Patagonia Cruise
Nov 21st - Dec 13 2002
Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile
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Patagonia Cruise
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First, by way of background, we really had planned to return to Thailand for another couple of months, to tour, and work with Heifer as earlier in the year. But we couldn't find flights that met our requirements (schedule, upgrades, fare) — and when we finally seemed to have that worked out, we (this is the "royal we"; Kathy does the vast majority of our travel planning) couldn't find decent housing. And so it goes.
Kathy has become quite the master of internet-based travel planning, and she's got quite the range of "tricks up her sleeve". Among them was a web site called "Moment's Notice", where we were able to get a room on the ship for $100 (for the two of us) a day. This is an astonishing value, for a good, moderate sized (about 1300 passengers)
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The Celebrity Zenith
is about 10 years old and in pretty good shape; about 700' long, with
12 decks. I swear it was bigger than some of the towns we visited.
More details for them what likes them, here. |
This two week cruise began 11/24/02 in Buenos Aires Argentina (east coast of South America, about half way down) and continued south to the very bottom (Cape Horn) of South America. Did a loop around Cape Horn, then continued thru the inland waterways. Along the way, we hit:
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Buenos Aires Argentina |
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Montevideo Uruguay |
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Puerto Madryn, Argentina |
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Cape Horn (circumnavigation) and Ushuaia, Argentina (Southern-most city in the world, they say) |
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Punta Arenas, up thru the Straits of Magellan and the fjords of Chile, Puerto Montt, Chile |
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Ending up in Valparaiso, Chile near the city of Santiago. |
We spent a couple of days around Valparaiso and Santiago, then from there we flew back to Buenos Aires and caught our flights back home. The trip back was "entertaining". I'd like to say it was unusual but this sort of thing happens with... unusual regularity.
Buenos Aires was a special treat. It has a real "European" quality, reminds us of Paris (in Spanish). There we met up with Graciela and Jorge . Their graciousness could not be overstated. They were wonderful to us and we hope to see them again, whether in Argentina or the US. Our hats go off to Eduardo Ponteiro (Graciela's cousin) for connecting us. They are each very special people.
We really enjoyed seeing penguins in a natural setting. Previously we'd only seen them in zoos or aquaria.
The Straits of Magellan and fjords of Chile were splendid. Very very cold, but splendid. Bring your sunglasses, too.
Valparaiso and Santiago, Chile were both worth a visit. Valparaiso has an edgy "mill town" quality to it, or more accurately a fishing-village-turned-fishing-city quality.
Would we do this particular trip again? Probably not exactly. We'd return to Buenos Aires, especially if the current economic conditions linger (the Argentine peso and the US dollar use to be on par; now $1 = 3.5 pesos; makes everything really inexpensive if you have dollars). It's a beautiful city with a Parisian slant. It was strange for Scott to return to Santiago and that are after 20 years. In 1982, the area was under a dictatorship and Scott was just in his early twenties ("and had hair"). There's a lot more people, a lot more smog — but quite a different political climate than before.
