Wednesday, Friday 28, 2018- Cruise Day 36; Puerto Montt, Chile

Wednesday, Friday 28, 2018- Cruise Day 36; Puerto Montt, Chile

We awoke to find the ship gliding through smooth water as the ship approached Puerto Montt.  The sun was rising but there was a layer of clouds sandwiching the sky between the horizon and clouds.  We could see the outline of two volcanos looming in that space.  

After breakfast, we headed off for our excursion.  The tender transfers were very smooth and quick because the water was flat and the ship was anchored within a half mile of the cruise ship terminal dock.  There were 3 large tour buses on our tour.  The first stop was Puerto Vara, which is a city on lake Llanquihue.  The clouds had closed in, obscuring any view of the volcanos over the lake, which was large enough that you couldn’t see the north shore from the south shore.  There are numerous large lakes formed by the Andes between the border with Argentina and the Pacific Ocean in this part of Chile, so it is called the Lake District.  They say nobody knows how deep the lake is.  

Puerto Vara was established by German settlers, and it shows in the architecture, which is a bit more consistent than in other cities that we have visited in Argentina and Chile.  It is a quaint and walkable town, but it doesn’t come across as a german village, especially since the downtown is dominated by a large Casino and Radisson Hotel.  Leavenworth, in Washington State is a lot cuter and consistent than Puerto Vara if you want to see a little bit of Germany.  What is troublesome, however, is the lack of free public restroom facilities in a city that supposedly caters to tourists.  Even the huge casino wouldn’t let people in to use their bathrooms.  Any city that charges to use toilets gets marked down on my list of places that supposedly consider themselves to be civilized.  There are lots of small shops selling woven goods and small animals carved out of Lapis Lazule, a blue mineral that is found in Chile and in Afghanistan.  There were also shops selling woven baskets, but the quality of the baskets looked really cheap.  We ended up just walking around town and sitting on the lakefront until our 45 minute stop was over.  We got back on our bus, but there were two women who came back nearly 10 minutes late.  We had to give them the evil eye.  They apparently were having too much fun shopping.  

The next stop was the main attraction for this excursion.  It was a family owned ranch called Criadero Los Alerces.  We learned that Rodeo is actually the national sport of Chile, even though football (soccer) draws more fans.  Our tour started with an introduction to Chilean folk dances, and the Chilean rodeo.  They had a 5 piece band of talented musicians, and a troupe of children ages 11-17 who were competition folk dancers.  Several were state champions, and one was even a national champion.  The kids were frankly just adorable, and were quite talented with the folk dances, which feature the waving of handkerchiefs.  We had seen some of these dances at the Folkloric show we saw in Iguazu, but it added another dimension to see these kids doing them.  

We also got an explanation of the lives and gear of Huesos- Chilean Cowboys.  The spurs that are used are characteristically very large diameter with up to 40 spikes, designed primarily to enhance the dances with jingling sounds, but the horses can also respond to the sounds of the spurs as the riders shake their feet.  The capes that are worn, are color unique to each ranch, kind of like team colors.  When Huesos compete in rodeos, they can be identified by their capes.  There are also characteristic hats and lower leg chaps.  One of the most important skills is the ability to make the horses run sideways very quickly.  This is a skill used to direct cattle between two riders.  One rides forward, while the other rides perpendicular, pinning the cow between the two horses, controlling it as they direct it around the arena.  They introduced their Huesos, which included a 4 year old boy, who was so cute in the saddle.

While we were watching the folk dancing demonstrations in a pole barn, we were served Chilean wine and beef empanadas that were baked in a brick oven in the barn.  The empanadas were much better than the ones served in the Horizon Court buffet.  

We then walked to the rodeo arena, which is partially below the level of the surrounding ground so that spectators have an unobstructed view of the action below.  We saw demonstrations of trick riding with circles, figure 8’s and barrel riding, as well as the cattle maneuvering team riding skills.  The weather was perfect as the sun began burning through the clouds and the temperature was in the upper 60’s.  

We then went into a large party tent where we were served a banquet featuring Chilean beef barbeque.  While the beef was quite flavorful, and generous in portions, it was rather tough compared with the beef we had been served more recently in Brazil and Argentina.  We’d have to score the Brazilians and Argentineans above the Chileans for deliciousness of their beef.  There was more folk dancing and the dancers came through the tables and had guests dance with them, including Janet, who quickly learned to do a polka with her 15 year old instructor.  The wine flowed freely and we also had the regional coctail called the Pisco Sour, made from local distilled sugar alchohol mixed with sugar and lemon juice.  It was very sweet, and packed a punch.  Our tour guide got up and did a folk dance with one of the dancers.  You could tell at one point in her career, she was in those same dance schools, and still had some of those skills memorized.  It was a lot of fun, and everyone had a good time.  

We got back to the ship late, but because it was a Princess excursion, the tenders continued service until the last of our tour group was back on the ship.

We had dinner and then attended the early show of comedian Jeff Nease.  Much of his material was familiar cruise ship humor, and much of it, we had heard before, but most of it was still funny to hear, and he did bring a lot of energy into his show.  It had us entertained  for the evening, although if he has another show later in the cruise, we may or may not bother to see it.  

