Blog Detail
- It Takes Two to Tango
- Tour of Chile & Argentina - Silverseas Cruise
-
This is the story of our South American adventures from December 18th 2007 to January 10th 2008.
However, the title was chosen months before we departed and in the event, the tango played such a small part in the trip (disappointingly) that it is somewhat irrelevant. Able to look back on the journey as a whole,
A more appropriate title is
A STORY OF THE HIGH ‘C’s – FROM CITY TO CAPE TO CATARATAS**Cataratas = cataracts as in waterfalls – but you will need to read right to the end to find out more!
The tense is likely to change from page to page – the diary is written up daily and dependant upon the time of day can be anticipatory or retrospective, so no apologies for lapses of that nature!Tuesday December 18th 2007
And so we set off on our travels leaving the Christmas mayhem behind us and the first entry in this diary is at 5.30pm in the Air France lounge at Heathrow. We are sorry to have missed Vicki from The Captains Choice Tour (to be known as CCT throughout this document) but having taken a look at the departure hall in T2 we decided it needed braving sooner rather than later. It was indeed chaos made worse by the teams of (mostly foreign) young people yelling ‘only one bag, only one bag’. I have still to see the point of making me force my handbag into my carry-on case only for me to walk round the corner and take it out again. Ah well, all makes work for idle hands and all that.
A couple of glasses of wine later we have mellowed somewhat and the next entry may well be when we reach the other side of the world some 7000 miles away.
Perhaps that was a little hasty of me! We were somewhat smug to see our flight to Paris was on time especially as the previous one had been cancelled. We were not so smug however on boarding to find that business class had been cancelled and where the table between us should have been, there was in fact a man! Added to that we were offered no apology at all and only plastic tumbler of tepid water as we sat on the tarmac for what seemed like forever waiting for a slot to take off. In fact that is all we got for the rest of the journey too!
Wednesday December 19th 2007
It is 8am ‘body time’, it is still pitch black and has been since 4.30 pm yesterday as we have spent the whole journey in total darkness. The time by the way is actually 5am local time.
We landed safely in Santiago, Chile at about 9.30am after one of the most spectacular fly-ins we have ever known over the jagged snow capped peaks of the Andes. With luggage safely received (thank you to the god of the luggage sorters) we were met as promised along with four other UK travellers and taken to Plaza el Bosque, our hotel for two nights. It didn’t take us long to find a pavement bar for a glass of Chilean wine and then a short stroll to find a restaurant for lunch – guess what, a really good steak!!
Tonight was the CCT welcome reception and dinner and chance to meet our fellow travellers along with the tour leader (Kerry), escort (Pat) and doctor. We always find these occasions somewhat difficult – what if we don’t like anyone ???. In the event we had a really great evening, full of laughter.
Thursday 20th DecemberA slightly surreal start to the day – breakfast on an outside patio terrace, 17 storeys up in glorious sunshine with the snow capped Andes as a backdrop. Today we had to get into ‘escorted’ mode, badged up and conforming – and we were all right on time, so that is an encouraging start!
Our city tour started by taking us into one of the city parks, the Parque Metropolitano on Cerro San Cristobal (cerro being hill). It is known as the city’s “ lung” and covers 1800 acres. We were taken to see the view of the city and even though we were really early, the smog (generally dust particles) was already settling so our view across to the 5000m high snowy peaks was obscured to some extent.
The plan was to tour La Moneda Palace in the Plaza de la Libertad, which is the Government palace rebuilt after it was damaged by bombs in a military coup on the orders of Pinochet in 1973. The bombing by the way was deliberate and the then president, Allende, committed suicide and Pinochet stepped in as a dictator to run the country for the next 17 years. Whether he was a good man or a bad man very much depends on where you are in the social pecking order.There was some sort of event going on so we only got to see the outside and we moved onto lunch which was in a seafood restaurant in the historic central market – the Mercado Central. The building’s steel structure was actually made in England and shipped over to be assembled. Lunch was good fun including the folk group serenade and CCT bonding continued apace. Almost forgot, we got our first Pisco Sour today – the ‘national’ drink made from Pisco (the local liqueur), lemon and egg white – very more-ish!
We found Santiago a fascinating mix of old and new, with a great deal of new development going on including a 72 storey building which will be the highest in South America. En route to a winery after lunch we drove past homes which were literally tin shacks cheek by jowl with luxury homes with swimming pools.
At Concho y Toro winery we got to sample wines and were given engraved glasses to take a souvenirs. The winery produces Chile’s most popular wines, in fact the lion’s share of them from inexpensive table wines to the most expensive Cabernet Sauvignons.
Friday 21st December
We ate as a group last night at a restaurant about three blocks from the hotel - I would describe the food as only OK however and that seemed to be the general consensus. First ‘bags out’ of the tour was 8am this morning and we were soon en-route to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar.
CCT seem to always use two buses so we are not crammed in and that’s really good as you can mix or not as you wish.
Our drive took us through a couple of the main agricultural valleys of Chile and we were both surprised at just how much is grown and exported from here – avocados, peaches, oranges, nectarines and vegetables of every description.
Valparaiso itself had little going for it other than as a port – it was scruffy, run down, busy and had little architecture of real interest – there was however a massive and unusual cemetery built high up on the cliffs over the sea – the dead are entombed above ground in what I can only describe as container storage for the deceased with mausoleums stacked one on top of the other – we were all very intrigued but sadly it was not on the ‘tour’ – we are promised another one when we reach Punta Arenas so maybe we will find out more then.
With excitement growing as the time to board Silver Wind approached, we lunched at Renaca Beach in Vina del Mar overlooking the ocean. Particularly prominent and pointed out to us was a white rock christened by our guide ‘Michael Jackson Rock’ – why? it used to be black but so many birds nest on it that it has changed to white……
So on board Silver Wind – not quite the slick welcome we had on Silver Cloud in 2001 but security is much tighter now and it is not possible to go straight to the suite to be checked in, we had to hand over passports in exchange for an identification card and then have photographs taken which, every time the card is swiped come up on screen. But the champagne was on ice in suite 628 and a waiter appeared with two glasses ready poured so we were not too disappointed!
