My airplane trip was just fine.. first class in the US and Business First in
South America with a seat that fully reclined into a bed.. amazingly
comfortable except for the gentle snores from a neighbor. Great treatment from the
airline FA´s and more food than I could eat.
Marty and I mat the airport okay and after I negotiated a good cab fare, we
got to our very nice hotel in Valparaiso, about 70 miles away. We rested a
while and decided to go check out a flea market. On the way walking there, he
stopped to change some money. Then afterwards, walking further someone got into
his pocket and stole his wallet. No chance to stop the thief and we just
gave up on it. Happily, I had bought him a new wallet and found it in my bags.
He notified Mastercard and tried to notify his others but didn´t know the card
numbers. They said he won´t be responsible. (in fact, no card was ever
used, much to his relief). I gave him a credit card and some more money and we
did just fine..
We had a great dinner in the most expensive place in town which cost us
around $25 each for an appetizer apiece of avocado, mine with fresh and fabulous
heart of palm, his with chicken salad. Then we had a salad of tomato and onion,
then he had sole with mushrooms and I had sea bass with a rich, wonderful
sauce with shrimps. We eschewed dessert - no place to put it.
Then, the next day, while waiting for our third musketeer to arrive we
arranged a tour of the city with an English speaking taxi driver we had en route to
the restaurant.
We enjoyed the rest of our stay in Valparaiso, getting onboard the Royal
Princess with no hitches. The ship is very old but one of the line´s most popular
ships. Indeed, in the spring of this year and next they are refurbishing her
and it will be interesting to note how they do this. 1200 pàssenger capacity
and it was full to the gills, with not even the possiblitiy of an upgrade (we
raced to the purser as we boarded to request one). Our cabin is fine - small
but adequate. Marty volunteered to do the upper bunk and he figured out a
route involving the chair, the desk and the upper bunk that obviates the need
for the ladder which was waking us all up with its rattle. Marty and Irene
shared a closet and I had the other which is 1/3 empty but they´re happy so I´m
happy. Irene took the shelf space and Marty and I are using the drawers. We
all fit and they wait eagerly for me to leave so they can play TV (which I just
hate) and all is copacetic.
The library was poor, with almost no new books but some goodies to be found.
Internet was way expensive (I can't wait to be a platinum member and have
free Internet on board) so I just waited to get to shore for $1.50 per hour
instead of the $30 on board. The dining room is low -- on deck 2 -- and was
incredibly noisy the first night with vibrations making the table rattle. Nothing
to do about it so I headed up to the Lido deck, expecting a buffet but where I
was pleasantly surprised to find a second dining room set up and lovely food
and service. That´s an alternative dining room where the waitstaff in training
work and there´s no extra charge. It occupies half the Lido buffet area, the
other half being occupied by a pizzaria (reported by others to be excellent).
Our trivia team dined there one evening, enjoying the food, the service and
the more convenient 7:30 (it's available until 2 a.m.) time for dinner. One
of the inconveniences on this (perhaps any) ship is that early dining is too
early and the late is too late at 8:15).
The food was wonderful.. the most beautiful plating I´ve seen on any ship.
Special nights included Italian, French and Russian , with specialties that
were wonderfully prepared. There was lobster Thermidor one night (too rich for
me) and the beef, mainly from Argentina, has been excellent. The lunch
buffets are good too, with nice soups and choices of salads and hot dishes. No
trays, just a huge plate and they´ll bring drinks for you. In all the food gets
A+ from me.
I´m told the shows are good.. I just don´t go to shows. Marty and I found on
the first day a delightful team for trivia and we play three times a day with
a couple from North England who are utterly charming and who will spend their
20th anniversary at my Las Vegas home (they were married there.. second
marriages for each) and a gay couple from San Francisco who have been together some
40 years, charming and delightful men.
I won a $50 gift certificate for pearls and someone who won a $100
certificate for opal gave it to me I was supposed to spend it on opal but they are
worked out a way for me to buy a really nice tanzanite-diamond ring using the
certificate. I also bought a nice black pearl bracelet (fabulous fake) with the
use of the $50 certificate.
Our first tour was in Puerto Montt (Montt Port) which was colonized by
Germans in the nineteenth Century before Germans were bad guys. We took Harriet´s
recommended tour and loved every minute of it.. the drive through the Lake
District, with photo ops, the catamaran ride on Emerald Lake, the walk (difficult
but not impossible) to the waterfall and the wonderful lunch and later
shopping opportunity. I bought, at the waterfall site, a wonderful rug made, I
believe, of llama skins.. very, very soft wooly rug (about 6' by 4', now on my
wall), with a design of a llama in a field of white wool, with surrounding
geometric designs. This cost only $150 (cash, as was needed for virtually every
purchase on the trip.. note to myself; it WAS a good idea to bring so much cash).
We then had three days of cruising through magnificent fjords and ice
waterfalls and some incredible glaciers. The weather was more than good - we were
very lucky through the entire trip, not missing any ports and having excellent
clear days for viewing. Bought some nice things at a craft fair in Punta
Arenas (sandy point), including three alpaca sweaters... two really are jackets..
and lots of small souvenirs including lots of lapis .. very inexpensive there.
I bought a nice necklace of lapis with plain metal that looks like silver..
only $10 and a wonderful lapis penguin with a copper nose and beady red eyes,
a real charmer. Some souvenirs for others, but really not much. The sweaters
were really fabulous buys at $30 US for the jacket types and $15 for a
lighter cardigan.