We attended a Movie Poster Trivia but played with Ted and Kathleen and Roger because the rest of our usual team as probably at their late seating dinners.  We scored 16/20 with the winners scoring 18/20.  There were some really young people on the winning team that nailed several movies that we had no clues about because they were more recent movies aimed at teen audiences.  Then we stuck around for a late night trivia called “What in the Neck is this?”. There were several categories of questions starting with obscured logos that you had to guess. Then they had Macro pictures of items you had to guess about.  Then there were sound bites that you had to identify.  Then there were visual puzzles where you had to identify a mistake or identify objects hidden in the images.  Then they had pictures of weird animals that you had to identify.  Then there were pictures of abstract art that you had to guess was either real art, or doodles made by toddlers.  Finally there were animated movie clips of cartoon rabbits re-enacting bits of movies that you had to identify.  We ended up tying for first place with 25/35 points, but lost the tie breaker, which was to guess how many Quokka’s are on the Australian mainland.  We had no idea what a Quokka even was until one showed up as a weird animal that we missed.  The host had said that Quokkas are only found on one of Australia’s island, but that some are on the mainland.  We thought it might have been a trick question because maybe there are only Quokkas in zoos on the Australian mainland.  However, it appears that they also exist in the wild and number in the thousands.  So we learned a bit about Quokkas today.

While we were sitting around between the two trivia games, we heard rumors that several people from the ship had been robbed and attacked while in Rio, and that one crew person was so badly injured, they were still in the hospital, while another had to be sent home unable to complete their contract.  The ship’s crew members who had been attacked were in a group, but were attacked by a gang of teenagers.  There were also passengers who had foolishly left the ship wearing jewelry around their neck and earrings, and they were injured as the jewelry was literally ripped off their bodies.  We also heard that during the course of this cruise, 3 passengers had actually passed away.  Hard to know how true those rumors might be, but seeing the condition of some of the passengers we have encountered over the last month, it wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t absolutely true.  There has been an ambulance on the dock at each port of call where we tied up to the dock, and we did see one woman in respiratory distress being whisked off the ship on a tender medical evacuation that delayed our tender operations that morning.  

We did lose our captain, who reached the end of his contract and flew home from Puerto Montt.  We have a new captain on board, but he hasn’t really introduced himself to the ship’s passengers.  We will certainly miss Captain Michele Touvo’s “Never the less, for now, Bye Bye!” announcements.  We also lost our cruise director Martin, who had to leave the ship in Puerto Montt to attend to a family emergency.  So it seems we have out-survived our first Captain and Cruise Director, as well as a number of passengers so far on this journey.  

Tomorrow we arrive at Chacabuco, Chile for our last tender port of call.  We have an excursion to visit a private wildlife reserve and eco park.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018- Cruise Day 35; At Sea

Tuesday, February 27, 2018- Cruise Day 35; At Sea

We awoke to calm seas and clear weather.  We are cruising north off the west coast of Chile with land on the horizon.  Ben was watching albatrosses skimming inches above the water when all of a sudden a group of sea lions began porpoising out of the water just as an albatross passed over them.  With the ship’s movement, they quickly slipped out of sight.  We had a leisurely breakfast in the dining room and attended the morning trivia.  Our team seems to be in a rut as we did pretty poorly, scoring just 11/20.  the winners had scored 16/20.  We later learned that Kathy’s sister-in-law had passed away yesterday after a long struggle with Huntington’s Chorea and some more recent respiratory complications.  Kathy and her husband had considered leaving the cruise in Punta Arenas to fly back to the States, but her family did not want them to fly back.  It was a sad thing to hear about, and it’s hard to know exactly what to do in a circumstance like this other than to express our condolences.  

We watched some of The Blind Side on TV. Funny how that movies makes us tear up in spots.  We had lunch in the dining room and then hit the fitness center in the early afternoon for guilt reduction.  Janet watched some of another Effy Trivia, and learned some more gemstone trivia.  We attended the afternoon trivia scoring 13/20, with the winning team actually scoring 19/20.  We were pretty amazed that the winning team had scored so high because the questions seemed quite hard to us.  

We attended the early Showtime in the Princess Theatre featuring Guitarist & Vocalist Rick Steel, who was billed as a country singer.  He did do a Johnny Cash song, but spent a lot of time talking about himself and the pick-up on his guitar made it sound very tinny.  He did put in a lot of energy into the show, which many people really seemed to enjoy, but it didn’t score as one of the better shows we have seen on this cruise.

We had dinner in the dining room and met a couple who were originally from Bogota Columbia, but who subsequently moved to Queens, and then more recently became snowbirds moving to Florida.  They spend their summers in Bogota because the climate there is quite temperate July through September when it is hot and humid in Florida.  

We then went to the Princess Theatre to watch a Ben Stiller movie called “Brad’s Status”, which ended up being a terrible movie about Stiller’s character obsessing about how successful his old college buddies were, while devaluating his own life.  It just underscored that you will only end up miserable if you constantly measure your own life against others, rather than considering it’s intrinsic value. Glad we’re not on that life trajectory.  

Tomorrow we have another tender port of call in Puerto Montt, Chile.  We have an excursion booked to tour the city and then visit a local ranch where the local huasos (Chilean cowboys) will give us a taste of their local culture and lifestyle.  

