URUGUAY, EVENTUALLY

After leaving Puerto Madryn, we were to have a day at sea before calling at Punta Del Este, Uruguay.  We didn’t do much other than lounge about, participating in a couple of trivia contests, winning one, reading and eating.  After a good night’s sleep, we awoke to find the ship parked well out in a bay, whitecaps on the water and a good wind blowing.  Punta Del Este was stretched out along the shore, but we weren’t getting any closer.  The port authority had closed the harbor due to unsafe conditions.  This was not a docking stop, and we would have had to use the tenders to get to the pier.  Due to the rough seas and winds, that wasn’t going to be possible.  PDE is the Cannes of South America, a luxury playground for the yachting set and upscale resort vacationers.  It has only 10,000 year-round residents, but gets a half million tourists between December and March.  It might have been nice to see, but it was not to be.  The captain moved us further out, and idled around for the rest of the day, hoping that things would change.  They didn’t, so we moved out to sea to await our passage up the Rio de la Plata to Montevideo.  We couldn’t just go in early, as the docks are tightly scheduled.  So, another day of lazing about at sea, forcing oneself to eat round the clock just to assuage the disappointment.  Life is tough, man.

We got up early the next morning as the ship was eerily quiet.  We had docked in the pre-dawn and the engines were shut down.  I went topside to check out our first view of Montevideo.  Unfortunately, the sun was not quite up and our dock is right smack in the midst of a very busy commercial port, with cranes, containers, the navy, and other cruisers all around.

We had signed on for a walking tour of the city, but it wasn’t scheduled to leave until 1:30, so we grabbed some breakfast and set out on our own.  We could walk into the city from the dock, passing the local welcome sign and the Uruguayan flag on the way out.

We did quite a bit of wandering, to get an idea of what everyday areas looked like.  But first we had to traipse up the tourist streets that started at the dock area.  Montevideo has a bit of a problem with pickpockets, so there are “tourist police” everywhere in their lime-green vests. 

Most of the older areas of the city have a Spanish colonial genteel decay feeling to them, serviceable to be sure, but quite run-down in appearance.  I thought the Coke ads were classic.

In 1811, Uruguay rebelled against Spanish rule, and gained independence in 1828.  Waves of immigrants flooded in, primarily from Spain and Italy.  Unfortunately, the country went through much strife, civil war, foreign intervention, failed governments, Marxist movements, military coups and juntas.  It wasn’t until 1985 that civilian rule was restored under a Constitutional Republic system.  Today, Montevideo has a little over 1.5 million residents, and has the usual European plazas, parks, fountains, and monuments to national heroes, and a few main boulevards, like this view down the Avenida 18 de Julio.

The picture at the right, below, shows the only remaining vestige of the original citadel wall and gates that surrounded the early city, the Puerta de la Ciudadela, built in 1746.

Here’s what it looked like back in the day.  The old city is built on a peninsula.

In the background of the gate picture is one of the oddest buildings I’ve ever seen, with the turrets bulging out over the main tower.  This is the Palacio Salvo, erected by a wealthy merchant back in 1925, and then the tallest building in South America.  It was intended as a hotel, but never used for that purpose, instead serving as an office building and apartments.  It sits on one edge of the main Plaza Independencia.  Apparently it had lavish external decorative metalwork, all of which was stripped off and sold many years ago.

Another unusual bit of architecture was this building sporting the London-Paris wording with its construction date.  I haven’t been able to find out the what and why of this one.  At one point there was some English influence here, but I haven’t read about any significant French presence.

We’d walked a few miles and it was getting time for lunch, and we had to be back at the ship to pick up our organized tour, so we headed off in what I thought was the most direct route back to the pier.  Well, it was, sort of.  It also took us through some rather mean streets with precious few other people about.  Just the type of place they always tell you to avoid.  We didn’t encounter any problems, and soon were back at the gates to the pier.

We had a nice lunch, I changed the battery in the camera, and we went back down on the pier where there were a number of buses ready to take the walking tour folks out.  I think we got lucky, because the guide on our bus was Enrique, a dapper guy of indeterminate age, with a droll humor and passion for his country. 

The bus didn’t take us far, just a ways out of the dock area, and we started the walk.  One of the first stops was back at the Plaza Independencia, where was situated the old and new seats of government.  On the left is the former National Government Office (1830-1972), with the new government building on the right.  The old one wins, hands down.

