You can be maxed out, burned out, and coffeed out but I am truly overwhelmed... out!!! I've been overwhelmed so many times by what I saw on this trip that there's none left. Even with my experience from using those 26 letters to communicate, I find it difficult to put what I have seen into words. Magnificent, awesome, spectacular, and wonderful are simply too ordinary to describe all of this. Everything— everything you see takes your breath away. I am talking about our recent cruise to Antarctica.
Actually, we flew the long 10-hour overnight to Buenos Aires, Argentina and boarded a Princess cruise there. Sixteen days later, we returned to Buenos Aires for the flight home. We left our coach in a small campground in Perry, Georgia, drove the car to the Atlanta airport, and flew direct from there.
The coach was plugged in, parking is cheap at the Airport Marriott ($6.70 per day), and everything is easy to get to. We met up with my cousin Donna and an elderly Aunt (Betty Jane) in Atlanta. That overnight flight took us to South America.
Buenos Aires was okay—we did not think it required more than the three days we spent there. We did a city tour—a classic bus tour with a guide talking us through the sites. One thing that caught our attention was that two different people (one worked for the hotel and one for Princess but was at the hotel) mentioned specifically that we should not wear any gold out on the streets. These were two unsolicited pieces of advice so we took them seriously.
Donna, because of her association with the wine industry (she owns a liquor store), had some first hand recommendations for restaurants. So the first night we went to a first class place called "La Brigada."
They specialize in beef as do many of the restaurants down here. Absolutely wonderful. The Argentine beef is world famous and outstanding. Four dinners with all the trimmings - appetizer, salad, entree, sides, dessert, and three bottles of Argentinean (not cheap) wine, including tip was $462 pesos—or $36.00 US each!!! The exchange that day was 3.2. Interestingly, they operate on the "Spanish" schedule of a two-hour siesta during the afternoon. The restaurants do not open until 8:00 pm and peak dining is around 10:00 to 11:00 pm. Our body clock was so screwed up that we made reservations for 8:00 and were the first customers of the evening.
Part of the city tour was the cemetery and it was most interesting... Yes, Evita is really buried there so you can disregard those rumors. Mausoleums are everywhere and inside these individual doors are a set of steps that go down two stories. If you own a mausoleum, your entire family is buried here. You can sell your mausoleum but the ground is leased for 99 years.
The cemetery was divided by these strange trees (don't remember what kind) but there were over 600 of the trees throughout. The "perfect" look is apparently constant as we were told they only have to be trimmed once per year.
The second night we had purchased a package that included dinner (steaks were one of the choices but all very nice selections)—champagne, wines, appetizers, and desserts and then walked across the street to a theater where we saw a Tango Show. Excellent! The show lasted about an hour. Ten musicians, eight dancers—all very professional—that went through the history of the Tango. Actually, it started as a "dance" or fight between two men.
Another area that was intriguing was the "artist's" village. One of the local famous artists talked one of the big paint companies into donating their excess paint to various neighborhoods. This is the result. Whatever works.
Finally, the four of us plus the other 2396 people got on the Star Princess cruise ship and, after three sea days, get to the first port of Stanley, capital of the Falkland Islands.
This is a pretty bleak and barren place and it is home to fierce winds. They have recorded winds here at 200 mph—much more than typical hurricanes! No natural trees at all—this is one unusual place. Several penguin colonies are close to the city. Actually, "city" is misleading. Our cruise ship more than doubled the population of Stanley (2,000 people)! Donna and Betty stopped in for lunch at the local tavern between two tours. I don't know the exact conversion rate but the English pound is their currency. Their sandwich and beer cost them $30.00 US!
The most intriguing thing is the numerous leftover minefields from the UK and Argentinean war back in 1982. The minefields are still active but well marked. They start teaching little children what to look for and what to do if they see anything "unexplained" that could be leftover unexploded ordinance. There has never been an accidental explosion and no one has been hurt since that war even though there are literally thousands of mines and shells there.