Monday, February 26, 2018- Cruise Day 34; Amalia Glacier

Monday, February 26, 2018- Cruise Day 34; Amalia Glacier

We started the day cruising among hundreds of islands, but these appeared to have been ground into rounded shapes with smooth white granite tops and scattered shrubs.  We were starting into the Nelson Channel enroute to the Amalia Glacier. After breakfast, we attended morning trivia.  We were a bit off our game, scoring 16/20 while two teams tied at 18/20 for first. We then sprinted to the Effy store for another drawing and learned a bit about sapphires.  We didn’t end up winning the drawing either.

We watched the channel narrow into a fjord from our balcony and then went for a quick bite to eat before watching “The Mountain Between Us” in the Princess Theatre.  It was a plane crash survival story combined with a romance story with Idris Elba and Kate Winslet.  I guess they figured the plane crash survival story would draw in the guys, while the impossible romance would draw in the women, and it did seem to work.  

We then retreated to our balcony for more scenic cruising.  We could see mountains rising in the distance above the islands we were cruising among.  While we have seen fjords in Alaska, Norway, and New Zealand, each has had it’s own unique beauty, so you can’t really say just because you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.  

We attended afternoon trivia but were even more off our game, scoring only 12/20 while the winners ended up with 16/20, but we still enjoy the challenge and the competition has really ramped up since Buenos Aires.  The lounge is now packed and if you don’t get there early, you won’t find a place for your team to play.  We got aced out of our usual booth, and ended up cramped in an aisle.  

We had afternoon tea, anticipating that we were arriving at the Amalia glacier at 5:30PM.  That worked out well because we wouldn’t be hungry, and could have a later dinner.  We watched the Amalia glacier from our balcony and from the open deck on the bow on our floor, deck 10.  They approached with the glacier on the port side, so viewing it from the bow worked well.  Unlike our Alaska Glacier Bay cruise experience on Norwegian where everything was jammed with people 3 and 4 people deep to get pictures or even a view, there was plenty of room along the railings around the ship and no crowding to see the glacier.  They spun the ship around so that the glacier could be seen by everyone, so we ended up having a great and comfortable view from our balcony.  Ben saw a small piece of the Glacier break-off into the water (calving) with binoculars, but the Amalia Glacier, like most others around the world, has receded over the last few years, and now only a small part of it actually extends into the tidal waters.  We did see a sea lion porpoising about, putting on a show for us.  There were also two deer on the shore near the edge of the Glacier, but you needed binoculars to see them well.  

The Glacier is beautiful with its craggy top and streaks of unbelievably blue ice.  This glacier flows around a volcano, but the top of the volcano was shrouded by clouds.  The ship launched one of its fast rescue boats with a photography/videography team on board for the Reflections DVD they sell.  They also retrieved a chunk of floating glacial ice and brought it on board for display on the Lido deck.  We went by and saw it.  It was sculpted by the water and probably weighed under a 100 pounds. 

We had dinner and attended the early show of Rogerio Tutti, who is a pianist who does his own Liberace like arrangements of classical and pop pieces, backed by the Island Princess Orchestra.  He is a good showman and put on a good show for us.  

We then attended the “Who’s the Cuckoo” Gameshow.  We tied with 5 other teams with 3 out of 4 correct guesses, but didn’t win the tie-breaker, which was to guess the combined ages of the 5 Cruise Director’s Staff on stage.  We weren’t at all upset about not getting a bottle of champagne to share.  We consoled ourselves by hitting the buffet one last time for a late night bite.  They kept the buffet open late because of the late glacier encounter.  

Tomorrow is another day at sea.  We are sailing north, and should hit warmer weather with each passing day.  Today, the temperature was cool enough that you really needed a warm coat outside- Upper 40’s  to mid 50’s.  By the time we reach our next port of call in 2 days, the highs should be in the mid 70’s.  That should feel pretty good.

Sunday, February 25, 2018- Cruise Day 33; Punta Arenas Chile

Sunday, February 25, 2018- Cruise Day 33; Punta Arenas Chile

The landscape and seascape changed overnight to more sloping hills and calm seas as we approached Punta Arenas Chile.  The ship set anchor as we had a quick breakfast in the buffet.  The tender transfers to shore went pretty quickly as the ship anchored just outside the harbor.

Our tour started with a drive through the city along some wide boulevards lined with trees and sculptures to an overlook on a hillside with a nice sweeping view of the harbor and city below.  Our guide said we were very fortunate because we had blue skies with scattered clouds, little wind, and a temperature in the mid to upper 50’s.  It was actually quite comfortable for us Northwest natives.  The city below appears colorful because of the mixture of building materials and architectural styles.  As a city, it seems a bit more substantial and consistent that Ushuaia, as far as building construction goes.  There was a small vendor stall below the viewpoint where diminutive Chilean native women were selling their wares.  There also seems to be a lot of friendly lazy dogs laying around the place.  

Our next stop was to an outdoor museum of “Stuff” ranging from old construction and farm equipment, logging and mining equipment, and numerous buildings housing a variety of static exhibits.  There was a pharmacy, dentist office, and even a room with old movie projectors and cool old movie posters.  There were garages with cool old cars and horse drawn carriages.  Most of the equipment was scattered about in a large mowed field.  Ben was drawn to an old small steam shovel in the center of the yard that looked like one from an old children’s book.  