While we were standing around the plaza, this protest demonstration got underway.  There wasn’t much to it, just a bit of chanting and a solitary drum beating, mostly young people.  After a short while, they just broke up and milled about.  Enrique said he couldn’t understand what they had to protest about – the government apparently is extremely left-wing and caters to just these sorts of folks.  He suspects they just wanted an excuse to take the afternoon off.

A very neat place Enrique (below, left) took us to was a former mansion – the Palacio Taranco – built in 1910 for the Ortiz de Taranco family, that has been turned into a Museum of Decorative Arts.

The interior is quite nice, to say the least, with an array of fine furniture including Louis XV and XVI pieces.  In 1925, the future Edward VIII stayed here as it was better than anything the government had to offer, and in 1987 Pope John Paul II visited to celebrate the 1979 Treaty of Montevideo, signed in this room, which established a peace process between Argentina and Chile.

Besides all the pretty things to see, we were treated to an authentic tango exhibition on the courtyard terrace.  I say “authentic,” because these two were old enough to have invented the dance.  They were elegant, smooth, and romantic.  We were pretty amazed afterwards to find out that she was 78 and he was 80!

Actually, this was the only tango we saw.  We didn’t bother seeking any out when we were in Buenos Aires.  It’s nice, but . . .

After the Palacio, we wandered over to check out the Cathedral Metropolitana, built in 1790.  We had to wade through the usual alms seekers on the steps, but the interior was beautiful.  I think I liked it most because it was so very bright and airy.  We were pretty amazed to learn that what looked like white marble all over was actually a cunningly painted finish.  Even up close you couldn’t tell.

Coming out of the church, Enrique turned us loose in this large leafy square

which, of course, contained vendor stalls for all sorts of knickknacks and junk. 

Our last stop was at the Teatro Solis, the main performance hall for music, dance, and theatre.  The main portion was completed in 1856, and newer wings in 1885.  Our young guide was incredibly, ah, charming.  Yeah, that’s it, charming.  Safe description.

We liked Montevideo.  The people were friendly (except for the pickpockets, who got some of our shipmates), and the city had a liveable scale to it.  It also seemed less expensive than Chile or Argentina.  That said, it’s not really a destination tourist spot on its own, only in conjunction with a junket like we’re on. 

Mae’r Gymraeg yn dod! Puerto Madryn.

After a day at sea, we pulled into our first Atlantic port at Puerto Madryn, Argentina, a speck of a town of about 60,000 in the remote region of Patagonia.

In the mid-1800’s, the government of Argentina had laid claim to a vast amount of land in Patagonia, but had no one to settle it.  At the same time, in Wales, Welshmen were upset at the encroachment of English language and culture upon their ancient tongue and traditions.  In late May of 1865, a small band of 153 settlers, few of whom had ever been out of their own villages, boarded the beat-up clipper ship “Mimosa” at Liverpool and left everything they had ever known to sail to a new world.  They had cobblers, miners, blacksmiths, bakers, and preachers but, apparently, not a farmer among them!  They had a difficult two month journey, made more so by the tyrannical captain who denied them access to the fresh air and sunlight of the main deck.  They sailed into Gulfo Nuevo on July 27, and named their new home for Sir Thomas Duncombe Love Jones-Parry, their Baron of Madryn, northwest Wales.

The city has a large aluminum industry, but is a center for tourism for the Patagonian coast, with penguin and sea lion colonies a couple of hours away.  Not big on foot-high penguins, and having plenty of sea lions in California, we opted to stay in PM and just wander the city.  It has a very nice sandy beach that stretches for miles, and a colorful central downtown area.  Although it was sunny, it wasn’t exactly sunbathing weather, and virtually no one was taking in the rays.

There’s not a lot to the town.  We did find a colorful fruit and veggie market, but most of the streets looked like they could have been plucked from any town in California’s Central Valley.  They had the same look, except for the glimpses of ocean.

I did note that the RV industry is thriving, and hooray for a rather dilapidated example of my favorite jalopy, which looks like its suspension is stuck on a permanent rake. 

About the only thing of note to do in PM is the local “Oceanographic and Natural Sciences Museum,” housed in a neo-classical house that was built by one of the early settlers.  It had a few curiosities and interesting displays and, best of all, was free that day.  It also had a rather unnerving spiral staircase up the tower, with treads that seemed not to have any visible support except where they came out of the wall.

