Betsy and I decided to sail from Chile to Argentina on a Holland America Cruise with Judy & Bruce Gormans in March of 2015. We made this decision in October 2014, long before Betsy broke her leg. So the trip was touch-and-go until the last minute. Betsy was apprehensive about whether she would be fit to travel almost immediately after she was scheduled to get “weight-bearing” permission from Dr. Roth. But she decided to brave it, and we flagged all systems go.
Saintly Dr. Roth told Betsy on Friday 2/27 that she was clear to travel on 3/1. We had houseguests at the time, but managed to pack us both up without her setting foot upstairs.
The cruise will take us from Valparaiso down the Chilean coast 2000 miles to Cape Horn (500 miles from Antarctica), around the Horn, out to the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, then north to Montevideo, Uruguay and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The attraction of this trip for me is the globe; we’re going to one of the most singular places on earth, the bottom of the world. In fact, there will be few interesting stops along the way, and the weather is unlikely to be pleasant. It’s the singularity of the place that fascinates me.
3/2/15 – San Francisco 38°N
We flew out of SFO on Monday afternoon en route to Houston. Then we boarded a comfortable 737 with bulkhead seats for the nine-hour crawl to Santiago, Chile. That leg was tedious but easy, despite the fact that the authorities wouldn’t let Betsy bring her wheelie walker on board and she had to lurch from seat to seat to get to the first class bathroom. The plane gave us private (Ipad-sized) TV screens and a menu of maybe 100 movies to watch. I saw Into the Woods and Magic in Moonlight; Betsy saw Wild and Alexander/Day, to see how they ruined it (Hint: they ruined it).
We had both been scared of the long flight over the Andes, with its attendant bumps and grinds, but in fact we avoided turbulence, the Andes and even South America. The flight was almost completely over water. (A long stare at a globe convinced me that Santiago Chile is east of most of America, lying directly under Boston. Much of my mental South American geography was not equal to the facts on the ground. San Francisco is a good bit further from the Equator than is Valparaiso.)
3/3/15 – Valparaiso 33° S
We landed in Santiago, met up with the Gormans, and commandeered a taxi downhill to Valparaiso on the coast. The countryside was extremely evocative of California foothills in the summer (which summer in fact we are at the end of down here). I guess we were traveling thru the most prosperous parts of Chile; no third world ambience at all until Valparaiso, the seaport.
Valparaiso is an old city squeezed between hills and the sea, like Berkeley. It’s a mix of the upscale and the decrepit with the decrepit parts having most of the color and interest. The downtown section is organized around Plaza Sotomayer, a delightful name. I made a walking tour of the hills while the rest recouped from the flights. We had a wonderful fish meal up in the hills and crashed.
3/4/15 – 33° S – Valparaiso, aboard the tramp steamer
On to the cruise terminal. The terminal was located ½ mile south of our hotel near the water; the ship was ½ mile north of our hotel, also near the water. All the terminal facilities were third rate. When we boarded the ship, we had to mount a 55 degree ramp (That number was provided by the crew) with three Filipinos wrangling Betsy in her wheelchair. It was less fun for Betsy than it sounds.
The Holland America Zandaam, is an older (2004) smaller (1450 passengers) ship with everything reduced in size from what we’ve experienced before. The route is the one less traveled and rates the smaller vessel. Everywhere on board we experience smaller crowds, shorter waits, and on the downside, less ‘Elton John’ class entertainment. Food is fine.
We settle in quickly. Our ‘handicap’ stateroom seems large but may have the same square footage as the others, tho shaped differently. Our room is square, has no hallway, and includes a large convenient bathroom. The window gives out onto the stern, looking straight back, but unfortunately subsumes a bright outdoor light that’s lit whenever it’s dark, so we can’t leave the curtains open.
All days on board are alike. Meals punctuate the days and it’s hard to hold yourself to a strict regimen of no more than four. The gym is capacious and uninhabited; most people aboard have other ways of fighting off guilt.
We eat most of our meals in the sit-down dining room, where we get served by Indonesians. Filipinos man the rooms and helping jobs. Dutch and Scandos run the ship, and Americans run the entertainment. Caste is strictly enforced. In the greedy early days, we had multiple entrees and multiple multiple deserts. Now we get single entrees. Most meals Judy and I order the same things (it’s kind of eerie) and Bruce and Betsy, similar things. Sometimes we eat at a big table with strangers, but mostly just the four of us.
3/5/15 – 37° S
Sea day. Starting last night, we headed south from Valparaiso and it could have been 1538. There are no signs of civilization visible from sea anywhere south of Valparaiso. The sea was choppy the first night and the ship pitched a whole lot. I took it personally, our cabin being the stern-most cabin on the entire ship and thus having the greatest amplitude of pitch. Sheesh!
Betsy took time to acclimate to life aboard. For the first couple days, she stuck exclusively to the wheelchair, then graduated to the wheelie, then to occasional free walking. Now she goes everywhere on the boat under her own power and is largely self-sufficient. It has made a big difference to her morale to be able to get around to her own activities (like afternoon tea), and to be able to get to and from the cabin at will.