Then we visited the city cemetery, which is a walled structure containing tombs, crypts and memorials.  There are a few very wealthy and influential families that have dominated the history of Punta Arenas, and their tombs were quite impressive affairs.  Interestingly, there is a tomb for an unknown native that the people of Punta Arenas have credited with bringing good luck and good fortune to those who pray at the the tomb.  There is a lifesize bronze statue of the native, and if you kiss the left foot, it is said to bring you good fortune.  Consequently the foot is highly polished.  There are innumerable plaques surrounding the tomb giving thanks to the unknown native for granting their wishes.  Interestingly, there are a bunch of friendly dogs that seem to enjoy visiting all the people who visit the cemetery, running about with tails wagging and in and amongst the throngs of tourists.  They seem to be well cared for but most don’t have collars.  

We then visited a large indoor museum containing a large collection of artifacts and exhibits on the native animals and indigenous peoples of southern Chile.  There were several creepy rooms filled with stuffed animals and creatures in jars of alcohol.  You had to feel sorry for the aboriginal peoples who were largely exterminated over time by diseases and a short lived gold rush.  

Our last stop was at the central town square, where we happened to catch the tail end of some sort of parade.  There is a large statue of Magellan in the center of the square and around the base of the statue is a large bronze native holding a bow.  His toe is highly polished as it is within easy reach, and it seemed that every tourist in the square had to have a picture taken touching this foot.  We passed on that.  We imagined both feet, as well as the Blarney stone, and many other tourist touch items, are vectors for norovirus, MRSA and all sorts of other diseases.  There wasn’t much else to do around the city because it was Sunday and most of the shops and other businesses were all closed.  There was a choir that put on a concert at the base of the Magellan statue.  They appeared to be raising money to go to France.  

We got back to the cruise ship terminal.  Janet managed to log into a Wifi signal that allowed her to download some email, but she couldn’t send anything.  Ben wasn’t able to log in at all.  We returned to the ship via tenders, and the tender operations seemed to go much more smoothly today than in Stanley (Falkland Islands).  

We grabbed a bit to eat and then hit the afternoon trivia.  None of our usual team were back on the boat so we joined a few other random people, who didn’t really seem to be able to contribute much to the answers Janet and Ben came up with.  We didn’t even come close to winning that trivia.  

We had short naps and then an early dinner, followed by a new comedian David Copperfield (not that David Copperfield), who was called an unusualist, not an illusionist.  He did some really funny ventriloquism using audience members as involuntary dummies as he did faux-interviews walking around in the audience, and substituting his ventroquist voice for any actual audience member responses.  He could also do embarassing sounds as people stepped up or bent over on stage.  He also did some guitar and singing along with stand-up comedy.  

We then played “Passenger Feud”, which was supposed to be like Family Feud, but Robbie didn’t know how to run the game so it got pretty messed up on the first round.  They drew names from a hat to pick contestants, and we both ended up on the same team for the first round.  We ended up getting prizes of Princess notepads because Robbie messed the round up.  Ruby took over for the second round and she knew how Family Feud was supposed to be played. Roger (Santa) had his name pulled on the second round and his team won Princess Notepads and gold/jade bracelet kits.  For the third round, Kathy and John both got called up to the same team, and they also won Princess notepads and bracelet kits.  So it turned out that our entire trivia team ended up going home with prizes.  

Tomorrow we arrive late at Amalia Glacier, supposedly the largest tidal glacier in the world.  The ship will do a few spins on site and the destination expert will narrate the passage through the Glacier for us.  

Saturday, February 24, 2018- Cruise Day 32; At Sea

Saturday, February 24, 2018- Cruise Day 32; At Sea

We spent most of the day cruising through the Strait of Magellan, a passage that connects the Atlantic to the Pacific.  When we awoke, we could see a series of striking looking islands out our balcony with some jagged splash rocks rimming them along the channel.  In the background were very high mountains with glaciers and jagged peaks.  This passage threads its way through what appears to be thousands of rocky islands made of worn down ancient granite.  The seas were moderate (4-8’ swells) with white caps as there was a 25-35mph wind.  It all looked very rugged and extreme outside.  

We went through our daily sea day routine of breakfast, trivia, Effy drawing and exercise.  We won the morning trivia with our usual team.  There as actually a 3 way tie for first.  The tie breaker was to guess the host’s age, and we ended up winning string bags.  There is now a fair bit of swapping and trading of these prizes as some people want bags, others want bottle stoppers and others still want the coasters and note pads.  We have yet to win any note pads, but did trade a bag for another wine bottle stopper with another team that has been winning frequently as well.  

We didn’t win anything at the Effy drawing.  We watched Megan Leavey on the TV- a movie about a marine who serves in Afghanistan with a bomb sniffing dog.  They both end up getting injured by an IED, and she ends up separated from her dog while she recovers from her injuries.  She spends the rest of the movie trying to get her dog retired as a war hero so she can adopt him.  Long story short, she succeeds.  It did illustrate that dogs, as well as humans can suffer from war with PTSD.  

We enjoyed the ever changing views out our balcony as we sailed past an endless number of crazy shaped islands.  Thank heavens for modern day GPS, because it would be easy to get lost in this maze of thousands of islands with lots of rocks just waiting to rip a hole in the bottom of your ship.  Those early day explorers really had some nerve.  

After lunch, we attended the afternoon trivia and tied again 3 ways for first.  This time we lost the tie breaker, which was to guess which country had a population closest to the population of Wales.  We guessed Ireland, but the answer was New Zealand.  