We proceeded from Punta Arenas to Ushuiah where we took Harriet's advice and
took a catamaran tour of the Beagle Canal, seeing lots of wildlife but still
so far no penguins.. our trip indeed ended without seeing a single penguin
because the rookeries are generally quite far from the towns. Having seen them in
aquariums all around the States, I stood that without disappointment. We did
see a bazillion cormorants, including the King cormorants which walk and look
for all the world like small penguins, dressed in their formal tuxedos. We
also saw seals and sea lions, mainly lazing around on rocks enjoying the
sunlight. Later on we learned why they were so happily lazing around.. they are in
their breeding months.. takes a year of gestation and the male has quite a
large number of females to impregnate.. the guys get all the fun!!
Back to the ship and the best part of the cruise was coming up. That was the
day we rounded Cape Horn. Apparently on previous trips, the company had not
paid the Chilean pilots to come and guide the ship around that interesting
"horn" rock formation (looks like a double pointed hat) but this day they were
present and we sailed very close to it and right around it. The seas were calm
for the area but it was very dramatic, scary and exciting - exhilarating!
Would not have wanted it any wilder but it was perfection. Very strong winds,
rocking waves, when I moved away from the handrail to take a picture, the wind
threatened to knock me over. I was with a Chilean woman and she said what I
was thinking, that this was the realization of a lifelong dream. I could only
imagine how horrendous this would have been in a sailing ship; no wonder there
were mutinies.. the sailors must have thought they were going right over the
end of the earth. The Panama Canal is such a calm alternative, not to mention
saving so much time and distance, it's no wonder the ports in this part of
the world lost most of their business once it was built. As soon as we got
around the Cape, the Atlantic waters calmed down and the winds let up and the seas
were calm again.
From there we sailed northwest to Port Stanley, Falkland Islands. This is so
British you could laugh. With high prices as well (the Internet Cafe wanted
$5 for twenty minutes) so I refrained from using Internet. There wasn't much
to be seen though I did walk around town for an hour or so.
Two more days took us to Puerto Madryn, which was first settled by Welsh and
where you can get Welsh tea with scones and other goodies as well as visiting
sheep farms. We took a short tour (which we arranged on shore for a
reasonable $15 per person.. cash, as usual).. to a nature conservancy where we saw more
sea lions and some interesting birds .. the tour guide didn't know the
English name for those birds so you'll be left wondering. Some shopping, a visit
to the Internet Cafe and then I headed back on board.
We next visited Montevideo, Uruguay. This, as Harriet had said, is a sad,
gray city with not too much of interest to do other than shop, which we did, in
a "leather factory." We found some very inexpensive gift items and headed
back to the ship via free shuttle provided by the factory. There were other
shuttles to other factories and stores near the ship but we'd pretty much seen all
we wanted to and shopped enough so we went back onboard.
Disembarking at Buenos Aires was fairly easy. We needed to find
transportation from the ship to our hotel (found via Internet and a complete success as
far as we were concerned). We did find a van and for a pricy (but what could we
do?) $20 each, we were brought to the hotel. Unpacked and relaxed and then
began to explore this wonderful city. I'm in love with BA (as they call it)!!
Despite warnings (heeded) not to go out with jewelry or looking affluent, we
wandered around the shopping area of downtown where our hotel was located. We
found a nice restaurant for dinner, marveled at the low prices (the exchange
rate here, as opposed to most of the rest of the world at this time, is very
favorable for the U.S. dollar) and headed to our separate rooms for a nice long
sleep.
We took several tours in BA, including a city tour that was very much lower
in price than the one offered by Princess (no surprise), a tour of the Delta
area (3 million people live in BA and about 9 million within commute distance..
the Delta is a river that is full of sediment (quite brown in color) where
people have houses on its banks, and an interesting trip to a Gaucho ranch.
The gaucho trip was great!! The guide was quite good, giving us a lot of
information about BA as well as about gauchos, even offering maté for a taste.
The museum was fascinating, with calendars from the 30´s and 40´s and photos
and household goods from the nineteenth century as well. Lunch was not to be
believed, with fabulous salads of several types, two kinds of sausage, beef (not
rare enough for me.. sigh) and chicken that was out of this world. Then a
singing show and finally the gaucho show that was great fun. I wasn´t selected
for a (looked pretty sweaty) kiss but still had a fine time. We canceled our
dinner reservation.. too much food again 
On the second day in BA, we met our favorite shipboard companions, the trivia
team (called Marty's Team by the way), for an evening out with dinner and a
Tango Show. "Mr. Tango," recommended by our favorite onboard singers and trivia
hosts, Alan and Alana. The showroom was a long drive (a van picked us up)
from the hotel in a less expensive suburb. The room was huge, with a movable
orchestra pit and a stage along with trapezes for lovely entrances and exits.
The dinner was quite simply the best I've ever had at a dinner/show, with
excellent salad, veggies and a fabulous piece of very rare (per my request) beef,
the best I'd had to then. The show was two hours and fabulous, with five
pairs of tango dancers, showing us that wonderful dance in variations from the
comic to the passionate to the very dramatic. The singers were also excellent
and, judging by the audience reaction, the jokes were funny too. We embraced
our friends (whom we hope to see again before too long) and headed back to our
vans to the hotel. With the favorable rate of exchange, this evening set us
each back $48 plus tip, a great bargain.
There were other great meals in BA, including one, quite the best of my life
for a steak dinner, at a restaurant mentioned by Continental Airlines as the
best steak house in the world.
I can't wait to return to Buenos Aires for more of that fabulous shopping
with the exchange rate as it is. Just as examples, I bought wonderful flat
leather shoes that look Italian, with interleaved wide straps, for only $40 per
pair, a beautiful overnight case in leather suede, with leather fittings, simply
incredible, for $135 and a cotton sweater set for only $10. Anyone want to
make a shopping trip there with me next year?
Karen
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