We’re spending lots of time in the library/computer café, which has the best reading chairs. We attend team trivial quizzes and generally come in 2nd. I’ve been going to the gym every day, and taking up entertainments like origami, cooking class, bridge, etc. There’s pretty good musical entertainment and a recent movie-a-day in the theater.
3/6/16 - Port of call: Puerta Montt. 42° S.
Puerta Montt was smoked out. Nearby forest fires made the whole area unbearable. The captain waited for roads to reopen; when they didn’t, he bailed and we headed for Chacabuco. Since there are only 6 ports of call, that was a loss.
We had already decided not to engage any of the ship’s excursions, which were quite expensive. Our plan was to wander into each town and see if there were local entertainments or local entrepreneurs selling tours and such. This plan had worked well in Mexico but may or may not work here. As the excursion czar explained, in Europe and Mexico there are scores of boats every week and locals can make a living supplementing what the cruise ships offer. Here there are just a few cruise ships a month and the local tour industry is undeveloped. We haven’t seen a single cruise ship since the Princess Ruby that was lying listlessly in Valparaiso, waiting to steam on to LA.
3/7/15 – Port of call: Chacabuco. 45° S.
Chacabuco is a village of 1300 souls at the bottom of Chilean Patagonia. People come here to enter or leave the vast recreation areas to its north. The village itself has little of interest. Passage there, as is passage to most of our stops, is by tender. Betsy was initially leery of the tenders, which have access from the boat via a staircase of 16 steps. In the case of Chacabuco, there was a further obstacle that she didn’t know about when you ascend from the tender to the pier up an 18-inch step.
Bruce, Judy, and I went to Chacabuco and went looking for a tour into the interior. Judy found a taxi willing to take us up north to a seemly city some 40 miles away. I declined due to time constraints but had a nice time walking the village.
Last night we left the protection of the inland waterway and re-entered the open sea. The result was a considerable pounding, which lasted all night. I had been scared that the action might produce seasickness or anxiety in me. Neither happened. No one slept much but the rough sea didn’t really faze us. We’re heading into some of the roughest and coldest parts of the world, and some rocking about seems appropriate to the adventure.
3/8/15. 48° S
Sea day, first of two in a row. Ship life during sea days fills up remarkably fully. There was a bridge game which I couldn’t squeeze in. The movie was Birdman, and we couldn’t make any of the three showings either. In the afternoon, we visited a fiord leading to a glacier at its interior point; a slightly romantic color that Judy called Windex Blue. The entertainment main event was a saxophonist who claimed close personal friendship with Kenny Gee and who was the featured subject in a bit of reality TV called “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” (a sentiment widely shared on board).
The entertainers aboard are:
· Unfeatured
o Four female dancers, the less said the better
o Two male dancers, flamboyant and watchable
o Four chantoozies, two each male and female, strutting thru predictable arrangements that are nevertheless easy to take and mostly on key.
o A backup band, better than we expected. They back up everything.
· Featured
o Adagio, consisting of a middle-aged Romanian fiddler and his young Romanian pianist, playing mostly classical stuff but also movie songs and the like. We enjoyed them very much and caught them every day across the ship from the library. That’s them you hear in the background.
o Simone, a Buenos Aires Bandonian player (a sort of reformed accordion) who plays tangos and other passionate stuff. He’s great!
o Stevie Jo, a fat British comic, also surprisingly first rate. He has a TV show called The Detectives coming out in the Fall.
o Miscellaneous guitar soloists and Springsteen impressionists
3/9/15 – 51° S.
Sea day. Today I transcribed the daily schedule into my phone so as to be able to plan better. Actually, the real reason was that I had a lot of stuff I wanted to do and I wanted everyone to see and admire my schedule.
This afternoon Simone and the Adagios played tangoes together and I could have watched for hours.
The big event today was our passage thru a ‘canal’ (a natural one) with only inches of clearance below. Interesting in theory, but lacking visual appeal, as a ship floating on inches of clearance looks exactly like one floating on miles of bottom.
Betsy got the bit between her teeth today. We and the Gormans have been plotting to turn every slight underperformance by the crew into a free visit to the fancy restaurant. So far, we’ve only extorted a somewhat cheaper Italian dinner and a dish of candies. But today Betsy discovered that the authorities have been hiding a double secret way to get mobile-impaired guests onto the tender without having to climb a steep flight of stairs. She’s got them where she wants, and has a clear path to all the rest of the tender stops (weather, nerve and the creek don’t rise). Also maybe one or two free cruises in the future.
3/10/15 54° S – Punto Arena
Punto Arena, Chile is on the Magellan Straits just below Patagonia. It is a fairly large (pop 45,000) city that serves as the gateway into the recreation areas to the north. It looked clean and sparkling from our vantage point anchored in the lee of a small island 10 miles to its east, waiting for the harbormaster to change his mind.
We had sailed for two days from Chacabuco through the myriad of islands that defines Chile’s southwest coast. This is fractal land, where the chopped-up islands look the same at any magnification. The wind had picked up as we entered the wide part of the straits, but not enough to alarm anyone except the captain. He broke in over the PA at 7AM to announce that by God he’d get the old tub through somehow! The narrow- minded harbormaster had apparently closed the port of Punto Arena to small craft, which is to say, to everyone. Nothing larger than a paddle boat can dock there.