We were encouraged to meet our fellow CCT travellers in the bar and then dine together split into various sized tables – we had great fun before heading to the casino with Geoff’s savings from his piggy-bank!
Some interesting observations were made during the dinner especially comparing other CCT tours which many of our fellow travellers have done. We have no preconceptions of course but some had very firm opinions especially that the city tours to date had not been up to scratch. It remains to be seen how things pan out but we are happy enough and certainly we learnt more than we would have on our own and the luggage handling is brilliant.
Saturday 22nd December
A day at sea getting our sea legs – it is pretty blowy on the top deck with a heavy swell but it is sunny and if you can get out of the wind, quite warm. Some hardy souls are stretched out in swimsuits by the pool – now that’s the last thing I thought to pack! We whiled away the day and managed to fit in a ‘blind’ champagne and sparking wine tasting – Geoff was a bit confused as he thought he had to wear the blindfold…….sad! However there was an amazing moment during the presentation when the lady head sommelier, Karolina, took the top off a bottle of champagne with a sabre! We have the cork encased in a ring of glass to prove it. This is a new trick to practice at home with my new set of chef’s knives.
It is the Captain’s welcome aboard cocktail party tonight and Geoff spent his first (of many) afternoons in the laundry pressing his clothes. Good way to meet ladies apparently.
Sunday 23rd December
Another riotous evening yesterday – seven of us for dinner – we are now starting to gather people and a reputation as well! A lady travelling alone with CCT joined us - she had been ill all day and staggered into the bar as white as a sheet asking for a soda water. I introduced her to the wrist bands (anti motion-sickness) which I had taken and which were also on sale on board – within 10 minutes of putting them on her colour was normal and she was ordering a Brandy Alexander! Then during dinner we spotted a very pretty young girl shown in and eating alone looking very sad – so we asked her to join us. And so we got to know Amy – from Florida one of the entertainers on board. She was delightful as well as being slim, red headed and simply gorgeous – Geoff was head over heels in love in an instant.
Today got off to a somewhat chaotic start as we are at anchor rather than in port at our first stop which is Puerto Montt. This means that tenders have to be used to get us ashore. The sea was pretty rough but we did make it and set off on a morning tour of the Chilean Lake District. A wee bit disappointing as I guess we are conditioned to the beauty of our own Lake District but they do beat us hands down at snow-capped volcanoes though!
We drove to Frutillar on the shore of the third largest lake in South America, Lake Llanquihue which is dominated by the perfect cone of the Osorno Volcano. Translated from Indian Llanquihue means hidden place.
Chile incidentally has a great education system, as well as a national health system that works. Children go to school from 8am to 6pm, get breakfast, lunch and tea and do supervised homework as well as activities before going home – the idea is to keep them off the streets. However what has already made an impact on us is the problem with graffiti that Chile has – it is everywhere you look and really hideous.
Deciding that the German museum held no interest for us we headed lake-shore for a coffee and thence to Angelmo where we were off the bus like horses out of a starting gate as it was – wait for it – a retail opportunity!!! Their Christmas market was quaint by our over-commercialised standards. It’s where the local people sell handicrafts they have worked on all year. Oh how they must love it when a ship load of cruisers come by.
Before going back to the ship we were taken to the town’s highest point so we could see Silver Wind in the bay - shame it was hidden behind the town’s ONLY high-rise!!! The tender journey back to the ship is the low point to date – I was terrified as the waves were breaking over the tender and actually we were taking in water. It got worse during the afternoon and Geoff spent most of it on deck watching the efforts of the tender crews and the docking crews trying to get (pale and green) passengers all safely back.
Monday 24th December
Christmas EveWe were greeted by a stunning sunrise over a snow-capped volcano – I know there is a danger of obsession creeping in here! It is only 7.15am and it is hard to tear myself away from the view.
It seems like today is destined to be full of surprises - the first being that the much anticipated catamaran trip to Laguna San Raphael and the ‘Blue Wall Glacier’ has been cancelled as the catamaran has broken down and there are no alternative vessels as we are so far away from anywhere. (We found out later that it had been damaged by a chunk of ice falling on it from the glacier). So as a result this is being written sitting on our veranda in boiling hot sun – that’s another surprise we were not expecting!We anchored at Puerto Chacabuco so that we could enjoy a hastily arranged drive to the Simpson River Reserve which is our consolation prize – but how Silversea must have worked all night to sort all this out!
So we set foot on Patagonian soil for the first time and learned a little bit of legend. The original Indian inhabitants used to make their foot coverings from llama bones and dry straw which left very large footprints behind. When the first explorers found them they named the county Patagonia which means ‘big feet’.
The scenery was spectacular even if the tour wasn’t the most exciting but we did get to see some local folk dancers and down a few more Pisco Sours to which we are becoming accustomed.
Tuesday 25th December and it is Christmas Day
My day got off to a lousy start – it was pretty rough overnight and I was extremely nauseous added to which the sore throat I had last night has really developed well. I couldn’t get out of bed and missed breakfast. I did rally enough to make it onto deck for some fresh air and Bloody Mary’s and promptly got my finger stuck in a folding chair which resulted in blood everywhere and a hasty departure off deck before I made a fool of myself!
The afternoon went past in a blur as we passed through what are known as the English Narrows. We did struggle to find them on our map but located them on one of the ship’s detailed maps to find to our astonishment that they separate the mainland from the Isla Wellington! They were pretty narrow too and there were many jokes up on the observation deck about hitting rocks etc. Silver Wind is one of the few cruise ships that can get through apparently.
Then it was off to wine and champagne tasting again and this time I managed to video the sabering of the cork! Soon after it was time for DJ’s and posh frocks and a pre-dinner concert with a wonderful Polish violinist and our lovely Amy again, then a choir made up from ship’s crew – as soon as the carols started I was homesick!
The choir which comprised room maids and engine room boys with some of the front of house staff were delightful - especially when you consider that English is not the first language of any of them. Colin Brown, (the Cruise Director and who was also on Silver Cloud with us) did a wonderful job to get them up to concert speed!