We saw no restaurants that had any appeal, and I wished we had sprung for one of the tours that went inland to some of the Welsh villages that dot the area, like Trelew, Rawson, and Gaiman.  They offered a visit to a Welsh tea shoppe, which might have been nice.  Apparently, the Welsh spoken in these small towns is considered to be the purest form of the language, and folks from Wales travel here to study it and refresh their speech.  We didn’t hear anything but Spanish in PM.  We made our way back to the bus pickup area.  The ship does get to dock in this port, but at a remote pier out by the aluminum plant, about a 15 minute bus trip into the town center.

We queued up for this bus, which promptly closed its doors after discharging its passengers and pulled away empty.  I think those folks in shorts and T’s are Canadians from northern Alberta. 

Had to wait another ten minutes or so for the next one to arrive, which did haul us back to the ship, just in time for a stint at the design-it-yourself pasta bar!  Mmmmm.  Bow ties, mushrooms, and veggies.  I’ll spare you the desserts.

We went on deck later on to watch us pull out.  The captain supervises things from his flying bridge, with the dock workers casting off the huge hawsers.  They throw them in the drink and the ship’s capstans winch them aboard.  The side thrusters move us sideways away from the dock, and we’re underway.

As we moved out into the bay, I noticed a small speck furiously smashing its way through the waves, coming at us from the dock.

This turned out to be the pilot boat, coming out to retrieve the port’s pilot from our ship.  That little sucker was tunneling into those waves.  I don’t think any of Loni’s seasickness remedies would have worked on board that thing.  Once we got to the proper location, the ship stopped, the pilot boat came along side, and the harbor pilot jumped down to it.  I missed that moment, but he was pretty nimble.

Off they went back to the pier, we picked up steam, and farewell Puerto Madryn!

ALL AT SEA

Fortunately, all of our drearier weather occurred when we had sea days with no port call.  When faced with this, we turned to the ship’s facilities and entertainment.  I’d like to say that we made good use of the excellent gym that they offered, but alas, I can’t.  Didn’t set foot in the place the entire journey.  A lot of other folks did, however, and we heard complaints that it was too crowded at times.  The running machines all faced out the huge windows that overlooked the bow, so the joggers got a panoramic view of the horizon in front of the ship.  We also didn’t indulge, for no good reason, in the hot tubs and jet pool, which were under a greenhouse roof to keep things warm and steamy.  There were plenty of deck chairs, both inside and out, and even a special nook for the hard-core smokers, a gimlet-eyed bunch if I ever saw one.  That area just reeked of smoke whenever we walked by.  Sad, with all that great fresh air, to be sucking the poisons in.

On the top deck, there was a great lounge with picture windows all around.  At night, they would have singers or instrumental combos play here.

They kept the theatre filled with talks by hired experts as well as the ship’s crew.  One day they had a cookoff between two of the sous-chefs, “aided” by 2 members of the audience, and MC’d by the Master Chef who rose from below stage in a cloud of smoke.  The finished dishes were danced (note chef in lower left pic) to three judges also plucked from the audience who got to sample everything.  One of them, a woman who practically screamed to be selected (the closest one in the lower right pic), of course turned out to be the biggest dud and couldn’t articulate any coherent opinion, but rather wanted to talk about herself.

It was good fun, with the losing chef getting “demoted” to scullery duty.

Evening entertainment, once they got the uber-amplification problem resolved, was pretty good, with a magician one night, a juggling comedian (who, despite the mental image that must raise, was pretty good), and of course the singers and dancers.  And who can resist a rousing performance of “Y-M-C-A?”  Not, apparently, the enthusiastic guy two rows in front of me who was acting out every letter right along with the cast (see his silhouetted hands, at lower right of the inset pic?).

We didn’t do much exercise other than walking up and down the stairs instead of taking the elevators, but once in a while we got out before breakfast and walked the 4th deck outside passageway.  This was better than trying to use the jogging track, which was always cluttered with users, and we generally had it to ourselves.

Ah, yes.  Breakfast.  The buffet was loaded with just about everything including omelet and pancake/waffle stations; a “Brit” bar where you could get baked beans, twelve meats, and grilled tomatoes; blintzes, pastries, and breads; cold and hot cereals; fruits of every description; yoghurt central;  and dozens of things I can’t remember.  The one downer was it was a real challenge to get truly crisp bacon.  They just didn’t seem to understand the concept.  After being an utter glutton for eggs & sausages the first couple of days, I settled down to a compromise of cereals, fruits, Danishes (and, on those rare mornings, edible bacon).