The captain added, in tones that showed real anxiety, that he had barely managed to find us a safe anchorage out of town, or a bit safe anyway, and that he had no more time to talk to us because he had to keep us safe. Not reassured, we gazed longingly at the magic city and cleaned our rooms.
At noon, the captain reassured us that we were still middling safe but Punto Arena was no go. Shut out for the second time in three tries! We would bear towards Ushuaia, Argentine, where there was some hope of docking because, well, we could dock right at the pier.
That night the two second-rate music acts combined for an extravaganza that was (choose one) first rate, second rate, or fourth rate. I re-watched Boyhood which stood up pretty well.
I love watching movies aboard ship. The theater (which doubles as a cooking demo stage) holds about 100 people and has a 7’ x 10’ screen and a digital projector. Many people (eg Bruce) don’t like the low resolution (probably 1800 x 1000). Others are willing to watch the great variety of DVDs shown on our tiny stateroom TV screen, which I find excruciating. It’s funny how we get used to the accommodations we make in our lives regarding entertainment and other important things. We humans love to make distinctions!
3/11/15 – 54° S – Ushuaia, Argentina
We slithered smoothly into Ushuaia by 11:30AM. No wind, not much sunlight, but fairly warm. Betsy and I hit land together for the first time this trip, she in her wheelchair. After a brief confab, the Gormans decided to take a taxi trip into the nearby Tierra del Fuego national park and Betsy and I did the town.
We later regretted this decision. Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, has lots of distinctions to its name:
· Southernmost post office in the world
· Southernmost golf course in the world
· Southernmost dog in the world
but it is far from the best paved city even in the lower reaches of Tierra del Fuego. Betsy suffered from constant gulches in the sidewalk and streets, and I wasn’t much happier. We took refuge in the southernmost Internet bakery in Ushuaia and caught up on the world for an hour. We bought our obligatory tablecloth, then trudged back to the ship.
I went back into town to investigate a prison museum on the site of a repurposed prison, which was built in the late 19th century as a kind of poison pill to prevent Chileans from wanting to settle in Tierra del Fuego. The prison was moderately successful as they measure these things, but in 1910 they moved it further north (ie further into the hinterlands) for ‘humanitarianism reasons’, however they measure those things. The former prison how holds a prison museum, an Antarctica museum, a maritime museum, and an art museum, all well done (well, I only saw the first three).
Antarctica is a big industry here. This is the jumping-off point for 90% of the trips to Antarctica, whose spiral arm reaches to 600 miles from Ushuaia. There’s an excursion you can take from the ship during its 8 hour stay in town that consists of flying down to Antarctica in a putt-putt plane, touching down, and returning, for I think $1200. That’s a lot of money but I didn’t find the prospect unthinkable, just a bit too dear. I might have done it for $400. When are you ever going to touch Antarctica?
Movie: Fury, exciting and conventional.
3/12/15 56° S – Cape Horn
The captain woke us up at 7:30 to come outside and watch us make Cape Horn. The Cape, the southernmost point in South America, is a stone massif that lies on an island called Horn Island. Until modern times, ships seeking to avoid the dangerous and time consuming passage thru the Magellan Straits or the Beagle Channel would choose to try rounding the cape, where they had “500 miles of open sea” to squeeze thru. The westerly winds from the Pacific to the Atlantic had other priorities. As a result, this ‘quicker’ passage sent 105 ships to the bottom in the single year 1905.
Like crossing the Equator, rounding the Horn is a rite of passage for 1st time sailors and we celebrated with hot chocolate.
Around noon we rounded the last promontory of South American continent (without seeing it) and headed out into the open Atlantic. The sea was initially smooth but roughened up in the afternoon. I played Bridge with a lovely lady from Austin Tx, missed the English Tea, and retired to the Lido deck to write this. The sea roughened into the evening, causing our plates and glasses to jump around, so we all four hunkered down in the movie theater (in the middle of the ship, experiencing optimal smoothness, which was not much) and saw The Imitation Game. It held up well.
3/13/15 52° S – Port Stanley, The Falkland Islands
We trundled into port this morning about 8. The sea was covered in fog. Betsy thought tendering was a possibility so we wandered down to the dock to inspect the stairway down to the tender deck. It was 16 steps down, no discount for seniors, and Betsy thought it wasn’t a good idea. She’s still under standing orders to attempt no more than 2 steps up or down.
Bruce, Judy and I went ashore to a quaint English village of ~1200 souls. More gift shops than your average 1200 person village, more memorabilia from the Falklands War (an international extravaganza dedicated to the de-invasion of a bumptious Argentine dictator and re-assignment of 2400 Falkland/Malvinas citizens) Argentina had been collapsing economically and decided distract the citizenry to press a 200 year old claim to the islands in which they briefly sponsored a settlement for 33 years in the early 19th century. Maggie got a massive boost from the success of the enterprise and from what I’ve read, Argentinians decided, to their regret, that they weren’t a European outpost in South America.
Bruce and I found a suitable Wi-Fi source and were able to check out email (Bruce 1, Joe 0). Judy went off to penguinland and was rewarded. Back on the ship, we headed north into the South Atlantic.
