Puerto Madryn & the Penguin Colony

On Wednesday morning we docked bright and early at Puerto Madryn, Argentina.




We ate breakfast in bed. I got a little carried away with the room-service menu.
Dozens of coaches lined up on the dock to take us on tours. We went to the Punto Tombo penguin rookery, the largest penguin colony outside Antarctica, with more than 300,000 penguins.
We spent hours enraptured by the Magellanic penguins on the beach.

Further up from the beach they were nesting.

Penguin meets alpaca.

He just woke up from a nap.

The two on the right were scolding the one on the left for getting too close to their love nest.

After a fun-filled day, we hopped back on the boat and watched as the mooring lines were dropped and we pulled out to sea.

My honey and I ate dinner at the Four Seasons dining room while we sped further south in the South Atlantic.

The last shades of daylight lingered on the horizon outside our stateroom window. On the deck, there was a distinct chill in the air as the swells rocked our ship.

Tuesday at Sea

On Tuesday we spent the first day at sea relaxing. The swells were several feet, and it took a while to get our sea legs. The pools were heated, which felt good this far south, and I enjoyed the sauna. We found the library, and checked out some good books and got a copy of the daily Sudoku puzzle.

There was good food to eat whenever, wherever we wanted. It was hard to moderate our intake of so many delights.


In the atrium, some folks were playing put-put golf for prizes.

We enjoyed some desserts.

Montevideo, Uruguay

Bright and early on Monday morning we pulled into Montevideo's harbor.

After breakfast on the aft deck, we walked down the gangplank to the dock.

We found Montevideo to be a very nice city, and would like to come back again someday.

We walked downtown to the main square.


Mate is the way tea is taken in southern South America. Everyone in Montevideo seemed to have a cup of mate.

The city had a quaint charm, like this horse-drawn carriage taking a family to its destination.

Children playing on the sidewalk.

We stopped by the U.S. Embassy, located across the street from a beautiful bay.

Back on the ship, we had a late lunch.


As the boat pulled out into the open Atlantic, we found a special folded towel creation on our bed, with a reminder of the time change that night.

Cruising on the Norwegian Sun

Did I mention we were excited to start our cruise? Our taxi dropped us off at the dock, and we boarded the Norwegian Sun to begin our excursion.

Our stateroom was on the 7th floor near the bow. Our folks had a stateroom a few feet away.

The stained glass near the Seven Seas dining room.
Our room.

The facilities seemed spacious enough.Upstairs on the 11th deck, the spa girls were drawing door prizes. Dad won a facial prize, which he gave to Mom.



As our boat pulled out into the Rio Plate delta to the Atlantic, my honey and I enjoyed Spanish tapas in Las Ramblas and watched the land disappear over the horizon.

As the stars came out, we enjoyed an Indian meal in the Four Seasons dining room, and settled in for a good night's rest.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

After my brother left, we discovered two gift certificates for a sauna and therapeutic massage at a nearby hotel spa. Thank you very much--its very thoughtful, and we can't wait to use them!

Early on Friday morning we boarded our Pluna flight over the Andes, and spent a couple of hours in Uruguay waiting for our jump over the Rio Plate to Buenos Aires.

Coming in over the brown Rio Plate, to land at the downtown Jorge Newberry airport. We found Buenos Aires to be a friendly, quaint city, and settled into our hotel room. With the high humidity, we really enjoyed the air conditioner! Later that night my folks arrived on their flight from Frankfurt, and we enjoyed a couple of fun days exploring Buenos Aires together.

On Saturday we walked through the Plaza de Mayo, where many mothers come to hold vigils for their children who were "disappeared" by the military dictatorship in the 1980s.

The Casa Rosada is the pink Argentinean version of the White House.

We spent a delightful day exploring a nature reserve by the river delta. Dad added several new birds to his list, and we enjoyed a relaxing picnic lunch in a grassy patch.

An iguana made his presence felt.

The sign says: "They were, they are, and they will be" Argentina's, one of many not-so-subtle references in Argentina to the Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as Las Islas Malvinas. The topic is still a sensitive subject here, especially the unsuccessful war with Britain over the islands in 1983. To give you an idea about how strongly Argentineans feel about the Falklands, the police and immigration badges sport a map of the Falkland Islands, not a map of Argentina, and the last thing motorists see when leaving Argentina is a billboard that claims the Falklands for Argentina. Determined to learn more, I decided to keep my eyes open the following week when our upcoming cruise had a port of call in Stanley, Falkland Islands.

On Sunday morning, we got up early to walk over to see the congress building, modeled after the one in the U.S. Banners and stages were being set up and hundreds of people were being bussed in for a demonstration that morning. I learned that it was a demonstration by party loyalists in favor of the incumbent president, Christina Fernandez Kirchner. The ensuing mayhem later that morning nearly made us miss our boat.
The monument in town, similar to the Washington monument, only smaller.

We caught a bus for mere pennies to visit the Recoleta cemetery, and saw the grave of Eva Peron.

In other families' sepulchres, coffins were stacked on shelves, and miniature staircases led to more underground. Some sepulchres had a queer smell coming from their open doors.

All too soon, it was time to head to the port, and we folded our luggage and our four bodies into a little taxi for the short ride to our boat, the Norwegian Sun, to start our 15 day cruise around South America. What excitement!

Volcanoes & Thermal Springs

After our jaunt to Argentina, we spent a long weekend in the town of Pucon, in the Araucaria Region, with my brother.

Volcan Villarica is one of the natural highlights.

We stayed at a cozy bed & breakfast called Ecole, nestled between the volcano and a big lake.





The vegetarian restaurant attached to the B&B served tasty, fresh-baked, whole-wheat bread on tables set under grape trelisses.





They served delicious lunches too.





We had nice views from our window. On Saturday we went hiking in Parque Nacional Herquehue and enjoyed beautiful views. I think I set the pace a bit too fast, and my brother and wife were exhausted by the time we paused for lunch on a mountain ridge. Next time I think I'll go slower and try to enjoy the scenery more.



On Sunday we enjoyed flying through the forest canopy on a 1 hour zip-line ride.

In the late afternoon we went to Termas Geometricas, a series of 12 stone swimming pools naturally heated by geothermal energy, and a cold creek running by.


The water was deliciously warm, and we enjoyed jumping from pool to pool, sampling the various temperatures. My brother & I took bracing showers under the icy-cold waterfall and then jumping back into the steaming pools. As dusk fell, the management set out candles. Reluctantly, we drove home and easily fell into a deep sleep.



All too soon, it was time to come home to Santiago.

We discovered a new salon opened just next door to our apartment building. "I'll have two secrets to go, please."

My brother spent the next couple of weeks touring around Santiago & Chile on his own because we had to go back to work in the Embassy. He is a fairly independent traveller, but we also enjoyed some quality time together reminising about the good and bad old days of the past. On Sunday, we went to the pottery village of Pomaire again.

On my brother's last day in Chile, we went to Parque de Recuerdos to enjoy some nature, and then had lunch a little vegetarian restaurant called La Chakra. When we came back to our car a couple of hours later, we discovered to our shock and dismay that our car had been broken into. The door lock was broken with a screwdriver, our dashboard was completely ripped out. The CD player, a folder of CD's, some expensive electronics, and the items in our trunk were stolen. My distraught wife wept, and I contacted the RSO (the Embassy's Regional Security Officer) to report the incident and get advice about filing a police report with the Carabineros. There was little else we could do.

We were sad to say good-bye to my brother at the airport that evening. But we didn't have long to feel sad, because we had to pack for our very early flight the next morning to meet my parents in Argentina for a 2-week cruise vacation with them.