Pictures

Christ the Redeemder Statue Rio De Janerio


Joe and "friend" in Buenos Aires

Tango Dancers Buenos Aires

Flower in Buenos Aires

Cemetery in Buenos Aires

The "end" of South America

Ushasia Argentia

Argentina

Argentina

Chilean glacier

Punta Arenas, Chile

Shopping

Penguins

Penguin island

view from our verandah

Lake District, Chile

Puerto Montt, Chile and volcano

llama

Valparaiso

Valparaiso

View from our hotel room

Our hotel is the building on the left

Santiago

Santiago lunch

Valparaiso, Santiago and home

We docked in Valparaiso and disembarked from the ship.  After 16 days where some else took care of our every need, it felt like we were leaving a cocoon!  Going back the real world in a foreign country was a bit scary, but we have done this many times before and the language was Spanish, not Chinese!!  I think we were just getting a little spoiled.  At the dock we got a cab to our hotel--the Fauna--a boutique hotel on the hillside of Valparaiso.

Valparaiso is built on hills like San Francisco and bares a strong resemblance to SF.  The city is a world heritage site with lots of unique old buildings and charm.  We toured the area around our hotel by ourselves and had dinner outside over looking the harbor with a full moon.

On Thursday we took a tour with a guide who was a young English teacher at a junior college who had been an exchange student in college in Pennsylvania.  We also went to Vina Del Mar which is a suburb of Valparaiso.  It looks a lot like La Jolla, Ca.  Very upscale!

Friday we hired a taxi/tour guide to take us to Santiago.  On the way we stopped at Chilean winery and toured Santiago.  Santiago is about 75 miles inland from the coast and we finally found summer weather--90 degrees.  Touring in this heat lessened our enthusiasm for Santiago.  The city sits at the base of the Andes, but the heat only made the ever present smog worse and the mountains were hard to see. 

We boarded a 10 pm 9 hour flight to Atlanta and then on home.

We learned a lot about South America.  I thought that all South Americans were direct descendants of the Conquistadors, but many of them trace their heritage to a variety European countries.  Our tour guide in Valparaiso said that his grandfather left Spain during the Spanish Civil War in the 30s and his other grandfather came from Italy.  Just like North America, South America is huge and the geography and people vary because of this.  We recommend if you get the chance to visit and see for yourself!

2 sea days and Puerto Montt

We had 2 sea days since I last wrote.  The first took us past the Amelia Glacier where we got up very close.  The weather was dreary but the glacier was beautiful.  The next day we cruised the Darwin channel with beautiful weather and a chance to see the Chiean fiords.

Yesterday we docked at the city of Puerto Montt, 160,000 people.  The city itself was not anything special but it was the entry way to the Chilean Lake district, which was very beautiful.  We took a day long excursion in which we saw two beautiful volcanoes and emerald mountain lakes.  This area of Chile has a big German influence because of German immigration in the mid-1800s.  At times you could imagine yourself in Bavaria.  The Chilean lake district rivals any other lake district I have been to.  The weather was beautiful and sunny, so we very fortunate.

We dock tomorrow am at Valpariso.  We are spending two nights there and then heading back home on Friday night and will be home on Saturday am.  When we get back I will load some pictures and give a few more comments on our trip.  I hope you have enjoyed being an "armchair traveler"  along with us on our journey.

Love,

Diane

Cape HOrn, Ushusia and Punta Arenas

Wednesday evening we sailed around Cape Horn, the southern most part of So America.  According to local customs now we can wear a gold earring in our left ear and eat with one foot on the table.  People who have sailed around both Cape Horn and Cape Hope get to eat with both feet on the table!!

Thursday we got to Ushusia, the southern most city in SA with 60,000 people.  It sits at the foot of majestic mountains and has the feel of many frontier waterfront towns like Anchorage or St. Johns NF.  We took a catamarron boat tour of the Beagle Channel and stopped to see sea lions and different birds along the way.  then we headed to Tierra Del Fuego National park for a tour.  This park looks alot like Rocky Mt. Nat Park in Co.  We sent ourselves a post card from the post office at the end of the world. 

When we returned to the ship, we continued our cruise through the channel seeing many beautiful snow capped moutains and lots fo glaciers and fiords.  This part of the trip is called Glacier Alley.

Yesterday we landed in Punta Arenas in Chile, a city of 110,000.  No mountains circled this city so it wasn't as pretty as Ushusia.  We took a city tour in the am and then boarded a ferry for a 2 hour ride to Magdelena Island to see a colony of 150,000 Magellan penguins--pretty cool!   Penguins only live in the Southern Hemipshere so we felt fortunate to see them in their natural habitat, not in the zoo.

We returned to the ship about 9pm in daylight.  We have had good weather, no rain and more sunshine than not.  this is summer, (August) and the high yesterday was 57 degrees.  No one here goes sunbathing!

We have two sea days and then stop in Puerto Mort,  the lake district of Chile. We are stilll sailing through the Straits of Magellan with moutains and glacoers to keep our eyes occupied. I'll write after we tour Puerto Mont.. 

Diane