3/14/15 45° S
First of two sea days. Bumpy night tapering off into the day. We were honored by an invitation to the Captain’s Brunch, which true to its name was midway between breakfast and lunch. The meal was a bust, featuring food that 3 out of the 4 of us couldn’t eat and no hope of replacements. We would complain later, possibly with no effect. These sea days are punctuated by familiar activities: bridge for me, Tea for Betsy and Judy, trivia quizzes for all of us, strenuous exercise and work for Bruce. Meals are still an attraction and structure time. The movie was Theory of Everything; the main show was a pretty good comic. We had to choose one.
3/15/15; 40°S
Discovery of cruising. Sitting on the top stern deck, smooth sea, watching the wake churn up the sea endlessly, I remembered why people go to the sea. Betsy, Bruce and Judy joined and everyone commented “why didn’t we do this before.
Change of pace. To accommodate the Gaucho/Pampas show plus a desirable movie, dinner had to give. We ate with the plebes up in the Lido and quickly understood why we never tried that before. Cafeteria dinner is neither festive nor leisurely, nor even good. So we learned something.
Movie: Pride.
3/16/15; 35° S. Port of Call: Montevideo
Montevideo sits on the northern lip of a big sideways “V” cut into the eastern shore of South America. The “V” is the delta of the Rio de la Plata, described variously as a small sea or the widest river in the world. The city holds half the population of Uruguay. First impression was of a European city down on its heels, but the shape of the sidewalks and streets, not that old but crumbling nevertheless, doesn’t denote prosperity.
Kate Gorman had declared her love for Montevideo but its charms eluded us. The four of us took off on a walking tour featuring our wheelchair. We penetrated to the furthest extent of the described loop then gave up and hoofed it back to the boat. Just too damn hard for too little payback.
After lunch, Bruce and I tried again. This time we managed a museum, breezily described as Pre-Colombian Uruguay but in fact a combination of contemporary artisan and old Mexican artifacts of some interest. We were the only visitors at the museum.
We did some people watching at a plaza café, then explored the Rampas on the other side of the peninsula, a worthwhile exercise. Walking around the city without targets turned out to be fun. Bruce considered briefly challenging some teenage boys playing soccer. Then he thought better of it.
3/17/15; 35° S. Port of Call: Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires sits on the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, the Silver River. I was curious why Argentina had so consistently been portrayed as a pain in the ass by American commentators, (having recently traveled to Cuba, another pain-in the ass country), so I dipped into Wikipedia to understand the story.
The history of this town suggests that BA has always been a European, left-wing indigestible lump in a conservative region dominated by landowning interests. The conflict between BA and the rest of Argentina accounts for much of Argentine history, as well as the history of Juan Peron, the frequent political unrest that has plagued this region, and the Falklands War, which we had just viewed thru the British POV.
Buenos Aires has been a favorite European destination since the 19th century. There have been huge influxes of European immigrants, German, Italian, and Spanish, including the largest Jewish community in South America. Between BA and its hinterlands there were frequent clashes, frequently accompanied by military force, until BA was granted status as an autonomous Federal city.
Juan Peron, a former labor minister supported by laboring masses, tried to steer clear of the dominant East West division of the world after World War II, and thereby ran afoul of the US and its interests. He was elected president 3 times between 1945 and 1973. His current reputation as a fascist is probably undeserved. His wife and vice president Eva Peron ran a government-funded charitable foundation that consumed 1% of Argentine’s resources. Needless to say, she was beatified by ‘Los Descamisados’ (the shirtless ones), especially after her death in 1953 at age 32.
Another free-hanging fact: Britain invaded Argentina twice beginning in 1806, attempting to seize the country just as Spanish rule was slipping away, and held onto the territory for a few years before being swept out by an army come down from Uruguay. There’s still no good feeling in Argentina towards the English speaking world. After the Falklands war, the Argentines imposed a ‘reciprocity fee’ of $160 per person against us (them) which we had no choice but to pay to enter the country.
So, Buenos Aires. We four ventured out and hired a taxi driven by Sergio (“My English is perfect”). Judy, Sergio, and I managed to understand each other tolerably well. We saw the ‘highlights’, visited the Café Tortoni, which we loved, and then repurposed the tour to show us Jewish Buenos Aires.
In the Jewish district, we saw synagogues but could not enter any, as they were guarded and required their rabbi’s written consent to enter. Argentina has had considerably anti-Semitic agitation over the years. Peron admitted many ex Nazis to the country, but also promoted Jews to positions of power. After he was overthrown in 1955, large number of Argentine Jews emigrated in response to increasing anti-Semitism.
The current uproar over President Cristina de Kirchner vs Prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who died mysteriously hours before testifying against Kirchner in Argentine Congress, involves allegations that Kirchner collaborated with Iran to suppress evidence tying Iran to an attack on Jews in BA in 1994. The controversy just keeps growing.
We spent the last night of our cruise on board, eating.
3/18/15; 35° S. Port of Call: Buenos Aires
We debarked Thursday morning, moved our bags to Judy and Bruce’s apartment in Recoleta, and set out to see the neighborhood. Bruce and I visited the Recoleta cemetery, took a snapshot of Evita’s mausoleum, then ate ice cream. That evening, Betsy and I went to the airport to fly to Houston. An easy if long flight, we then camped endlessly in Houston before flying to SFO.