It was a party of 12 for dinner. . Some re-arranging of tables was needed as we had actually booked for 11 and that had used the biggest tabletop there was but the wonderful staff re-configured everything for us – the first time the restaurant has been re-laid during dinner in the ship’s history! The seven course meal did include turkey and all the trimmings but great as it was I couldn’t help missing our traditional lunch at home – maybe it was because by now I was feeling pretty lousy and in fact only managed a couple of dances at the disco before retiring to bed bravely leaving Geoff to carry on dancing.
Wednesday 26th December
Awoke to an amazing sight – the give-away being chunks of ice floating past the ship. The wonderful captain, knowing our disappointment at missing the San Rafael glacier, detoured to Sano Amalia (we can’t actually find it on the map and are a little confused as it might be the Upsala Glacier and the waterway that is called Sano Amalia), and had permission to take us as close as he dare. The leading edge of the glacier is as high as a 60-storey building but no way does either the film nor the photographs manage to convey that.
An interesting fact came to light which we had given no thought to – the land that surrounds us at the moment has never been walked on by any man – ever. Wow!
The day was spent rushing from one meal to the next, interspersed with rest periods as the weather had closed in during lunch and whilst the water is calm as we are not at open sea, the landscape has lost some of its drama.
We did fit a cookery demo in – the head Chef is David Bilsland, British and ex a number of prestigious London hotels and also Monkey Island in Maidenhead. Here’s a new saying for the record “A meal without wine is like a kiss without lips”!!
Tomorrow we dock at 2pm in Punta Arenas so I thought I would deal with the facts now, as it’ll start to busy up a little. Punta Arenas is the capital of the Magellanic and Antarctic region, which is the twelfth region into which Chile is divided. It is the most important city in Patagonia with much of the wealth coming from the estancias – sheep stations of the 1800s. In the summer fierce gales blow like hurricanes through the place (oh, I can’t wait!), to such an extent that they have to put ropes around the main plaza (square) for people to hold onto! Also if that wasn’t enough, the ozone layer here is non-existent at this time of the year, so tomorrow we can expect to be blown over and fried like eggs on the pavement! If we return unscathed this will be continued…..
Friday 28th December
It is 7am (this just gets worse, I was up at 5am as it was totally light – and it doesn’t get dark here until well after 10pm) and we have just been tugged into dock. Oddly the schedule seems to have changed as our paperwork gives a 2pm arrival time, the ships information says 8am and we are even earlier than that.
As we had an afternoon CCT tour, we decided to spend the morning on board, have a quick lunch and set off. Today it has come home very forcibly just how remote some of these places we are visiting really are. Tourism, especially from cruise ships must be relatively new and of course, these towns are not like docking in Sydney or Auckland, and there is really very little to do, other than use them as places to travel on from – which is what we are going to do tomorrow. Punta Arenas was much neater and cleaner than some we have visited to date but yet again everywhere is covered in graffiti.
Because there is so little in the town the tour was a bit tedious taking in the main square (phew! HUGE SIGHS OF RELIEF!!! no wind, no ropes), the Braun/Menendez cultural museum which is the former home of Mauricio Braun (Russian) and Josefina Menedez (Spanish) whose marriage united two of the largest fortunes in the Magellanic region - made from cattle and sheep and we think whaling as well. Their take on life was that they could only tolerate living in such remote outposts if they could live ‘splendidly’ and that’s just what they did. It was a beautifully preserved house with fantastic chandeliers and furniture – but there were no captions other than in Spanish, no head sets – none of the commercialisation that we are used to in our museums – in a way that was part of its charm but we were left a bit nonplussed and not really understanding what we were seeing.The main square was a bit of an adventure as they have a problem with stray dogs which had got into a bit of a spat, so we were surrounded by barking, snarling mangy dogs – when the town authorities wanted to cull them there was an outcry from animal activists so now the problem goes on getting worse. Something they will need to watch for the future I fear.
The square which is known as Plaza Munoz Gamero is dominated by a bronze statue of Magellan and surrounded by ‘lounging Indians’. We noticed that the foot of one of the Indians was highly polished – local folklore has it that if you kiss the foot of the Indian you will have good fortune and will return again to Patagonia. Is that good fortune as in not catching a disease transmitted by mouth….
Next on the tour was the Museum Maggiorino Borgatello which we found a total bore and a waste of an hour. It comprises a fusty collection of stuffed animals and bones as well as a fascinating model of an oil refinery.Our day ended with a superb classical concert with Amy, the violinist, the pianist and also Colin at the piano (as well as cruise director he is a classically trained musician).
Saturday 29th December
This is our long anticipated day for the flight to Torres del Paine national park and now I have a wonderful touch of (self diagnosed) air conditioning fever and one beautifully bloodshot eye. A 12 hour trip is not what I need right now but I am not missing this. More later!
This part is now written retrospectively – an early breakfast and down to join a an excursion. Very efficient transfer to the airport and onto a private charter for a hundred or so of us. 30 minutes later we landed at Puerto Natales – the tiny airport which doesn’t even have a telephone and has only one scheduled flight a day and that’s a nine-seater Cessna. This has to be marked down as the most remote airport we’ll ever fly to.
Before I describe the day, it’s worth a few words on Torres del Paine – torres means towers (three spherical granite towers that dominate the landscape) and paine is the Tehuelche Indian word for blue, for the shades of blue found in the glacial lakes. It is known as Chile’s prize jewel and apparently shot to fame after being used in a Chrysler ad campaign. Apparently there are few national parks in the world in its class. Formed volcanically 3 million years ago, alongside the Torres it also features the Cuernos – the horns which are a strange bi-colour formation as a result of the fierce effects of weathering. The park covers almost 600,000 acres and in 1978 was declared a World Biosphere Reserve by Unesco for its beauty and ecology.
The climate is mercurial in the extreme and we had been warned to expect that winds during December and January can reach 100mph and that it would be very, very cold.