We headed south for two days crossing the Drake Passage (it is the waterway between Cape Horn and Antarctica) and our first sighting of the continent was the South Shetland Islands—specifically Elephant Island. Here, all this sea freezes over in the winter to form what is called "pack ice" at 4-30 feet thick. It was here that Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, was crushed by the pack ice in 1915. They dragged their lifeboats to Elephant Island and survived for four months on seal and penguin meat!
A word about weather... we have been told time and again that good weather is rare in Antarctica. Overcast, fog, rain, storms, etc. are the common situation. We lucked out, period. Our weather was perfect—clear, sunshine, occasional puffy clouds, wonderful. The weather we experienced was extremely rare and literally happens only a few times every year.
From here on, there is the good possibility of sighting whales. I watched two humpbacks blow and dive with that fluke in the air but just a bit too far for a decent picture. Sandy saw Minke whales—pretty common here. Pods of Orca whales are common here, too, but we did not see any. Throughout the trip we saw lots of penguins (they can't fly) and cormorants (they look similar to penguins but can fly). We cruised for three days close in to the Antarctica Peninsula. From Elephant Island we crossed the Branfield Strait and that was where rough seas typically happen. Ours were not bad at all. The seas were reported at 5–12 feet. This is one place in the world where heavy seas are normal. We were perfectly comfortable on the ship.
On a side note, the Antarctica Treaty was signed in 1959 by 12 nations that were active here at the time. Antarctica officially starts at 60° south (look at your globe) and this is where the treaty comes into force. Essentially, it prevents any military use and sets strict guidelines for environmental compliance. An interesting side note to this is that for the three days we were south of 60°, there was a smoking ban OUTSIDE and that included your own balcony!
We had the good fortune to have on board Dr. Jerri Nielsen—the American physician, who, in 1999, was serving her year as the only doctor in the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on Antarctica. You will remember her because she ultimately discovered a lump in her breast and then, through a video link with U.S. physicians, she performed a biopsy upon herself. With no possibility of a rescue for several months, a highly risky July (that is mid-winter in Antarctica) cargo drop was made and she began self-administered chemotherapy treatments to ensure her survival until conditions permitted her rescue several months later. She was ultimately rescued in an equally dangerous mid-October landing. She gave two different presentations and was absolutely excellent.
We awoke the next morning to spectacular views. Simply spectacular.
Sandy got up, peeked out the balcony, and literally screamed at me to come and look quick! With this once-in-a-lifetime balcony view this morning, the day started and was filled with wonderful sights. My first iceberg—a childhood dream to see one. This particular iceberg was about 300 yards long and about 1/4 mile from the ship. Wow! That's the top of another one in back. The pictures will speak for themselves. It's why we came...
We continued west on through the Gerlache Straight with islands (large and small) on our starboard (right) and the Antarctica Peninsula on the port (left) side and made our way through thousands—literally thousands—of icebergs.
Here's your 1-minute iceberg lesson... The huge ones (like the ones above) are called "tabular icebergs" and are formed when some portion of the ice shelf breaks away. One of the largest in the world was estimated to be the size of Rhode Island! Then, other icebergs frequently break off the large tabular iceberg. These are the size of a huge house/small building and called "bergie bits" (think about it and you will understand the name).
The bergie bits (above) break up and form others the size of a car/truck. These are called "growlers" (not sure why they picked this name). With the iceberg, what you see is definitely not what you get. Approximately 6/7 of the total ice is underwater with 1/7 being visible. To visualize this, take one ice cube, put it in a glass of water, and look through the side of the glass to see how much is underwater. Pretty amazing. So, if you see a bergie bit, the building-sized chunk you actually see is hiding about 6 more building-sized chunks underwater.
There was an "ice pilot" brought on board to help navigate the ship along the Antarctica Peninsula. His background was that he served 20 years in the Coast Guard and was captain of their largest ice breaker. What a job!
There are also "Antarctic Explorers" around. We would find these two characters climbing—exploring—all over the ship. They looked and acted the part.
At Lion Island, we headed south to go clockwise around Wiencke Island. This dip to the south put us at our most southern point in the voyage—64°56.8'—and also takes us to the mouth of the Neumaier Channel.