Saintly Dr. Roth told Betsy on Friday 2/27 that she was clear to travel on 3/1. We had houseguests at the time, but managed to pack us both up without her setting foot upstairs.
The cruise will take us from Valparaiso down the Chilean coast 2000 miles to Cape Horn (500 miles from Antarctica), around the Horn, out to the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, then north to Montevideo, Uruguay and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The attraction of this trip for me is the globe; we’re going to one of the most singular places on earth, the bottom of the world. In fact, there will be few interesting stops along the way, and the weather is unlikely to be pleasant. It’s the singularity of the place that fascinates me.
3/2/15 – San Francisco 38°N
We flew out of SFO on Monday afternoon en route to Houston. Then we boarded a comfortable 737 with bulkhead seats for the nine-hour crawl to Santiago, Chile. That leg was tedious but easy, despite the fact that the authorities wouldn’t let Betsy bring her wheelie walker on board and she had to lurch from seat to seat to get to the first class bathroom. The plane gave us private (Ipad-sized) TV screens and a menu of maybe 100 movies to watch. I saw Into the Woods and Magic in Moonlight; Betsy saw Wild and Alexander/Day, to see how they ruined it (Hint: they ruined it).
We had both been scared of the long flight over the Andes, with its attendant bumps and grinds, but in fact we avoided turbulence, the Andes and even South America. The flight was almost completely over water. (A long stare at a globe convinced me that Santiago Chile is east of most of America, lying directly under Boston. Much of my mental South American geography was not equal to the facts on the ground. San Francisco is a good bit further from the Equator than is Valparaiso.)
3/3/15 – Valparaiso 33° S
We landed in Santiago, met up with the Gormans, and commandeered a taxi downhill to Valparaiso on the coast. The countryside was extremely evocative of California foothills in the summer (which summer in fact we are at the end of down here). I guess we were traveling thru the most prosperous parts of Chile; no third world ambience at all until Valparaiso, the seaport.
Valparaiso is an old city squeezed between hills and the sea, like Berkeley. It’s a mix of the upscale and the decrepit with the decrepit parts having most of the color and interest. The downtown section is organized around Plaza Sotomayer, a delightful name. I made a walking tour of the hills while the rest recouped from the flights. We had a wonderful fish meal up in the hills and crashed.
3/4/15 – 33° S – Valparaiso, aboard the tramp steamer
On to the cruise terminal. The terminal was located ½ mile south of our hotel near the water; the ship was ½ mile north of our hotel, also near the water. All the terminal facilities were third rate. When we boarded the ship, we had to mount a 55 degree ramp (That number was provided by the crew) with three Filipinos wrangling Betsy in her wheelchair. It was less fun for Betsy than it sounds.
The Holland America Zandaam, is an older (2004) smaller (1450 passengers) ship with everything reduced in size from what we’ve experienced before. The route is the one less traveled and rates the smaller vessel. Everywhere on board we experience smaller crowds, shorter waits, and on the downside, less ‘Elton John’ class entertainment. Food is fine.
We settle in quickly. Our ‘handicap’ stateroom seems large but may have the same square footage as the others, tho shaped differently. Our room is square, has no hallway, and includes a large convenient bathroom. The window gives out onto the stern, looking straight back, but unfortunately subsumes a bright outdoor light that’s lit whenever it’s dark, so we can’t leave the curtains open.
All days on board are alike. Meals punctuate the days and it’s hard to hold yourself to a strict regimen of no more than four. The gym is capacious and uninhabited; most people aboard have other ways of fighting off guilt.
We eat most of our meals in the sit-down dining room, where we get served by Indonesians. Filipinos man the rooms and helping jobs. Dutch and Scandos run the ship, and Americans run the entertainment. Caste is strictly enforced. In the greedy early days, we had multiple entrees and multiple multiple deserts. Now we get single entrees. Most meals Judy and I order the same things (it’s kind of eerie) and Bruce and Betsy, similar things. Sometimes we eat at a big table with strangers, but mostly just the four of us.
3/5/15 – 37° S
Sea day. Starting last night, we headed south from Valparaiso and it could have been 1538. There are no signs of civilization visible from sea anywhere south of Valparaiso. The sea was choppy the first night and the ship pitched a whole lot. I took it personally, our cabin being the stern-most cabin on the entire ship and thus having the greatest amplitude of pitch. Sheesh!
Betsy took time to acclimate to life aboard. For the first couple days, she stuck exclusively to the wheelchair, then graduated to the wheelie, then to occasional free walking. Now she goes everywhere on the boat under her own power and is largely self-sufficient. It has made a big difference to her morale to be able to get around to her own activities (like afternoon tea), and to be able to get to and from the cabin at will.
We’re spending lots of time in the library/computer café, which has the best reading chairs. We attend team trivial quizzes and generally come in 2nd. I’ve been going to the gym every day, and taking up entertainments like origami, cooking class, bridge, etc. There’s pretty good musical entertainment and a recent movie-a-day in the theater.
