Day #31…Monday, March 2, 2015

Sea Day #2…Heading to Valparaiso, Chile

Valparaiso and Santiago, Chile were topics for the destination lecture this morning.  We will be arriving in Valparaiso, Chile on March 4, 2015 and plan to find a private tour to take when we arrive at the cruise terminal.

We have found that we can save so much money and time by not taking the Princess excursions and have only been disappointed a few times with the private ones we have taken.  We do try to have at least one other cruise couple with us as we venture out on our on.  Usually tour buses or taxis are waiting at the terminals and welcome any tour business they can get from the cruise passengers.

There have been some other unfavorable issues on this cruise.  Many of the passengers are elderly and many have mobility issues.  Those cruisers who have mobility problems, slow the Princess tours down immensely.  The other fact that may surprise some of the readers is that many people cruising on this ship are RUDE!  A certain culture of folks (which I will not mention) strives to be the first on the bus, the first in line to eat, the first to attend a show, or the first to use the restroom facilities.  Pushing and shoving is common for them and not appreciated by those of us who feel there is a reason to have an orderly and courteous manner for getting to a destination.

Since we are elite status now, we truly do enjoy the benefits of free laundry service, a free mini-bar set-up before each leg of the cruise and chocolate-covered strawberries delivered to our room before each formal night.  We have found the laundry service to be great and only hand-wash the more fragile and embellished items we brought along on our trip.  Room service stocks our min-bar according to our wishes and since we prefer diet soda, they replace all of our mini-bar items with what we prefer to drink.  We call them before the next set-up and they stock our refrigerator with our order.

We will be checking out T-Mobile’s cell phone plan for international calling for our next trip.  We currently have Verizon and a Sims card to enable calling from any of the countries we are visiting.  Some passengers have told us about a special phone and texting plan offered by T-Mobile that only charges $20.00 for activation and $.20 per minute phone charge in over 120 countries.  Texting is even cheaper!  We will be looking into the temporary plan as we have had phone rates fluctuate by port and nothing has been less than $1.50/minute.  We did not call from Argentina as the Verizon rate was $4.99/minute.

We attended the final art auction of this segment.  There were several art work pictures that had caught our eye for the cottage.  They are all by the same artist, Medevev (not sure of the spelling) and are reasonably priced compared to most.  Bill and Stella have purchased over $20,000 worth of art on this trip since they are serious collectors.  We are sure they find it silly that we like the cheap line of art.  

Bill has been our negotiator with the art personnel on board and we feel our pre-bid price is a fair one.

The captain just announced that the medical center has been very busy this week with sick passengers.  When we go to the theater for lectures or shows, we remark that it seems like everyone is coughing.  So far we have been healthy but we have about three (3) weeks to go.

Tonight we attended formal night and Dennis became ill at dinner.  We were hoping that we would bypass the germs traveling around the ship but guess that was wishful thinking.  He left before the dinner was finished and later had a fever.  He has been taking an antibiotic for an infected tooth and he finished his supply two days ago.  We hope this fever is not related to his mouth issues.   He may have to visit the medical center to see what is wrong, but thinks he will wait until the morning and see how he feels. 

Tomorrow is another sea day before we arrive in Valparaiso, Chile.  Since it is a sea day, one more day of rest for Dennis should be beneficial.  Hopefully, he will feel better and be ready to see Valparaiso the following day.

Day #30…Sunday, March 1, 2015

Sea Day #1…Heading to Valparaiso, Chile

We decided to enjoy a lazy day at sea and so we ate a late breakfast and played cards with Bill and Stella until the early afternoon.  We attended a lecture titled “Art 101:  Insider Secrets to Art Collecting” and plan to attend the final art auction of this segment of the cruise tomorrow.  Bill has purchased some very expensive art pieces on this trip and may try to negotiate a good price for one we have been admiring.

We then played cards again with our Ohio friends from Dayton.  They like to play euchre and also taught us a new card game that takes some serious thinking. 

Since we had not dined in our assigned dining room for a couple of nights, we decided to join our regular tablemates and eat more formally tonight.  The food has not been fantastic in the dining room and we enjoy the selections at the Horizon Court Buffet much more.

Jade Millan and Sam entertained us in the Princess Theater tonight.  Jade spotlighted the life of Whitney Houston and her performance of Whitney’s songs was amazing!  We feel she is one of the best acts we have seen thus far on this cruise.  Her husband, Sam, accompanied her on the piano.  The Princess Orchestra also was included and the performance was stellar!

