. Barry and I walked over to Terminal C where our flight was going to leave from at 9:30 PM that evening. Our plan was to check our bags and then camp out and wait.
And thus began the longest day of our lives. Delta's presence here is virtually non-existant which is pretty humorous since all of their "Sky Team" partners (and branding) are all over this terminal. The Aerolineas Argentina agent went so far as to tell us Delta flies from a different terminal. So the things we learned: Customs and immigration control check-in and that only starts 4 hours (precisely) from your flight time. There is no individual branding for any of the Delta sky team partners (except Aerolineas Argentina) and they all share the same 12 check-in desks. TV screens above the area show their individual airline names only when they are actively using the desks. Very few people in the international airport speak any language other than Spanish. And no one really knows or can communicate the "big picture" of how this is supposed to work nor are there any instructional signs.
The flight check-in area of Terminal C, Ezeiza International Airport, Buenos Aires, Argentina. We sat here from around 9 AM until 5:30 PM when we were allowed to finally check-in for our flight. It was new, clean and had a restaurant, snack shop, and a money exchange. Kevin warned us that in many international airports they don't allow you to check in prior to 4-6 hours before your flight.
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This is the main international Argentine airline and from the number of check-in positions, I would have assumed that there were lots of flights. In the 8.5 hours we were watching only two flights were called. Perhaps the terminal is designed for growth. They were also totally unaware that Delta is one of their partners, in spite of the prominant "Sky Priority" labeling.
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The flight check-in area for the "Sky Team" members - Delta, British Airways, Air France, among others. Notice the lack of any instructional information, individual branding, etc. The generic tv screens would provide useful information only if a flight was being called. Otherwise passengers were out of luck.
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So, based on information that Delta would show up at 4 PM, people started queing up around 3:30 PM. When we started to fill in the queuing maze, a person materialized and said we couldn't do that, because we had to go through security first. All of us are thinking "What? The agent that checks to see if we have a boarding pass?" But we back out and form a queue outside of the maze. Then someone comes and rearranges the podiums - there are 6 which is kind of confusing. Then Argentine immigration officers appear and man the podiums. Since we had seen at least 6 international flights take off during the day and none had gone through this process we were wondering what was happening. And the immigration officers are all standing there with their hands folded, waiting.
At precisely 4 hours from flight time, an immigration supervisor opens the line to allow the passengers to advance to the immigration officer, who examines your passport, laboriously writes down all of the passport information in a log and provides you with a sticker for each checked bag and one on each passport. Only then can you proceed to check your bags. So you move forward to stand in the normal bag check queue and then finally get to proceed to security.
Security was interesting - nothing comes out of your bag, not liquids, not laptops, you leave your shoes, watches and belts on and then every person goes through the XRAY machine and sets it off. So every person gets a pretty invasive pat down.
Next step is immigration, the sequal. Another line, your party speaks to another immigration officer who scans your passport, takes your photo and your right thumb print and stamps your passport. Given this step I am not sure what the point of the first group of immigration officers was.
You are finally allowed into the terminal which was modern and new. We were told that it was recently built. We ate dinner and then waited for our flight to be called. And guess what, another passport check and individual hand inspection of each and every carry-on bag. Finally we board for the 10 hour flight home!
It was a great trip and we enjoyed exploring South America, seeing the Falkland Islands, following in the footsteps of Magellan and Darwin and, of course the spectacular beauty of Antarctica. It is a trip we will always cherish in memory.