3/6/16 - Port of call: Puerta Montt. 42° S.
Puerta Montt was smoked out. Nearby forest fires made the whole area unbearable. The captain waited for roads to reopen; when they didn’t, he bailed and we headed for Chacabuco. Since there are only 6 ports of call, that was a loss.
We had already decided not to engage any of the ship’s excursions, which were quite expensive. Our plan was to wander into each town and see if there were local entertainments or local entrepreneurs selling tours and such. This plan had worked well in Mexico but may or may not work here. As the excursion czar explained, in Europe and Mexico there are scores of boats every week and locals can make a living supplementing what the cruise ships offer. Here there are just a few cruise ships a month and the local tour industry is undeveloped. We haven’t seen a single cruise ship since the Princess Ruby that was lying listlessly in Valparaiso, waiting to steam on to LA.
3/7/15 – Port of call: Chacabuco. 45° S.
Chacabuco is a village of 1300 souls at the bottom of Chilean Patagonia. People come here to enter or leave the vast recreation areas to its north. The village itself has little of interest. Passage there, as is passage to most of our stops, is by tender. Betsy was initially leery of the tenders, which have access from the boat via a staircase of 16 steps. In the case of Chacabuco, there was a further obstacle that she didn’t know about when you ascend from the tender to the pier up an 18-inch step.
Bruce, Judy, and I went to Chacabuco and went looking for a tour into the interior. Judy found a taxi willing to take us up north to a seemly city some 40 miles away. I declined due to time constraints but had a nice time walking the village.
Last night we left the protection of the inland waterway and re-entered the open sea. The result was a considerable pounding, which lasted all night. I had been scared that the action might produce seasickness or anxiety in me. Neither happened. No one slept much but the rough sea didn’t really faze us. We’re heading into some of the roughest and coldest parts of the world, and some rocking about seems appropriate to the adventure.
3/8/15. 48° S
Sea day, first of two in a row. Ship life during sea days fills up remarkably fully. There was a bridge game which I couldn’t squeeze in. The movie was Birdman, and we couldn’t make any of the three showings either. In the afternoon, we visited a fiord leading to a glacier at its interior point; a slightly romantic color that Judy called Windex Blue. The entertainment main event was a saxophonist who claimed close personal friendship with Kenny Gee and who was the featured subject in a bit of reality TV called “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” (a sentiment widely shared on board).
The entertainers aboard are:
· Unfeatured
o Four female dancers, the less said the better
o Two male dancers, flamboyant and watchable
o Four chantoozies, two each male and female, strutting thru predictable arrangements that are nevertheless easy to take and mostly on key.
o A backup band, better than we expected. They back up everything.
· Featured
o Adagio, consisting of a middle-aged Romanian fiddler and his young Romanian pianist, playing mostly classical stuff but also movie songs and the like. We enjoyed them very much and caught them every day across the ship from the library. That’s them you hear in the background.
o Simone, a Buenos Aires Bandonian player (a sort of reformed accordion) who plays tangos and other passionate stuff. He’s great!
o Stevie Jo, a fat British comic, also surprisingly first rate. He has a TV show called The Detectives coming out in the Fall.
o Miscellaneous guitar soloists and Springsteen impressionists
3/9/15 – 51° S.
Sea day. Today I transcribed the daily schedule into my phone so as to be able to plan better. Actually, the real reason was that I had a lot of stuff I wanted to do and I wanted everyone to see and admire my schedule.
This afternoon Simone and the Adagios played tangoes together and I could have watched for hours.
The big event today was our passage thru a ‘canal’ (a natural one) with only inches of clearance below. Interesting in theory, but lacking visual appeal, as a ship floating on inches of clearance looks exactly like one floating on miles of bottom.
Betsy got the bit between her teeth today. We and the Gormans have been plotting to turn every slight underperformance by the crew into a free visit to the fancy restaurant. So far, we’ve only extorted a somewhat cheaper Italian dinner and a dish of candies. But today Betsy discovered that the authorities have been hiding a double secret way to get mobile-impaired guests onto the tender without having to climb a steep flight of stairs. She’s got them where she wants, and has a clear path to all the rest of the tender stops (weather, nerve and the creek don’t rise). Also maybe one or two free cruises in the future.
3/10/15 54° S – Punto Arena
Punto Arena, Chile is on the Magellan Straits just below Patagonia. It is a fairly large (pop 45,000) city that serves as the gateway into the recreation areas to the north. It looked clean and sparkling from our vantage point anchored in the lee of a small island 10 miles to its east, waiting for the harbormaster to change his mind.
We had sailed for two days from Chacabuco through the myriad of islands that defines Chile’s southwest coast. This is fractal land, where the chopped-up islands look the same at any magnification. The wind had picked up as we entered the wide part of the straits, but not enough to alarm anyone except the captain. He broke in over the PA at 7AM to announce that by God he’d get the old tub through somehow! The narrow- minded harbormaster had apparently closed the port of Punto Arena to small craft, which is to say, to everyone. Nothing larger than a paddle boat can dock there.
The captain added, in tones that showed real anxiety, that he had barely managed to find us a safe anchorage out of town, or a bit safe anyway, and that he had no more time to talk to us because he had to keep us safe. Not reassured, we gazed longingly at the magic city and cleaned our rooms.