So it was a varied assortment of hats, gloves, scarves, neck warmers, heavy coats etc that was on display in the coach as we prepared for the worst. Guess what – the park experienced one of its rare blue and relatively calm days – our guide told us that out of the last seven trips he has done there, he has only actually seen the Torres twice and one of those was today. In fact the coach had no air conditioning and at times we were extremely uncomfortable, as the driver didn’t want the roof vents open either, mainly due to the fact that the roads are unpaved and dusty and it was seriously windy at times!Our first treat came shortly after setting off on the coach enroute to the park where we were lucky enough to see condors circling overhead and landing on a cliff edge peering down at us! Their wingspan is about 6feet across. The journey took us through typical pampas areas with sheep estancias, beautiful horses along the roadside, guanacos (like llamas or alpacas) and rhea (like little ostriches).
First stop was Lake Saramiento which is 20km across and gave us an idea of the sort of colours we can expect to see. To be honest I could fill a book about this whole day but we got to see Lago Nordesnskjold, Lago Armaga (‘bitter’ lake full of colour from the minerals), the Salto Grande waterfall between Nordenskjold and Lake Pehoe – in fact we had lunch on a little island in Pehoe – reached by walking across a really rickety wooden bridge about a foot off the water and by this time the wind was whipping it up into significant waves, not for the faint hearted!We were lucky to get good views of the towers across Nordenskjold which are almost 10,000 feet high – they only glow red, as depicted in most of the tourist shots, at sunset however. The horns reach over 8000 feet and we had some great views of those too. Having undertaken a trip that involved a 30-minute transfer to and from an airport, two flights, a two and a half hour coach tour in the park, and lunch, we were only five minutes late returning to ship. Well done!
Saturday 29th December
First call to arms this morning was an early one from Captain Bing-Bong otherwise known as Colin, and so nicknamed for the chimes that heralded every announcement from him! This was to view the Marinelli Glacier which the Captain had received special permission to detour to for us. Unfortunately the weather closed in as we approached and he couldn’t get as close as he had hoped and without any little boats around it really is hard to get a scale on it.
We sailed in waters where we are led to believe that no cruise ship has ever sailed before!
A trip to the ship’s medical centre followed where I was diagnosed by the doctor as having laryngitis and conjunctivitis – conversation is a bit difficult and I am writing this lying on the bed after lunch just watching the amazing views of snow covered mountains and waterfalls – if you have to be ill, do it in style I say and it is not going to stop me enjoying myself.I realise that until now I have not really talked much about Silver Wind and its crew – they are the real stars of this trip and in our view much better than when we were on Silver Cloud – they seem more relaxed somehow. The Maitre d’ - Jorge – is absolutely delightful and has really got to know us well, the boys in the bar, especially Rommel, know what we drink and from day one remembered that Geoff only likes one cube of ice in his Campari – and they know our names too! Raquel is our housemaid and she is a delight, always a beaming smile, “Good Morning Mr Gowan, Good Morning
Mrs Gowan, how are you both today” – how do they remember everyone’s names?Tonight was a CCT private dinner in La Terrazza. We had Marco the F&B Head on our table – poor man he was like a rabbit caught in headlights for most of the night as the ‘naughty’ table (as we are now known) got into full swing. Trying to make conversation, I asked him why, as Chile consumes so many avocados, we actually had not had any at any of the meals or on any of the buffets. You can tell how desperate we were to engage him in conversation, if avocados were all we could think of! More on that subject will follow!
Then we were off to Amy’s last concert – a Julie Andrews tribute which was amazing especially when she shattered a glass on a high note. Guess what, once again the camera was off at that point. We said our goodbyes to her later in the bar as she flies home tomorrow in time to celebrate New Year. She has already secured two more bookings on Silver Wind as a result of her concerts and will be back on board January 31st .
Tonight we are sailing to Ushuaia - the southernmost city in the world.
Sunday 30th December
Awoke to glorious blue skies, calm water and Ushuaia, surrounded by (more) jagged snow clad peaks – what a setting for a town! Its motto is “Ushuaia, the end of the world, the beginning of everything”. We are now off adventuring so more later.
On returning to our suite we found as usual that the fruit bowl had been replenished – with you guessed it a copious supply of avocados – what are we going to do with them! Not something you peel and eat in the middle of the afternoon.
Captains Choice really excelled themselves today and is to be congratulated. By the way, we are on Argentinian soil for the first time in Tierra del Fuego, which is actually an island split in half – Chile and Argentina. There is also an hours time difference but there is some confusion about when it should happen so we remained on ship’s time whilst the local guide was on local time – it was OK once we realised what was going on!
Once again we enjoyed unusual weather for this part of the world, blue skies, sunny and no wind – these days are really rare as summer here is generally cold, wet and windy. We do seem to have the Sun God on board! Daylight hours by the way are 3am – 11pm.
Ushuaia is a very pretty little town and its mountain backdrop is the Marshall Range 1500m high (suddenly I seem to have gone metric but you can work it out!). The name was given by the Yamana Indians and means ‘bay penetrating westwards’ – better to stick to Ushuaia I think! Once the Europeans arrived in the 1890s it became a penal colony due to its remoteness and remained so until 1947. Once the convicts were transferred elsewhere the Argentine government offered tax incentives for people to move here as no-one wanted to live in such a remote place.
Our first CCT treat of the day was a journey on a steam locomotive ‘En Tren del Fin del Mundo’ – the train to the end of the world! It is a replica of the train that was used to shuttle the convicts to the forests to chop wood and all around we could see stumps of trees chopped down over 70 years ago in what is now known as the tree cemetery. Once at the end of the track after a really pretty journey we were driven through the Tierra del Fuego national park, which was created as recently as 1960. It is where the Yamana Indians first lived, hunting sea-lions and harvesting molluscs. By 1910 there were just 100 Indians left out of a population of 3000.
The park is the only one in Argentina with a sea-coast and is, geographically speaking, the last forest in the world. Trees are pretty scarce in Antarctica and that is all there is from here!
Our sights included Lago Roca, Condor Mountain, the Darwin Range – this in fact forms the lowest part of the Andes – the end of them in fact, at only 2500m.I hope the following observation doesn’t come over as negative but we have real concerns about what will happen in the Park as tourism develops. The road is really only wide enough for two cars at a push and the number of coaches going round (high season of course) meant that we were continually having to back up and squeeze through almost impossible gaps – this will result in erosion of some of the park and subsequent damage and we feel something needs doing now – if nothing else a one way system.