Day #29…Saturday, February 28, 2015

Punta Arenas, Chile

We arrived at the port of Punta Arenas, Chile at approximately 8 A.M.  We decided to wait until mid morning for a tender boat to take us ashore.  There is always a mad rush to get a tender ticket and be the first passengers off the ship.  Though we are now of Princess Elite status and have tender boat priority boarding, our friends who will be accompanying us do not have the status.  Thus the four of us will wait until later to go ashore and head into the city.

Punta Arenas, Chile was populated by indigenous natives known as the Thuelche people for more than 13,000 years.  Ferdinand Magellan discovered the region in 1520.  Yet no European country settled the area and it remained off the beaten path for 300 years.  Punta Arenas was founded in 1843 and Chile founded a penal colony in the region in 1848.

The area is located on the Brunswick Peninsula, at the Strait of Magellan, near the southern tip of Chile and is known as the southernmost city in the world.  The population is over 127,000 people and is the third largest city in the Patagonia region.  The official language is Spanish and the Chilean Peso (CLP) is the national currency with a rate of 625 pesos = 1 USD.

The seasonal temperature is greatly moderated by its proximity to the ocean.  With average lows in July near 31° F and highs in January of 57° F., the area is quite dry.  It only gets approximately 1.7inches of rain in its wettest month of May.  Punta Arenas is only 800 miles from Antarctica and about a dozen passengers from our ship were planning a flight to Antarctica and back today.  We decided to refrain from going as Princess was charging approximately $4,000/person for the 11-hour excursion.  We felt we could better put that amount toward future travels!

We boarded a tender at 10:00 A.M. and arrived in Punta Arenas about twenty (20) minutes later.  We found a private tour company that was willing to take a total of 14 passengers for a city tour.  The price was reasonable at $15.00 per passenger.

We soon found out taking this tour was not a wise decision since our tour guide/bus driver only spoke Spanish.  To make matters worse, none of the fourteen in the van spoke Spanish either.  We convinced the young man who was collecting our money to have the driver give us some land marker names in her language and we would try to figure out where we were.  I guess you get what you pay for!

For two hours we drove around the city and made a photo stop at Cruz Hill, the tallest point in Punta Arenas.  It was astonishing to see a region situated so far south that was flourishing as a very rich city. 

We then stopped at the monument in honor of the sheepherders (name unknown) and took photos.  At Plaza Muñoz Gamero, a canopy of pine trees shaded the area and boasts the Hernando de Magellanes Monument dedicated to Ferdinand Magellan.  The locals believe that if you touch his foot, you will return to Punta Arenas to visit again.  Punta Arenas was officially renamed Magellanes in 1927, but was changed back to Punta Arenas in 1938.

Vendors were plentiful in this area but we were disappointed in the variety of goods.  Alpaca knit wear was the focus for most of the items with hats, scarves and sweaters for sale at every booth.

The City Cemetery was our next stop.  The cemetery dates back to 1894 and is a true reflection of the history of Punta Arenas.  Dotted with sculpted European cypress trees, the resting place is much like a city.  It has avenues that connect the magnificent tombs or the region’s founding families and immigrant colonies.  A crypt located here holds the remains of the last Selk’nam Indian of Tierra del Feugo. 

We chose not to go to a naval museum but did take some photos of a replica of Magellan’s ship that landed in the area in the 1500’s. 

We ended our tour in the center of the city and decided to walk the streets and find a local restaurant to eat lunch.  A small “mom and pop” type pizzeria offered us a flavor of the local atmosphere and was decorated with antiques from an earlier era.  We ordered a sausage, pepperoni and bacon pizza to share with our friends and the guys tried a local drink called banana milk.  When the pizza arrived, the sausage part was equivalent to our own American hot dogs but we did really like the taste.  None of us had ever tried hot dogs as a pizza topping.  Dennis and Frank claimed the banana milk was delicious!

We then walked back to the pier to check on Wi-Fi reception in the area.  After purchasing a $2.00 Wi-Fi card, we were able to spend the rest of the afternoon updating emails and cleaning up our spam and trash boxes on our computers. 

We were also able to get a good phone signal on our cell phones and called home to find out how Dennis’s dad is feeling.  We received a message that he was hospitalized in our hometown and was on antibiotics.  When we heard his voice, we knew he was feeling better.  He was glad to hear from us and hopes to be transferred to a transitional care unit in a few days.

In the evening, we were entertained by Don Bryan, a ventriloquist and his friend, Noseworthy.  We look forward to going to his next show in a few days.