At noon, the captain reassured us that we were still middling safe but Punto Arena was no go. Shut out for the second time in three tries! We would bear towards Ushuaia, Argentine, where there was some hope of docking because, well, we could dock right at the pier.
That night the two second-rate music acts combined for an extravaganza that was (choose one) first rate, second rate, or fourth rate. I re-watched Boyhood which stood up pretty well.
I love watching movies aboard ship. The theater (which doubles as a cooking demo stage) holds about 100 people and has a 7’ x 10’ screen and a digital projector. Many people (eg Bruce) don’t like the low resolution (probably 1800 x 1000). Others are willing to watch the great variety of DVDs shown on our tiny stateroom TV screen, which I find excruciating. It’s funny how we get used to the accommodations we make in our lives regarding entertainment and other important things. We humans love to make distinctions!
3/11/15 – 54° S – Ushuaia, Argentina
We slithered smoothly into Ushuaia by 11:30AM. No wind, not much sunlight, but fairly warm. Betsy and I hit land together for the first time this trip, she in her wheelchair. After a brief confab, the Gormans decided to take a taxi trip into the nearby Tierra del Fuego national park and Betsy and I did the town.
We later regretted this decision. Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, has lots of distinctions to its name:
· Southernmost post office in the world
· Southernmost golf course in the world
· Southernmost dog in the world
but it is far from the best paved city even in the lower reaches of Tierra del Fuego. Betsy suffered from constant gulches in the sidewalk and streets, and I wasn’t much happier. We took refuge in the southernmost Internet bakery in Ushuaia and caught up on the world for an hour. We bought our obligatory tablecloth, then trudged back to the ship.
I went back into town to investigate a prison museum on the site of a repurposed prison, which was built in the late 19th century as a kind of poison pill to prevent Chileans from wanting to settle in Tierra del Fuego. The prison was moderately successful as they measure these things, but in 1910 they moved it further north (ie further into the hinterlands) for ‘humanitarianism reasons’, however they measure those things. The former prison how holds a prison museum, an Antarctica museum, a maritime museum, and an art museum, all well done (well, I only saw the first three).
Antarctica is a big industry here. This is the jumping-off point for 90% of the trips to Antarctica, whose spiral arm reaches to 600 miles from Ushuaia. There’s an excursion you can take from the ship during its 8 hour stay in town that consists of flying down to Antarctica in a putt-putt plane, touching down, and returning, for I think $1200. That’s a lot of money but I didn’t find the prospect unthinkable, just a bit too dear. I might have done it for $400. When are you ever going to touch Antarctica?
Movie: Fury, exciting and conventional.
3/12/15 56° S – Cape Horn
The captain woke us up at 7:30 to come outside and watch us make Cape Horn. The Cape, the southernmost point in South America, is a stone massif that lies on an island called Horn Island. Until modern times, ships seeking to avoid the dangerous and time consuming passage thru the Magellan Straits or the Beagle Channel would choose to try rounding the cape, where they had “500 miles of open sea” to squeeze thru. The westerly winds from the Pacific to the Atlantic had other priorities. As a result, this ‘quicker’ passage sent 105 ships to the bottom in the single year 1905.
Like crossing the Equator, rounding the Horn is a rite of passage for 1st time sailors and we celebrated with hot chocolate.
Around noon we rounded the last promontory of South American continent (without seeing it) and headed out into the open Atlantic. The sea was initially smooth but roughened up in the afternoon. I played Bridge with a lovely lady from Austin Tx, missed the English Tea, and retired to the Lido deck to write this. The sea roughened into the evening, causing our plates and glasses to jump around, so we all four hunkered down in the movie theater (in the middle of the ship, experiencing optimal smoothness, which was not much) and saw The Imitation Game. It held up well.
3/13/15 52° S – Port Stanley, The Falkland Islands
We trundled into port this morning about 8. The sea was covered in fog. Betsy thought tendering was a possibility so we wandered down to the dock to inspect the stairway down to the tender deck. It was 16 steps down, no discount for seniors, and Betsy thought it wasn’t a good idea. She’s still under standing orders to attempt no more than 2 steps up or down.
Bruce, Judy and I went ashore to a quaint English village of ~1200 souls. More gift shops than your average 1200 person village, more memorabilia from the Falklands War (an international extravaganza dedicated to the de-invasion of a bumptious Argentine dictator and re-assignment of 2400 Falkland/Malvinas citizens) Argentina had been collapsing economically and decided distract the citizenry to press a 200 year old claim to the islands in which they briefly sponsored a settlement for 33 years in the early 19th century. Maggie got a massive boost from the success of the enterprise and from what I’ve read, Argentinians decided, to their regret, that they weren’t a European outpost in South America.
Bruce and I found a suitable Wi-Fi source and were able to check out email (Bruce 1, Joe 0). Judy went off to penguinland and was rewarded. Back on the ship, we headed north into the South Atlantic.