There is one other major problem that is also actually created by man – the beaver. 25 pairs were introduced to be farmed for fur – it was an experiment that didn’t work as it was taking too long to get commercial quantities, so they were set free after two years. There are now estimated to be over 200,000, as they have no natural predator – and attempts to introduce one, such as the fox, have failed, as they preferred to eat the sheep! These are not cuddly little beavers, they are over a metre long – they dam the streams and flood the land so the trees can’t breathe and die – the ones they haven’t already chopped down that is!Next stop was Lapataia Bay to board a catamaran which was again, like the train, exclusive to CCT. We dined in fine style while we cruised the Beagle Channel with its mountain backdrop and went cormorant and seal spotting from the top deck in lovely sunshine.
Once back at Ushuaia we walked back to the ship and experienced a little of what it can be like here – out of absolutely nowhere came this huge blast of ice-cold Antarctic wind that made it almost impossible to walk.
It was a fairly quiet night as everyone is preparing for rough seas and party night tomorrow – not a combination to be recommended.
Just a final note written on retiring – looks like it might be an interesting night! The Captain already warned us that weather conditions are such that we might not be able to round The Horn and if we do it will be 6am in the morning. On returning to the suite we were a little taken aback to find the ice bucket, the poinsettia plant, our bottle of brandy and the free-standing magnifying mirror all stacked on the floor underneath the dressing table. Having decided that Raquel had been interrupted whilst cleaning, we replaced them all and went to get two brandy glasses out of the cocktail cabinet for a nightcap. There behind the glass door in front of the glasses was one of the cushions from the sofa – the penny dropped! Batten down the hatches, rough seas ahead!
Monday 31st December
A DAY TO REMEMBER FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES!It is 5am and I have been up all night sitting on the sofa coughing my head off and feeling ever so slightly seasick. At least it has ensured that Geoff managed a night’s sleep. The ship is rolling and pitching but not as much as we might have expected for the Horn – we have no idea where we are except that land is in sight – not sure whether the Captain took the risk to go for it or not!
It is approaching 6am and we are waiting for some sort of announcement, it is blowing like crazy and we seem to be heading for open sea.Bing bong, here comes an announcement – we’re going for it!
It is now 7am and brandy in hand – early?? of course it’s not too early!! and we have lived to tell the tale. Currently we are on the south side of the Horn at open sea which is rough but bearable, it is hailing hard but the sun is shining too. I think the adrenaline has kicked in and that takes the emphasis off feeling sick! That was one of the most awesome experiences – the jagged rocks are EVIL and you cannot help thinking how many sailors lost their lives on them. We were actually too scared to go up on deck 9 where it was almost impossible to stand up in the wind but we did manage to get some photographs from deck 8, firmly anchored to a post and each other!
It is said that one of the reasons the sea is so rough here is that the Atlantic and Pacific are actually at different levels where they collide – but how much of that is hogwash I don’t know. We can see the flag flying at the lighthouse as well as the monument (see album). It was inaugurated in December 1992 in memory of all who lost their lives there and stands 7m high right on top of the island so that it is visible to most passing ships.
Luckily (by planning!) our suite faces landwards so I can see the flag and monument as I write. It is hard to describe how exhilarating and menacing it was all at the same time and we are so thrilled that the Captain made a decision to try for it. Apparently when he first made the decision in the early hours the sea was actually impassable as we are such a small ship but he got word it was expected to calm down somewhat so decided to make it.
A truly memorable end to 2007 and an experience I know we will neither repeat nor forget.
We now have three days at sea and it is time to start cutting down on food as some of our clothes have shrunk in the wardrobe – must be the damp!We now have to retrace our steps in order to get through the Magellan straits to go up the Argentina coast. This amazing Captain of ours had one more surprise up his braided sleeve for us – although to some extent we are retracing our steps, he received permission to take us close to a series of glaciers which we cannot locate on our map so have no idea where we are. We saw and filmed the first three Hollandia, Italia and Francia and the wind was whistling past making the sound track on the camcorder pretty horrific – most of it is the sound of the wind in the hood of my waterproof jacket!
Hollandia,which no longer reaches the water, actually did so as recently as 10 years ago so we saw for ourselves the effects (apparently) of global warming. There were waterfalls everywhere from the melt water so all in all pretty spectacular – have I used that word before?
Having been thoroughly sandblasted by the wind and glaciered-out we went to watch a film of a tall masted ship, the Peking, sail round the Horn in 1929. The film was made on board the ship by Captain Irvine Johnson who was just a young sailor then – he added the commentary in 1980. The ship had nothing but sail and man power – it was pretty awesome to watch and made us realise that our experience, exciting as we found it, was pretty tame!
I did learn how the nautical speed system of knots came into being, something to do with lengths of knotted rope being played over the side and then hauled back in for the knots to be counted and that was the speed – not sure how technically accurate that explanation is but Geoff will explain if you think it is something you really must know!
Tuesday January 1st
Happy New YearAnother day at sea as we cruise towards the Argentinian coast and we have to content ourselves with the fact that the passing spectacle that has been with us since we entered the Chilean fjords has now been left behind.
So what of last night’s celebrations? We began with drinks at 7 and we were a merry crowd in the bar. The seven course meal was fantastic with some great ‘off the card’ wines. Then it was showtime and we were all in party-mood – BUT the entertainer was truly awful, which is a little bizarre after all the excellent acts there have been to date. As midnight was to be celebrated in the theatre we knew we couldn’t stand it so we retreated to the bar to make our own fun and toasted in the new year in fine style.
It is 10am on New Year’s Day and we are about to pass through the narrow channel at the end of the Magellan straits into open sea – the Atlantic. We’ve breakfasted, welcomed 2008 with champagne so are chilling out and re-reading what has been written to eliminate any repetition of facts.
When we booked this holiday the big attraction was Silversea although we felt that the escorted parts at the beginning and end would enable us to see more than we would independently. We had some concerns about eating as a group and made our minds up that we would eat on our own on the ship. Well we got the first part right, but how wrong we were about the second, we have had so much fun with the Group.Today was Galley Brunch, which gives everyone the chance to see behind the scenes in the massive kitchens – a sumptuous buffet was laid out, complete with massive roast ribs of beef and suckling pig. The food is a masterpiece on this ship.