We got changed into our formal clothes for another formal night, and had an early dinner.  No lobster, but they did have surf and turf with huge prawns that could have been mistaken for small lobsters.  We attended the early production show with the Island Princess Singers and Dancers.  It has been some time since we last saw them. Their show as called Stardust, and highlighted music from the late 40’s and 50’s.  It was a good, but short show, lasting just a half hour.  

We kept our selves entertained in the evening with 7:45PM TV Themes Trivia. Some of our regular partners can’t make the 7:45PM activities because the are on fixed dining so we teamed up with Roger, Ted and Kathleen (from the Iguazu Falls trip) and Erica, who got booted off her team because they had too many players show up.  That worked to our advantage, as she was probably the only person in the room that knew that the villian in the Smurf’s cartoon show’s name was Gargamel for bonus points.  We handily won that trivia, and won champagne to share and string bags.  We let Ted and Kathleen keep the champagne in exchange for their bags.  

We grazed the buffet since we skipped dessert at dinner, and then attended a 9:45PM Movie Madness game show.  For each question, there are 3 levels of possible points.  If you submit your team’s card with just the first clue, you get 3 points.  After a second clue is revealed, you can get 2 points, and after the 3rd clue is revealed, just 1 point.  We didn’t end up winning that game, but we all felt it was getting to be past our bedtimes, and placing 1st in 3 out of 4 games for a day wasn’t bad.  

Tomorrow we have to get up early as we arrive in our next port of call, Punta Arenas, Chile.  This is another tender port and we have a Princess excursion booked to do a city tour and museum.  We hope that the two tenders that developed engine problems were fixed while we were in Ushuaia.

Friday, February 23, 2018- Cruise Day 31; Ushuaia- End of the World

Friday, February 23, 2018- Cruise Day 31; Ushuaia- End of the World

The days are growing very long as we reach the extremes of latitude.  The sunrise is at 6:43AM and sunset is at 8:50PM.  It did stay light last night well past our circumnavigation of Cape Horn.  When we first got up and looked out the window just as the sun was rising, we thought we were at port because we could see mountains that looked stationary, but the ship was still rocking.  It turns out the water was smooth as glass and we were moving slowly through the Beagle Channel.  There are some incredibly jaggedy topped crags sticking up above other smoother mountains and glacial moraines.  We could see all the way from sea level up to permanent ice packs and glaciers.  In some ways, there are elements of Alaska, New Zealand and Norway, but it’s all unique.  We had breakfast and readied ourselves for our half day excursion called “A Drive to the End of the World”.  

We docked next to a Norwegian Flagged ship, the Hurtigruten, that appears to specialize in Antarctica cruises.  Our ship dwarfed it, and it looked like it held fewer than 300 passengers.  There were no balcony cabins, and no visible swimming pool- just two small hot tubs on the top deck.  I couldn’t see where they could store a few zodiacs to ferry people to shore in, but presume they must have a hanger for them, or perhaps there is a specialized dock on the far side of the ship we couldn’t see.  There was another even smaller ship ahead of the Hurtigruten called the Fram that was a fraction of the size of the Hurtigruten, but had 6 zodiacs visible on the top of the aft deck with a pair of winches for lowering them to the water more than 35 feet below.  

We boarded our tour buses on the wharf in an efficient and well organized manner.  Ushuaia is a small city of 57,000 people, but it is spread out on the apron of the surrounding mountains with glaciers and ice fields looming thousands of feet above and behind the businesses and homes.  It as interesting to drive through the town and then head out into the countryside.  There appears to be a large variation in building styles and construction as there are lots of homes that look cobbled together in random manners.  There really isn’t any unifying architectural elements other than the extensive use of corrugated steel for roofing and paneling.  The paved roadway ends just a little way out of town and turns into a 1-1/2 lane gravel road, which is the last part of the highway that stretches from the North Slope in Alaska to Tierra del Fuego- the longest continuous road in the world. 

The countryside is very scenic with towering mountains, glacial moraines, and mixed deciduous and evergreen forests.  There was a huge cloud of dust kicked up by any vehicles driving on the gravel road, so we were glad we weren’t in an open vehicle of any sort.  As we drove in through the park, our interpreter explained how introduced species have altered the flora and fauna of Tierra del Fuego.  Beavers were introduced, but there was not enough cold weather for them to develop the kind of fur they do in northern Canada, so they ended up worthless, but multiplied by the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, damming  up all the streams in the glacial valleys and flooding out forests, converting them to meadows.  There were plenty of different birds including black necked swans and at least a half dozen different kinds of geese.  The most interesting bird we saw, by far, was a crested Cara Cara that ran out in front of the bus and then ran along side the road for a ways before ducking into the forest.  It was most interesting to us because this Christmas, we had seen one at the Sonora Desert Museum as part of the Raptor Flight demonstration.  This Cara Cara looked a lot healthier than the neurotic one at the Desert Museum though.  

The scenery in the Tierra del Fuego national park is unique.  It has elements of Norway, New Zealand and Alaska, with the snow capped mountains meeting the ocean, but was laid out in a more linear and open fashion.  Yet, everywhere you turned, there were snow capped mountains in the distance meeting the sky.  The vegetation was also quite unique.  The majority of the trees have tiny leaves, so the leaf litter on the ground wasn’t pine needles, but tiny leaves.  There are also a lot of trees with heart rot that have fallen in strange ways, creating the appearance of a haunted forest.  We stopped at some beautiful lakes and inlets within the park and took a few sort nature walks.  It would have been nice to have spent more time on the walks- each stop was limited to just 15-30 minutes, and it always took a long time to rustle up the last 2 or 3 missing passengers, who invariably were not English speakers, back on the bus to go to the next stop.  There is a post office on a wharf at the southernmost part of the park that claims to be the southernmost post office in the world, and people were anxious to go in there and buy stamps and postcards to send home with the Tierra del Fuego National Park postmark on them.  Someone we met said they had paid US$15 to send three stamped postcards to her friends.  We would just send an email when we found free wifi. 