3/14/15 45° S
First of two sea days. Bumpy night tapering off into the day. We were honored by an invitation to the Captain’s Brunch, which true to its name was midway between breakfast and lunch. The meal was a bust, featuring food that 3 out of the 4 of us couldn’t eat and no hope of replacements. We would complain later, possibly with no effect. These sea days are punctuated by familiar activities: bridge for me, Tea for Betsy and Judy, trivia quizzes for all of us, strenuous exercise and work for Bruce. Meals are still an attraction and structure time. The movie was Theory of Everything; the main show was a pretty good comic. We had to choose one.
3/15/15; 40°S
Discovery of cruising. Sitting on the top stern deck, smooth sea, watching the wake churn up the sea endlessly, I remembered why people go to the sea. Betsy, Bruce and Judy joined and everyone commented “why didn’t we do this before.
Change of pace. To accommodate the Gaucho/Pampas show plus a desirable movie, dinner had to give. We ate with the plebes up in the Lido and quickly understood why we never tried that before. Cafeteria dinner is neither festive nor leisurely, nor even good. So we learned something.
Movie: Pride.
3/16/15; 35° S. Port of Call: Montevideo
Montevideo sits on the northern lip of a big sideways “V” cut into the eastern shore of South America. The “V” is the delta of the Rio de la Plata, described variously as a small sea or the widest river in the world. The city holds half the population of Uruguay. First impression was of a European city down on its heels, but the shape of the sidewalks and streets, not that old but crumbling nevertheless, doesn’t denote prosperity.
Kate Gorman had declared her love for Montevideo but its charms eluded us. The four of us took off on a walking tour featuring our wheelchair. We penetrated to the furthest extent of the described loop then gave up and hoofed it back to the boat. Just too damn hard for too little payback.
After lunch, Bruce and I tried again. This time we managed a museum, breezily described as Pre-Colombian Uruguay but in fact a combination of contemporary artisan and old Mexican artifacts of some interest. We were the only visitors at the museum.
We did some people watching at a plaza café, then explored the Rampas on the other side of the peninsula, a worthwhile exercise. Walking around the city without targets turned out to be fun. Bruce considered briefly challenging some teenage boys playing soccer. Then he thought better of it.
3/17/15; 35° S. Port of Call: Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires sits on the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, the Silver River. I was curious why Argentina had so consistently been portrayed as a pain in the ass by American commentators, (having recently traveled to Cuba, another pain-in the ass country), so I dipped into Wikipedia to understand the story.
The history of this town suggests that BA has always been a European, left-wing indigestible lump in a conservative region dominated by landowning interests. The conflict between BA and the rest of Argentina accounts for much of Argentine history, as well as the history of Juan Peron, the frequent political unrest that has plagued this region, and the Falklands War, which we had just viewed thru the British POV.
Buenos Aires has been a favorite European destination since the 19th century. There have been huge influxes of European immigrants, German, Italian, and Spanish, including the largest Jewish community in South America. Between BA and its hinterlands there were frequent clashes, frequently accompanied by military force, until BA was granted status as an autonomous Federal city.
Juan Peron, a former labor minister supported by laboring masses, tried to steer clear of the dominant East West division of the world after World War II, and thereby ran afoul of the US and its interests. He was elected president 3 times between 1945 and 1973. His current reputation as a fascist is probably undeserved. His wife and vice president Eva Peron ran a government-funded charitable foundation that consumed 1% of Argentine’s resources. Needless to say, she was beatified by ‘Los Descamisados’ (the shirtless ones), especially after her death in 1953 at age 32.
Another free-hanging fact: Britain invaded Argentina twice beginning in 1806, attempting to seize the country just as Spanish rule was slipping away, and held onto the territory for a few years before being swept out by an army come down from Uruguay. There’s still no good feeling in Argentina towards the English speaking world. After the Falklands war, the Argentines imposed a ‘reciprocity fee’ of $160 per person against us (them) which we had no choice but to pay to enter the country.
So, Buenos Aires. We four ventured out and hired a taxi driven by Sergio (“My English is perfect”). Judy, Sergio, and I managed to understand each other tolerably well. We saw the ‘highlights’, visited the Café Tortoni, which we loved, and then repurposed the tour to show us Jewish Buenos Aires.
In the Jewish district, we saw synagogues but could not enter any, as they were guarded and required their rabbi’s written consent to enter. Argentina has had considerably anti-Semitic agitation over the years. Peron admitted many ex Nazis to the country, but also promoted Jews to positions of power. After he was overthrown in 1955, large number of Argentine Jews emigrated in response to increasing anti-Semitism.
The current uproar over President Cristina de Kirchner vs Prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who died mysteriously hours before testifying against Kirchner in Argentine Congress, involves allegations that Kirchner collaborated with Iran to suppress evidence tying Iran to an attack on Jews in BA in 1994. The controversy just keeps growing.
We spent the last night of our cruise on board, eating.
3/18/15; 35° S. Port of Call: Buenos Aires
We debarked Thursday morning, moved our bags to Judy and Bruce’s apartment in Recoleta, and set out to see the neighborhood. Bruce and I visited the Recoleta cemetery, took a snapshot of Evita’s mausoleum, then ate ice cream. That evening, Betsy and I went to the airport to fly to Houston. An easy if long flight, we then camped endlessly in Houston before flying to SFO.