This is the most spectacular portion of the cruise and where we will see the true Antarctica continent in its natural state. Again, descriptions fail me. All the following landscape shots were taken in the Nuimaier Channel.
This channel is very narrow and lies between Wiencke Island and Anvers Island. The views were, again, spectacular through the Neumaier Channel and gave us a chance to truly see the "landscape" since we were so close to the shore on both sides. A strange fact... we were told that the Neumaier Channel contains more actual glaciers than the entire state of Alaska! Here's more Neumaier Channel shots.
Note the small cruise ship in the shot above. There are apparently several of these mostly made up of Russian research vessels (no longer doing research). They hold 20 to 200 passengers and can, of course, get in closer than our ship.
If you can detect the "knobby" look of this iceberg (it looks like it was wrapped in plastic bubble wrap), it recently rolled over and this side was under water. They do that normally at some point. We were not lucky enough to see one roll.
Antarctica is a strange place. It is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent. It is considered the largest desert in the world due to literally no rainfall. We were told that the winds were so strong that they would literally peel up the surface of the ice and turn it into blowing crystals - like snow. Dr. Jerri Nielsen said that you actually get used to the cold. She showed pictures of her sleeping quarters (small room) that had balls of ice in the upper corners that would grow and shrink based on the humidity. If you set a drink on her floor, it would freeze. But she said about chest high, the temp was perfect. Amazing. Winter temperature averages between –112°F and –130°F at the interior of the continent! Snow is common near the coast. Their record snowfall was 48 inches in 48 hours! It snowed on our cruise ship. First time that's ever happened to us in 22 cruises.
There were plenty of normal "cruise" things going on during the days here but we were mostly on deck. It was cold.
For the first time ever on a cruise, it snowed on the ship. Here's our balcony floor with the big flakes coming down!
At night, we all transformed back into more normal "tourists" on a cruise. We have been on 22 cruises now and with 19 of them on Princess, we obviously prefer them.
Moving along, we back track through the Bransfield Strait to Deception Island. The island is actually a caldera, a collapsed volcano, and what you see is the giant ring made up of the top of the volcano. There is one opening through the ring and it seems to form a natural harbor.
Here's where we leave Antarctica.
We head to Cape Horn—the southern tip of South America and located in the country of Chile—it is part of the Tierra del Fuego region. Here, we also entered the Pacific Ocean as we rounded Cape Horn.
We cruised the Beagle Channel—named for the ship that carried Darwin through here. Our next port is Ushuaia, Argentina and we have to take the tenders in here.
Chile and Argentina borders are somewhat confusing through here. The Argentineans consider Ushuaia the southernmost city in the world. All of this is part of the Straits of Magellan. He found the route in 1520. We took a boat tour and visited the cormorants and sea lions.
On board, I'm selected (it seems I'm always selected) as the volunteer for the Gaucho show. This performer is twirling heavy balls on leather thongs (like bolos) and he uses me as the centerpiece. I sit very still.
Our next port is Punta Arenas, Chile—what the Chileans consider to be the southernmost city in the world. Actually Ushuaia is on an island and Punta Arenas is on the continent. Who knows? To cover everything politically, we are in both! Punta Arenas is not connected by road to northern Chile. We took the city tour with lots of colorful buildings and the requisite cemetery.
We leave Punta Arenas for three sea days on our way back around Argentina to Montevideo, Uruguay. We dock in Montevideo in the rain and it does not quit all day. A bus tour around the city was done in the afternoon but we only got off the bus three times and actually skipped three usual tour stops because of the rain.
Betty and Donna both celebrated birthdays on this trip. Donna was 54 and Betty was more difficult because we had to count those rings (sort of like dating a tree).
This was not an inexpensive cruise but continues to verify that old adage, "You get what you pay for." In this case, it was a once-in-a-lifetime trip for us - by far, the most spectacular and unusual of the many, many places we have been. Of our 22 cruises, this one tops my list. With the stringent environmental controls on the continent of Antarctica, these trips could easily end without warning. Princess only offered two trips there this year, period and the ship was full.