Not all of our grab bag table companions were scintillating company.  We hit a low one day with the mouthful of mush.  A husband and wife, two rather generously proportioned souls, who hailed from N’awlins.  When we first sat down, I swear I thought he was speaking a foreign language.  It wasn’t until I made out “New Orleans” that I realized I was hearing the most extreme southern accent I’d ever encountered.  I couldn’t understand at least half his words.  Fortunately his wife, who was every bit as charming as she appears in this shot, hardly spoke a word.  The poor folks to the left were struggling to make sense of it as well. 

Well, a good lunch, full stomachs, books and a comfortable lounge.  The perfect recipe for . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz at sea.  Hey, I restrained myself when her mouth dropped open.

CAPE PUSSYCAT

Dawn.  Cape Horn.  The dreaded passage.

Not.

We have been incredibly lucky (if you believe the ship’s naturalist) with the good weather in every port and point of interest.  Today was no exception.  Not only did we have sun and clear views, the sea was totally calm.  Cape Horn is an island marking the southern tip of the Andes archipelago, and its principal mountain also is referred to as the Horn.  It was named after the Dutch ship Hoorn, which was the first to navigate around the southern tip (as opposed to going through the more northern Straits of Magellan) in early 1616.  This is about as nice a view as you ever will get.

There was a decent wind blowing, so it was still quite chilly out on the deck.  My ears and hands were freezing.

We were there early, but the deck quickly crowded.  There was a lot of jostling for position and more than one shot botched by getting knocked about by the, um, more enthusiastic photographers.  Taking your turn is not a universal trait among nationalities.  No names.

Our ship was joined by the much smaller “expedition” type vessel that we saw docked at Ushuaia.  It was much closer to the shore and was offloading some passengers on zodiacs and running them into the beach.  There’s a very steep stairway from the landing up to the ridge where the weather station (manned by a family of three) sits and where the famed albatross silhouette artwork is positioned.  The silhouette is formed by two metal panels that are each cut along facing edges so that, when positioned together, the cutout gap forms the image of an albatross with its wings spread up and down.  Look closely and you can make it out (with little thanks to my poor telephoto).

We’ve been trying to find an albatross souvenir to take back for our RV, which we named “Albatross” five years ago.  Haven’t found a one.  Penguin knick-knacks galore, but no albatrosses.  We’ve seen the real deal skimming and soaring along the waves when we’re out at sea, and they truly are nifty birds, with up to 10 foot wingspans.  They spend nearly all their lives at sea, coming to shore only to mate.  Anyway, absent a trip to Antarctica some day, this is as far south on the planet as we’ll ever get.  Loni is SO glad about the calm seas and I love the sun for photos.

Of course, when we looked east, our intended direction after leaving the Cape, things looked a bit dicey.  A lot of people on board are disappointed that we didn’t encounter really rough seas.  If we had, I suspect most of those heroes would be barfing in their cabins.

Oh well, only one thing to do.

You can have your choice of a sit-down-and-be-served breakfast in the decks 4/5 main dining room, or go upstairs to the 10th deck cafeteria.  The choices are much wider in the cafeteria, so we have almost always opted for that.  Besides, you can sit next to huge picture windows like these if you scramble fast enough.  Those disks are windows that look straight down to the water. 

A gimmick that fades quickly, and they’re mostly a pain to slide your chair legs over the lip.  We’re now headed north to Puerto Madryn, Argentina.  Goodbye, Cape!  Hello, Atlantic!

USHUAIA: FIN DEL MUNDO

We left Punta Arenas at 5:30 p.m. to wend our way, again at night – so no sightseeing – through the islands and passageways to our next stop, Ushuaia, Argentina, self-proclaimed “End of the World.”  Punta Arenas lies just off the top left of this map, about where the “n” would be in “Magellan.”  As you can see, this would again have been spectacular close-quarters sailing had we been able to see it.  This is where we actually did pass a glacier that came down to the water.  The captain said we would pass it about 4:00 a.m. and that he would turn on his spotlights to illuminate the ice.  We were warned, however, that we would see very little.  We opted to stay in bed, and from reports by other passengers we made the right call.  They just saw a white blotch in the darkness. Ushuaia is marked in orange.  This map also shows our next leg, from Ushuaia down to Cape Horn, which actually is an island by that name.

When we did get up, just prior to our arrival in Ushuaia, we looked back to see the snowy mountains that towered over the passage we had come through in the pre-dawn.

When the ship swung out a bit in this channel (actually, the Beagle Canal), we got a better view of the two biggest.