The bus dropped us off near the cruise ship pier, and we then walked around the town itself, which has several free museums touting “The End of the World” theme, really meaning the southernmost city in the world.  The museums had numerous interesting artifacts, but most of the exhibits were in Spanish, with occasional English panels.  Ushuaia seems to have some late generational guilt about their treatment of the aboriginal people, as expressed in numerous murals round the city.  A Missionary was successful in preserving their language through a dictionary that he created, but the aboriginals are apparently down to just a single individual who can speak the language, and who is very, very old.  It appears that language is close to extinction, as is that race of people.

We had beautiful early Seattle Summer like weather with light breezes, puffy clouds in the sky and temperatures in the upper 50’s and lower 60’s, so it was very comfortable for us, except that everyone had dressed for colder weather and the bus was not air conditioned, so it got a bit warm in the bus.  

We did find some free Wifi at the head of the dock, although the quality and reliability of the connection was nearly as bad as the ship’s expensive and terrible Wifi.  We really miss the great internet we had at the hotel at Iguazu falls.  

We made it back to the ship with time to grab lunch and join in on the 3:45PM afternoon trivia.  None of our usual team was back so we ended up playing with Fred, whom we had teamed up with a few times early in the cruise.  His wife had taken a terrible tumble on a wilderness hike in St Vincent, sliding down a 200 foot embankment.  She had to be rescued, and although she didn’t end up with any broke bones, she was pretty badly battered, and is just now feeling well enough to go on excursions.  It ended up being a pretty hard trivia, or we really missed the talents of our usual partners as we only scored 10/20.  The winners scored 13/20.  Who is the great grey poet anyways?

We had a relaxing afternoon and had dinner in the dining room.  They had a mango strudel dessert that fell flat for us.  It had a strange mealy texture and just wasn’t sweet enough or mango-ey enough.  It was really the first dessert that wasn’t up to parr, and we have had a lot of desserts.  

We had most of our team back, except for Bob, in the evening for the 7:45PM Musicals Trivia, which Roger was really looking forward to.  We invited Ted to join us.  We ended up leaning heavily on Roger, who is a musicals savant, but did come up with quite a few ones we knew as well.  However, sometimes its hard to come up with the exact title to some of the songs, and there are some really obscure musicals out there as well.  There was even one that Roger had never heard of- The Color Purple.  We ended up in a 3 way tie for second place while the winning team had managed one point over our score.  

Tomorrow is another at sea day as we clear the Beagle Chanel and head up the Strait of Magellan towards Punta Arenas.

Thursday, February 22, 2018- Cruise Day 30; Cape Horn Scenic Cruising

Thursday, February 22, 2018- Cruise Day 30; Cape Horn Scenic Cruising

We saw some very rugged islands off our balcony this morning as we are headed towards Cape Horn.  We had breakfast in the dining room and then attended the morning trivia.  We exchanged notes on our Stanley excursions and getting back to the ship stories.  It turns out two tenders developed motor problems, and that contributed to the very late departure from Stanley.  It’s a good thing we went back early, because many people ended up waiting up to 3 hours to get back on the ship, and at some point, Princess brought in empty tour buses for people to take shelter in because it was so cold on the dock, and the shelter was way over capacity.  As for the trivia, we ended up in a 5-way tie for first place with 18/20 points.  The tie breaker was to guess how much the world’s record for a stir fry weighed.  We guessed 3500#.  The answer was 4010#, but one team guessed 4000#, beating us.  

We hit the fitness center for some guilt reduction and then went to the Pub lunch, which they usually do once a cruise segment.  Janet had the Plowman’s lunch, which was an assortment of cheeses, luncheon meat, bread and pickles.  Ben had the fish and chips, but it looked like they battered two small french fry sized pieces of fish, so it wasn’t all that good.  We may skip the pub lunches in the future since the dining room and buffet lunches are usually pretty good.  

We then went to the Princess Theatre and watched the movie “The Dark Tower” with Matthew McConaughey as a creepy satan guy vs a gun slinger through interdimensional portals.  Yup, it as as dumb as it sounds.  It was based on a Stephen King novel, apparently.  

We didn’t do so well in the afternoon trivia, scoring 15/20.  The winners scored 18/20. One question was “What is the Roman God of the Moon?”  We answered Diana, who is the goddess of the moon and the hunt, but the answer they were looking for was Luna.  

We had an early dinner and then bundled up to go out on deck 15 to see our scenic cruising around Cape Horn.  It was ironic that all the public viewing decks below 15 were closed off due to high winds and spray, but it didn’t end up all that crowded on deck 15.  We ended up doing a counterclockwise circle around Cape Horn, which is actually a series of islands.  People with portside balconies had the most comfortable and convenient viewing. Unfortunately, our cabin was on the Starboard side, so we had to go to the top deck.  The wind was something fierce!  It as probably blowing across the decks at 50+mph, making it very hard to hold our iPhones to take pictures.  It felt like the wind was about to rip our phones out of our hands.  You also couldn’t hold a camera still because the wind was gusting so strongly.  According to our destination expert, who provided narration, these were very favorable weather and sea condtions. He assured us it gets A WHOLE LOT WORSE during their winter months, which would be the northern hemisphere’s summer months.  We could easily see the light house marking Cape Horn, and the large sculpture depicting a cut-out of an Albatross, which is a memorial to all those who have lost their lives off the Cape.  