Wednesday 2nd January
We have been watching the giant petrels riding the thermals at the back of the ship for ages but we do now need a break from all this sea. It is warming up as we head north but the sea has been quite rough at times – duh, reminder, this is the Atlantic Ocean, not the Med!
We were invited to dine in Saletta tonight where a special menu is served matched with exceptional wines, starting with a 1999 Dom Perignon. Some of the finest food and wine we have ever had, finished off with Hennessey Paradis our favourite cognac.
Thursday 3rd January
Early birds to see the sunrise at 6am (at least we are sleeping a bit longer as it stays dark for longer here). We are approaching Puerto Madryn and dry land – this place is twinned with Nefyn in North Wales. It was founded in 1865 by 150 Welsh immigrants who came in the ship ‘Mimosa’ and named it in honour of someone called Jones-Parry whose estate in Wales was called Madryn. There is absolutely no similarity at all with Wales as we soon found out as we headed off on a two-hour drive to the Punta Tombo National Reserve of which more in a minute.
This was real wasteland Patagonia – just miles of flat scrubland with no features at all – the outskirts of the town were dusty and covered in plastic bags caught in the scrub – we learned that there is no recycling policy at all in Argentina and as it is so windy here all the time, rubbish just gets blown from one bush to the next – it was pretty awful and we were beginning to wonder what was in store. There is only 250mm of rain a year here with water strictly rationed in the summer months.
Apparently it is possible to drive 350km and never see a single tree or a building and then all of a sudden a fertile valley appears as if from nowhere, lush and green with weeping willows, then disappears as suddenly as it came, it almost makes you wonder if it was a mirage.
The reason for undertaking this epic 5 hour round trip was to see the penguins at the Punta Tombo reserve which we learn is the second most visited attraction in Atlantic Patagonia. It is the largest natural sanctuary for the Magellan penguins and every year a million penguins come here to mate. Despite all the visitors, the penguins make their nests in burrows and you can quite literally walk amongst them. The babies had hatched in November so it was a perfect time to go – except it is the wrong time for whales, which are also frequent visitors to the area. Amazingly some of the bird’s nests are some 2km from the sea and they are built in terrain that is almost desert-like.It turns out that this is the biggest continental penguin rookery in the world and has been there since 1929 - there is no scientific explanation as to why the birds chose the area in the first place, although warm and cold-water currents collide here, which provides nutrients and abundant food.
It was an amazing experience – another one! and we could not quite believe that these were birds in the wild and we could walk (albeit on paths rather than straying all over the place) with them all around us and stretching as far as the eye could see. They were waddling across the path in front of us, so close you could almost touch them, feeding the babies, preening, and almost being blown over in the wind – so comical; I was in seventh heaven!
Reflecting back on the day it was a real privilege to be able to do something like that but I feel CCT might have got it slightly wrong – firstly a coach with no toilet on such a long journey – we left at 8.30 and it was 3.30 before I actually got to a loo – first stop was a petrol station which I really didn’t fancy and then at the sanctuary itself the queue was so long I risked missing the coach! Lunch was also included and it was well after three before we got to eat – no problem, we thought it would be a nice light buffet – not so, vegetable soup, a steak the size of a dinner plate and a pudding. As it turned out we had to skip pudding as the ship was leaving early . A picnic on the coach or at the sanctuary would have been fine and we would have had more time to walk around. Not a complaint – only an observation to make things better in future!!
Friday 4th January
Oh dear! Things are rapidly coming to a close now – always a good indicator when the email addresses start circulating!
It is a busy day at sea ahead – suite 628 is festooned with invitations:
Breakfast was a wonderful affair at a table hosted by Ralph de Klijn, the Hotel Director – he is second down the chain from the captain and responsible for the smooth running of everything except sailing! Champagne, caviar and blinis with all the trimmings, eggs Benedict – and we could have had virtually anything we wanted, you name it, it was available. Very special and very enjoyable.From there it was straight to the bridge to meet the Captain himself and that was really interesting as much as anything to see the view and the lookout posts from in there. He does not believe in getting junior officers to do the tour, he likes to meet his guests himself.
A quick Bloody Mary in the bar, lunch and then Geoff rushed off to a roulette competition. I wrestled with the issues of what to pack, what to leave to one side for the rest of the trip and other such demanding issues.
Before I forget, talking to Ralph at breakfast he told us that this cruise has never been done in such good weather before and in fact the one before us which was Buenos Aires to Santiago was so bad that most passengers were sea sick at the start, the scheduled stop in the Falklands was cancelled as it was too rough to get in, the compensation was to go round the Horn which was unscheduled, but that was too rough too, and to cap it all when they got into the fjords it was foggy! Aren’t we lucky!
It was the Captain’s Farewell tonight, always a tradition on Silversea and it is when a selection of the crew parade down into the theatre so we can show our appreciation for their efforts. Jorge the Maitre D’ got the loudest cheer which I think speaks volumes for someone in a job title that is generally regarded as sniffy! .
Saturday 5th January
We sailed into Montevideo at about 11am, and shortly afterwards had a CCT group photograph taken on deck – the video footage will tell the story!
Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay, so another country to add to our list of ‘been there’. There are two versions of how it got its name:
Monte Vide Eu – I see a hill, in Portuguese or Monte vi de Este a Oeste – the sixth hill from the west from the Spaniards.
I prefer the Portuguese version!The natives living there were a nasty lot and killed the founder of the city (1516), the Portuguese took over and then it seems they and the Spanish argued over it. The British became influential in the early 19th century right until the early 20th century which kept it out of Argentine and Brazilian control.
The Graf Spee was sunk here in 1939 after the Battle of the River Plate – it was scuttled by the captain (after which he committed suicide) rather than be seen to lose the battle.One of the highlights was to see the Uruguayan liberators statue under which is his guarded mausoleum – an amazing room which we were able to go down into – from what I have read General Artigas never actually won a serious battle but got a statue over 50ft tall for his efforts as well as the mausoleum to house his ashes. One point I haven’t made so far is that South America is very into HUGE memorial statues; they are absolutely on every corner in the cities!