These are part of the Andes range, just before it plunges beneath the ocean on its way to Antarctica, 750 miles away.  [Note:  that’s how Argentina lays claim to a big pie-shaped wedge of Antarctica.  They reason that it’s just an extension of the Andes range that has come back up from under the sea.  So far, no firm agreement from the rest of the world.]  We haven’t been to Alaska, but I imagine there are views like this up there.  It’s like plunking Everest and K2 down by the seashore. 

To get to Ushuaia going west to east, we first had to pass it by for a few miles until we could round a buoy placed on some small rock islands, then turn back up the inner bay to get to the city.  This is its setting:

What a beautiful site/sight.  Ushuaia was founded in the mid 1800’s by a British missionary, Waite Hockin Stirling, to minister to the indigenous people, the Yaganes, who called this area Ushuaia.  The Yaganes were extremely primitive, and had survived in this climate with no clothing for thousands of years!  A shivering yikes!  When Darwin went through here in 1832, he was stunned at the primal conditions in which the locals lived.  All of that survival sturdiness was for naught.  Within a generation of the arrival of the missionaries, the tribes of Tierra del Fuego were virtually driven into extinction from disease.  In 1884, Argentina built a series of prisons around Ushuaia, and it remained mainly a penal colony until the mid-twentieth century.  What the convicts were sentenced to is now a tourist attraction.  From the ship, it is a beautiful setting.

In the left picture, you can see a jumble of houses extending up into the forest.  When the area turned from prisons to other industries, the Argentine government encouraged immigration rather too successfully.  Few zoning or building restrictions were in place, people simply built their own shack/homes willy nilly, and that area is really a hodgepodge of no-code housing.  The rest of the city has a bit more order.  We will see that blue-tailed ship that is docked in the right photo later when we get to Cape Horn.

Ushuaia is the gateway to the Tierra del Fuego National Park, which straddles the Chile/Argentina border.  We took one of the ship-sponsored tours to see the park.  If you’re on a ship-organized land tour, the boat waits for you if your tour is delayed getting back.  If you arrange your own tour and are late, you can just wave bye-bye to your belongings as they sail away.  It’s your responsibility to make your way (at your expense) to the next port of call to rejoin the ship.  One private tour did have their bus get stuck, but it got free just in time.  Anyway, we bussed our way west out of town, over a couple of passes, and we were there in about 20 kilometers.  It costs 85 Argentine pesos to enter the park, about $20 at the current exchange rate.  We’re finding that there are precious few bargains in South America.  The prices for food are comparable to U.S. prices, even a little more.  Durable goods cost a lot more.  Of course, that might be because we’re in remote locations.  We’ll see what happens when we get to Buenos Aires.

Despite our bundled up look, the weather actually was pretty nice.  Wind was the main irritant, but even it wasn’t constant.  The scenery was just fine, much like what we saw on our last RV trip through Wyoming.

  One stop was at this pier which supported, allegedly, the most southern post office in the world.  I dunno.  I think there are some small communities south of Ushuaia, but maybe they don’t have an “official” post office.  It has to be one of the most scenic PO’s in the world.  I bought a postcard and quickly wrote out a note to Mom, got it stamped & canceled and placed in the outgoing box.  I hope she gets it.

We stopped at a number of places in the park with different views.  The sign marks the end of the Pan-American highway which stretches from Alaska to, well, here!  It’s called Route No. 3 in Tierra del Fuego.  Ah, yes, the “land of fire,” so named by Magellan as he traversed the Strait and noticed all the fires lit by the natives along the shore.  Damn right they had a lot of fires --- they were naked!

Done with the Park, we retraced our route back to Ushuaia.  We decided to walk around a bit before going back to the ship.  There’s not a whole lot to see;  there’s really only one main drag with most of the shops along it.  It did have at least one essential shop.

The bus is one that takes tourists out to the former prisons, hence the convict suit poster on the rear.  I didn’t notice until I was reviewing this shot that the guy in front of the bus is wearing one of these getups.  Guess he was the guide or driver.

If this was graffiti, it was the most artistic we have seen.  Since Loni got to pose by the sign that marked the end of the highway, I get the end of the world.  I guess Antarctica doesn’t count.

We’d had enough walking, and bathroom and late lunch was calling, so we headed back to the ship, moored amongst the small fry.

It’s even bigger close up.

Did I say lunch?  Actually, high tea!  Shameless;  simply shameless.  Urp.