We dashed back inside for an Effy drawing where you had to guess what gemstones were in 10 pieces of jewelry.  The person guessing the most correct would win a gift bag, and then a consolation drawing would be held for all the other entrants. Because most people were watching the Cape Horn cruising, there were less than a dozen people in the store, and you had to be present to win the drawing.  Janet managed to guess 3/10 gems right.  The winner had guessed 8/10 right and won the gift bag.  Then when the consolation prizes were drawn, because there were so few people in the room, they just kept drawing until someone in the room’s name was pulled, and Janet happened to be the last one pulled out of the bag. So Janet’s now a 2-time Effy winner.  Her prize was a silver panther keychain/purse fob and a blue crystal earring and pendant set.  We then ran back up to deck 15 and watched as we pulled full circle around the horn, seeing the other side of the lighthouse and Albatross monument as we sailed past from the south, headed back east.  We will then head north into Magellan’s channel, which will take us to Ushuaia overnight.  This maneuver will bring us from Chilean waters back to Argentinian territory so our manifest will show we are arriving from Chile, and not the Falkland Islands.  The Argentinians will refuse docking to vessels coming directly from the Falkland Islands because there is still plenty of bad blood between the UK and Argentina over the war over the Falklands during the 1980’s.  

There was a Geography trivia tonight, which we participated in. Bob was not available so Ted, one of the Canadian’s we met on the Iguazu trip, joined us.  We made a decent effort but scored 18/25, while the winners scored 23/25.  We called it a night after that.

Tomorrow we arrive at Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world tomorrow. We have an excursion to “Drive to the end of the world” that meets at 8:15AM.  Hopefully we won’t be driving over a cliff into the Beagle Channel at the end of that excursion.

Wednesday, February 21, 2018- Cruise Day 29; Falkland Islands

Wednesday, February 21, 2018- Cruise Day 29; Falkland Islands

During the night we noticed several brightly lit boats in the distance as we made our way towards the Falklands. As we arrived a the Falklands, we saw some beat up looking ships coming into port with unusual rigging all along the sides.  It turns out these were the squidding boats we had seen the night before.  They appear to be flagged out of Korea and Taiwan for the most part.  We managed to arrive in the Falklands with calm seas and overcast skies.  The ship anchored outside Stanley Harbor and began launching the tenders.  We had tickets for an excursion to the Bluff Cove Penguin Rookery meeting at 9:45. We had breakfast in the dining room and then dressed for cool and windy weather.  We were told the tender ride to Stanley would take 30 minutes each way, but because the water was calm, it only took about 15 minutes for our tender to make it to shore.  Once off the tender, the wind did feel cold.  Fortunately, there was a small shelter where we waited while they organized our tour group.  First we were loaded into minivans of 16, which took us to the end of the pavement about 20 minutes from the tender dock.  Then we loaded up 4 to a Land Rover for the last 20 minutes of our trip, which started on gravel roads, and then ended up going cross country over peat and rock covered hills to the beach where the Bluff Cove penguin rookery was located.  

As promised, there were lots of Gentoo penguins, which can be readily identified by their brushy tail and white patches around their eyes.  There was also a small colony of much larger and more colorful King penguins.  It looked like there was about a dozen nesting pairs.  The King and Gentoo penguins don’t live in any sort of nest or burrow, but lay their eggs on the soft peaty ground and they live in tight groupings for defense.  The rangers placed white flags around the penguins to give us guidance on how close we could approach without upsetting them.  

There are molting adults as well as mature adults and chicks of varying sizes.  The King penguins are quite a sight because they are much larger than the Gentoos, and also much more colorful with their jet black and bright orange markings on their heads.  They also have much longer and more slender beaks.  Their chicks look like cute huge brown blobs, but there was one small chick that the ranger said had just hatched a day before. We could see some of the adults regurgitating to feed the chicks.  

There were a thousand nesting pairs of the Gentoo penguins, so they seemed to cover the beach and hills.  There were also a bunch of molting Gentoo penguins right next to the King Penguins, so these two species don’t seem to have a problem with being in close proximity.  Many of the Gentoo penguins lay prostrate on the ground in awkward and silly looking poses, apparently just relaxing.  

There was a beautiful beach where we could see Gentoo penguins riding waves in from the bay.

The excursion ended with tea at a tiny but cute tea house next to the penguin colonies, where there was a vast array of cakes, cookies and scones that we struggled to get through before our Land Rovers returned to take us back to the buses.  

We opted to get dropped off at the outskirts of town, and saw the local museum and church.  It only takes about 20 minutes to walk the length of town back to the tender dock.  