The tour was an odd one really and almost the wrong way round, but it does serve to emphasise that on all these trips, there is no attempt to hide the bad by showing tourists only the good.
We were taken to the ‘hill’ as in “I see a hill” – it is only a bit of a bump really at 116m high; we were struck straight away that it is getting a bit tropical again, with palm trees everywhere. There is an amazing modern building on the edge of town which is the city’s communications tower and they spent over $100m on it – we can’t understand why when the rest of the place is falling apart!Once we had toured the really run down parts (graffiti as usual) we were taken to the opulent Legislative Palace which dates back to 1925 and which is positively dripping in carved marble and gold leaf. True excess in a country which is not an especially wealthy one.Yet more magnificent monuments followed, one surrounded by a pond and fountains – but no water, just litter! Quite suddenly the tour changed and we found ourselves in tree-lined streets with the most beautiful gated residences – this according to our guide was where ‘high society’ lived.
The tour ended with a drive along the estuary coast with its miles of sandy beaches lined with high-rise apartments. If it had been me I think I would have designed the tour the other way round!
Sunday 6th January
We sailed and docked early in Buenos Aires and we realised that the cruise had indeed come to an end!
A classic Silversea moment to end with – as I picked up a little pot of jam at breakfast, a waiter appeared from no where, to help me take the lid off!
And so with fond farewells all round, promises to return, kisses from Colin, Karolina and Rommel we said goodbye to the cosseted world of Silver Wind and walked straight into hell – the terminal building where the Celebrity Infinity (4000 passengers) and Norwegian Dream (2500 passengers) and us (250) had all disembarked.
But yet again CCT scored brownie points as there was our luggage, yellow labels shining in the sunshine, all neatly lined up and ready for us to identify. And that was all we had to do, it was collected and taken on ahead to our hotel in Buenos Aires as we embarked on a city tour.
Our first impression was that BA is a very stylish city with beautiful buildings, old and new. All around there are some incredible monuments and sculptures especially one that is like a giant stainless steel flower which opens and closes with the sun – sadly no photo opportunity, as I was on the wrong side of the coach!The city is actually a photographer’s paradise, but that was a sentiment not shared by either our guide or driver (or CCT come to that!) – we didn’t even get to stop at the Eva Peron monument, the only one to her in the city and erected as late as 1999. We flashed past the Teatro Colon (the opera house) but in the event it is currently closed. It was originally opened in 1908 with a performance of Aida and is being prepared for centenary celebrations with a performance of the same opera.
Our first stop was Plaza de Mayo and the Cathedral. The cathedral was beautiful and we managed to photograph some of the opulence including San Martin’s mausoleum which is guarded.
At this point it might be worth a little bit of ‘Peron’ history for those who don’t know it and it does become relevant to our location. Eva Peron was never President of Argentina, in fact she only attained ‘first lady status’ as the second wife of the President Juan Peron. She achieved an almost cult-like following as she campaigned for rights for the poor and working classes. She died aged 33 in 1952 and from 1955 to 1971 her body was missing and it was illegal in Argentina to even mention her name! Juan Peron was President from 1946-1955 when he was deposed and exiled in Europe until 1973 when he was re-elected and remained in power until his death.But back to the Plaza -what intrigued us was that some of the buildings appeared to be graffiti covered which we thought was odd in such a prestigious, area then we discovered the reason. It is the names of the ‘desaparecidos’ – the disappeared. Isabel Peron, the then wife of Juan became the first female president after his death and when her administration failed, the military government that took control started what it called a reorganisation of society based largely on making suspected socialist dissidents disappear. Estimates range from 13000 to 30000 young people were kidnapped, and some believed to have been tortured and murdered, many being thrown naked into the Atlantic so they could never be identified.
Every Thursday, with a small presence maintained the rest of the time, the mothers and grandmothers of the disappeared meet to pray for the return of any survivors. The full story is a long one, and perhaps not for these pages. (It was Isobel who was responsible for locating Eva’s body and returning it to be buried in La Recoleta cemetery where it lies in a special hidden chamber deep below the mausoleum edifice to avoid looting). We were so disappointed to only drive past the cemetery at Recoleta (am I getting a fixation about cemeteries?) I think most people on board would have welcomed the chance to go and see Eva Peron’s resting place – she is in fact buried under her maiden name of Duarte.
From the grandeur of the Cathedral we went to La Boca which is the place credited for the birth of the tango in the quilombos (bordellos). En route we saw some of the worst housing (if you can call it that) conditions we have ever seen on our travels – if we thought Montevideo was a city of contrasts, Buenos Aires leaves it standing. The famous street in La Boca which everyone wants to photograph is Caminito, lined with statues, artist’s displays and corrugated metal houses painted in amazing colours. It is a throw back to when the poor people painted their homes with whatever paint was left over or they could scrounge. It is now very touristy however and we were warned not to stray too far as the surrounding areas are unsafe for tourists. A lot of the purists regard it as a travesty that the area has been allowed to become a magnet for tourists believing that it should have been left alone – but we enjoyed it! The houses are known as ‘conventillos’ based on the flimsy accommodation that the immigrants first lived in, which was probably provided by Nuns.
Lunch was next at the Puerto Madero district which is revival of a disused port area, now full of fashionable apartments and restaurants. Lunch was described to us by Kerry as a salad started followed by meat cooked to order. Not quite true – the salad starter was from a smorgasbord which probably excelled any buffet we have ever seen and was loaded with anything you could think of – from whole parmesan cheeses to scrape yourself, to giant prawns, salmon, every type of salad etc.