We will have three (3) sea days and then dock in Valparaiso, Chile.  Sea days will give us time to catch up on editing our photos and getting the blog posted in a timely manner.

Day #28…Friday, February 27, 2015

Ushuaia, Argentina

In 1833 Captain Robert FitzRoy arrived in the region of Ushuaia during a British missionary voyage.   He found the area inhabited by tribes of Indians and was on a mission to civilize the tribes.  Ferdinand Magellan named the area Tierra del Fuego or “Land of Fire” when he peered out on huge bonfires as he circumnavigated the tip of the continent.

Ushuaia is nestled in a U-shaped cove adjacent to the dazzling Beagle Channel.   The city of 70,000 people is situated on a bay off the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego’s southern coast.  Argentina originally used Ushuaia as a penal colony bringing in aborigines, gold diggers, prisoners and castaways that led to an eclectic fusion of cultural heritage.  The city owes its existence to the prisoners who constructed the town’s railway, hospital and port.  The prison was open from 1896 until 1947.

Ushuaia experiences a sub-polar oceanic climate due to its high southern latitude.  For this reason, Antarctica plays a role in changing the daily weather patterns.  January is the warmest month, where temperatures can reach a high of 50° F and the duration of daylight extends to more than 17 hours.  July is the coolest month with average temperatures around 34° F and only 7 hours of daylight daily.

The language most spoken is Spanish and the currency is the Argentine Peso (ARS).

The city is gateway to a rugged wilderness emanating a starkly striking natural beauty.  When the prison closed its doors in 1947, the city had a population of only 3,000 inhabitants.  Steadily the city has grown and has quadrupled its size during the 70’s and 80’s. 

We awoke early this morning to meet our private tour group in the Piazza.  Our group of eighteen (18) passengers walked a long distance to the pier and boarded a van to take a city drive tour of Ushuaia and then head to the national forest area.

Traveling on the Pan American Highway, we journeyed to the “end of the world” with signage that shows the highway stretching from Alaska to the southern most end of South America.  The Andes Mountains give the area a beautiful snow-peaked picturesque backdrop.

We visited Ensenada Bay to get superb views of the Beagle Channel.  We gazed upon Nazarino and Hoste Islands, the nearest land to the Antarctic continent.  Our tour guide explained that half of the island is part of Argentina and the other half belongs to Chile.

We journeyed into Tierra del Fuego National Park and stopped at a hiking area to see the giant beaver dams in the area.  Evita Peron introduced the beavers to the island years ago when she had a desire to bring beaver fur trade to the area.  Now the area is infested with the damaging creatures with 300,000 estimated in the park.  The wilderness offers no predators for the beaver and thus the numbers continue to rise at an alarming rate.  Poachers are encouraged to kill the animals but are only given $5.00 per hide.

We were shown unique species of plant life in the forest area.  Lichen grows like moss on the trees and is used for medicinal purposes.  Trees were downed everywhere and not done by mankind.  The weather has such violent winds that the forest is covered with fallen timber.

We visited the post office at the “end of the world” and had postcards stamped and mailed home from there.  We stopped at the Ushuaia Café (deep in the wilderness) and tasted a local meat-filled pastry and sampled the local beers called Cape Horn and Beagle.

We walked from the café to Roca Lake where the locals swim in the summer with the water temperature only reaching 46° F.  We had temperatures in the 40’s today and could not imagine jumping in that cold, cold water.  We also had some occasional drizzle but the winds were calm.  We managed to stay fairly warm since we were instructed to dress in layers.

We arrived back in the town of Ushuaia and walked around searching for some souvenirs.  We returned to the ship empty-handed because about half the stores were closed for “siesta” and the others offered nothing of interest to us. 

Our ship was to leave the port at 4 P.M. but due to a medical emergency for 1 or 2 of our passengers, we did not leave until 5 P.M.  We could not imagine having to be ambulanced to the local hospital.  Even medical evacuation in this area would be alarming!  One could not be any further away from home!

We went to Bill and Stella’s cabin to view the glaciers as we exited the area.  Three large glaciers could be viewed.  The area was very foggy and so the glaciers were not as clear as we had hoped.  Cruising in the channel, the huge masses called Holland Glacier, Italia Glacier and Germany Glacier reminded us of the sites one sees in Alaska.

We then played euchre with Bill and Stella until bedtime.  We are heading to Punta Arenas, Chile and will arrive there in the A.M.  We plan to meet Judy and Frank and find a private tour or taxi to take us around the city.