The winds had picked up considerably by the time we returned to the dock, and we could see white caps building in the harbor.  The ride back was a lot slower and wetter than the morning ride.  Water would splash in through the open doors of the tender as it crashed through waves. It’s a good thing we were wearing our rain coats.  When we got to the ship, another tender was stuck on the landing and had to be manually moved because it was having trouble with its port side motor.  That limited the tender service to just 3 working tenders.  We ended up staying late because it took so long to get all the passengers back to the ship with the rough weather and reduced number of tenders.  Instead of leaving at 5:30PM, the ship ended leaving more like at 7PM. 

We did make it back in time to attend the 3:45PM afternoon trivia.  It as a Paranormal themed trivia and we ended up teaming up with Fred and Bob.  We ended up with 16/20, while there were two teams with 17/20 that was settled with 3 tie breakers.  The first was which explorer claimed to see mermaids, but reported they were not as attractive as their paintings? A. Merriweather Lewis, B. William Clark, C. Christopher Columbus, D. Sir Edmund Hillary.  Of course both teams picked C.  Then he asked them to guess his month of birth, and they both ended up 4 months off.  Finally he asked for the day of his birthday, and one team guessed it right.  

We had dinner in the dining room and managed to score another Chocolate Journey dessert.  We watched the last part of the Showtime presentation of Gary DeLena, who is a guitarist/comedian, and decided we didn’t need to go back and see his whole show.

We finished the evening with the 7:45PM Music Trivia.  None of our usual team showed up so Gary and Angela came over and teamed up with us, and Ed came over from his usual team to join our team for the evening. We managed to win that with a score of 26/40.  There was some controversy because we had given the team we scored credit for writing Michael Jackson when the artist was the Jackson 5, and they didn’t give us credit.  Ultimately Walley, the quizmaster granted credit for either Michael Jackson or Jackson 5, securing our win.  It was especially awkward because Ed had defected from that team to ours. The prize was a bottle of champagne, which we offered to the Ed’s usual team, but they didn’t want it. Angela ended up taking the champagne home.  

We retired to our stateroom for some TV before retiring for the night.  Tomorrow, we are supposed to cruise around Cape Horn, but our late departure from the Falklands may place us there near sunset, or shortly after dark, so that will be a disappointment to do scenic cruising in the dark.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018- Cruise Day 28; At Sea

Tuesday, February 20, 2018- Cruise Day 28; At Sea

We were surprised to look outside and see blue skies and calm seas.  We also saw two whales surface near the ship as it sailed past.  It wasn’t possible to positively identify them, but they didn’t have a distinct dorsal fin, and the spout was bifurcated.  We had breakfast in the dining room and then attended our second mandatory Muster drill.  Thankfully, the drills have been streamlined so they take less time, but it did cause terrible congestion in all the public lounges and hallways as people moved from their muster stations to where they wanted to be on the ship.  

We did make it to the 10:45AM morning trivia, and our team with John, Kathy, Bob and Roger won with a score of 16/20.  We got string bags and aluminum bottles.  Janet managed to barter with Ted and Kathleen behind us to swap aluminum water bottles for wine bottle stoppers because they wanted the bottles and had 14 wine bottle stoppers.  

We then went to the Effy store for a Tanzanite presentation and raffle.  We learned a lot about Tanzanite, but didn’t win the raffle.  There was a sign up for the scrap heap boat contest, and a paper airplane contest scheduled for today, but we opted to pass on these.  We had a casual lunch at the burger bar, and then hit the fitness center for some guilt reduction exercise.  

We then returned to the Effy store for a 3:00PM contest to guess the carot weight of a Tanzanite pendant.  Much to her surprize, Janet guessed the weight exactly on the nail at 4.125 ct.  Her jaw literally dropped to the counter when her name was announced as the winner!  Unfortunately, she didn’t get to win the Tanzanite pendant, but got a goodie bag with a jeweled jaguar key chain, nice Effy scarf, and jewelry bag.  That really made Janet a Happy Girl!

We attended the 3:30PM afternoon trivia with our usual team, scoring 17/22, with the winning team scoring 19/22.  

We had dinner at Sabatini’s. Part of our booking promotion included one specialty restaurant dining, which is worth $29 per person.  We were able to have double lobster tails at Sabatini’s to make up for the lobster we missed while away on our Iguazu Falls excursion.  They also had a delicious Chocolate Journey Tiramisu dessert.  

We met up with our trivia team at 7:45PM Food and Beverage trivia, and ended up tying for 1st place with one other team with 14/20 points.  The tie breaker question was how many pounds did the world’s record nacho chips weigh.  We guessed 2000#, while the other team guessed 900#.  The actual weight was 4618#, so we ended up winning a bottle of champagne, which Janet managed to swap with Ted and Kathleen for wine bottle stoppers, since they have been wanting a bottle of Champagne all cruise.

We then saw the late Showtime performance by Dan Delgado, who was a trumpeter and vocalist who did some jazz and pop tunes.  With the Island Princess orchestra backing him, they put on a decent show for another evening of entertainment.  

We arrive at Stanley in the Falkland Islands tomorrow morning.  Hopefully the weather and seas will be favorable for our tender transfers, which will take 30 minutes each way.  We have heard stories from other passengers who have been to Stanley before about not being able to carry out tender operations because of weather, and extremely wet and wild tender rides into and back out of Stanley.  We have a Princess Excursion booked to see Gentoo and King penguins at the Bluff Cove penguin rookery.  We hear that part of that excursion will involve some pretty rough cross country travel in a caravan of Land Rovers to get to the rookery.  It should be in the 50’s tomorrow with little chance of rain, but plenty of wind and penguins.