Having gorged on that we awaited our meat for inspection prior to cooking. Imagine our surprise to find waiters coming around with giant spits loaded with sausages, chicken, lamb, pork ribs, beef tenderloin, beef sirloin, beef another three ways – and what’s more they fully expected us to slice some of each one off. We gave up after three……So I am now writing this in the fabulous Four Seasons Hotel – totally opulent, but within two minutes of the most appalling shantytown! Our room is enormous and currently looks like a jumble sale as we try to sort out what we need for the next leg of the journey. It is tango night tonight so more news tomorrow as we are both so excited! Oh Captains Choice what did you subject us to? Awful food and a tango show with as much atmosphere as our bathroom. Some of the group actually fell asleep! And to add insult to injury photography was banned but I managed a sneaky five minutes of video before I was told to switch off – what harm can there be in a few tourist photographs for goodness sake! The setting was full of promise, an old theatre below what is now a shopping mall and office complex, beautifully ornate with little boxes. It soon became apparent that it was a dinner show and that the show would not start until we had all reached the coffee stage. As there were over 250 people crammed in it is not surprising that the show didn’t start until after 10.30 going on till midnight. We’d already had an early start and needed to be up at the crack next day. If it had been atmospheric and exciting the adrenaline would have taken over, but there were two awful singers, we had no idea at all what they were singing about and there was no attempt to engage the tourists in the story. If we had known what to expect I think some of us would have gone off on our own to get some ‘real’ tango – but hindsight and all that!
Monday 7th January
The day of our departure to Iguacu Falls, and an early start - we were breakfasted and assembling in reception when at 7.15 Kerry gave us the news that our flight had been cancelled and there was a chance the whole trip might be off! At seems Aerolinas Argentinas is well known for this so it was apparently not unexpected. We were asked to stay as close to reception as possible in case there was a change of plan and to expect an announcement at 10.45.
So it was ananxious time with time weighing heavily while we wondered what we could have been doing including the Eva Peron grave! It was to relief all round that it was announced the trip was on.
We had to endure a mini airport hell as the flight time just kept getting put back and back. We found a quiet corner, some food and a bottle of wine and just kept hoping. Our tour there was due to start at 1pm and we were still at the airport at 2! But we arrived after a two hour flight at 4.30 to be whisked onto a coach to witness CCT and their land agents at their finest! Silvio, our Brazilian guide promised us that we would do as much as possible of the original programme with the exception of the picnic lunch and one walk. He had arranged for the last train (noddy version) that goes to the falls to be held up for us and so we boarded and headed for Garganta del Diabolo (Devils Throat). This was real jungle country, it was very hot and humid and we were working up quite a sweat on the 1km walk from the train to the falls themselves. We soon realised that the delay had played right into our hands – the crowds were thinning and no way could we have done that walk in the middle of the day!A walkway winds across the waterways and the rivers that meet at the falls and on the way we saw plenty of wild life including basking crocs. The roar of the falls got louder and we could see the spray then suddenly we were there – it was awesome, incredible, exciting, wow, wow, wow and very very wet. We were soaked in seconds! We had canvassed opinion whilst killing time in the hotel earlier as to a comparison between Iguacu and Niagara and Victoria. Some in our group have already done all three and without doubt Iguacu came out top!
We then had to retrace our steps and be driven by coach to the Brazilian side of the falls where we were staying – it is a 60km road journey – the falls themselves occupy over 5 miles (sorry about mix of metric and imperial there!). Getting out of Argentina took long enough but getting into Brazil was worse, with a real jobsworth scrutinising every page in everyone’s passport, intently looking from photograph to person, and back again, licking his pencil, tapping his fingers on the desk - you get the picture?
Eventually we arrived at Hotel Tropical des Cataratas but by now it was 9pm. We were so hot and sweaty all we wanted was a shower and a change of clothes but we had to rush to eat. It is a strange hotel; a beautiful building dating back to the 50s built in Portuguese mansion style, but has been probably over-used and abused. It has just been purchased by Orient Express and they are refurbishing it but not for tour groups – it will be exclusive suite-only accommodation aimed at the growing Arab market (Emirates have just started flying there) and the rich Japanese. So we may be amongst the last ordinary folk to stay there.
Tuesday 8th January
More CCT excellence this morning – the guide had arranged for us to be able to walk the Brazilian cataratas (I said you needed to read to the end!) before the National Park is actually open to the public. This means that there are no crowds and we can do it in the cool of the morning. So by 8am we are off to walk a kilometre to the falls and what a walk it was. If Devils Throat was exciting, this was doubly so and it is really hard to put into words so we have to leave the photographs and video to do the talking!
We learned that the falls became a National Park, the first in Brazil, in 1939 and has forest that is unique to the country, sub-tropical and semi-deciduous, and that there are 41 species of snake in there!
We had originally booked to take a boat trip to the base of the falls but on learning that it was in an inflatable, albeit a big one, and that we would be soaked to the skin (no change of clothes) and that cameras would be useless as it is so wet, we decided against it and spent the rest of the morning chilling and reminiscing!
We got back to Buenos Aires at 7.30 to a temperature of 42.5degrees C at the airport. We were absolutely over the moon to find that Claudia, CCT’s ‘girl on the ground in BA’ had pre-checked us back into the Four Seasons and our luggage was already in our rooms – what VIP treatment and it made such a difference at the end of a long, hot sticky day.
Now however we had to start thinking for ourselves again as the CCT part is virtually over. We actually went out for our first dinner ‘a deux’ of the whole trip – to a parilla (charcoal grill) just a short stroll from the hotel. A fantastic atmosphere, absolutely packed with people still coming in to eat at 10.30.
Perhaps this is a good point to say that everywhere we have been people have been so friendly and helpful and I can honestly say we have not heard a cross word exchanged anywhere at all!Wednesday 9th January
So the inevitable end of the trip – we have packed, checked out, enjoyed a (last?) glass of local Sauvignon Blanc and have decided to go for one last steak before leaving for the airport. But there was one more surprise in store for us courtesy of Air France – a bill for £250 for excess baggage – we were overweight going out but probably got away with it as we checked in early. Not so at this end.
The flights were pretty uneventful and Geoff even managed five hours of sleep after a pretty good meal. We arrived home safely at just after 2pm to a cold, grey miserable England, but with so many warm sunny memories that it just didn’t seem to matter!Inevitably there will be things we keep remembering after the event but hopefully this little story will be interesting for others to read and will always remind us of an amazing trip when the memories start to fade.
Footnote: on reading this through to edit it, we realise that taken out of context it might seem as if there is an element of dissatisfaction with some parts of the holiday. Far from it, nothing that happened along the way in any way detracted from our enjoyment, and the comments made are meant to be constructive and are recorded only to serve as a reminder of the holiday – CCT readers please note!
