Antarctic Trip Day 16

Yesterday was a full day at sea. I’m posting a picture of a chart of the cruise from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia – i.e. the end. We are expected to make the port on the mainland about halfway down the chart, at noon today. That’s Puerto Madryn, the largest city on the South Atlantic coast south of Buenos Aires, and the last major town until we end the cruise 10 days or so from now. Population 74,000.



Wildlife is the main feature for tourists at Puerto Madryn, and most of it is hours away by Tour bus. Tours take a long, somewhat boring time to get somewhere, and then they are really great. Last time we were here we went and saw a huge penguin colony. This time we’re going to explore the town. There is a sea lion colony tour but it takes 7.5 hours and costs $400 for the two of us and we already blew the shore tour budget in Rio and Buenos Aires. I have special plans for Stanley, in the Falklands, which involve walking a few hundred feet from the dock to the Post Office and getting some stamp collecting done. The Falklands entire population is about 2500-3000 people and Stanley tours are something like Garberville-Redway tours. So no guided tour there. After that its all expedition touring.

The first 3 expedition lectures were quite good. The quality of the people they have brought aboard to let us know what we are seeing, if the weather allows us to see it, is excellent and they are serious about their business.

Just got our Antarctic Parkas delivered. They are bright red, so we can be spotted on shore in Antarctica. Mine seems to fit ok. I think they give them to us at the end of the trip so you may see me wearing it around town. Pix to come.

See you again after we get back from our exploration of Puerto Madryn.

I thought I had told you about this show but i can't find it in the blog. Here is the accordian player.;

Or, so it would seem. I thought we were just tourists, but our ship has a large Antarctic Expedition banner hung outside the upper deck for all the world to see. We have sailed south of Buenos Aires, now in heavy seas and rapidly dropping temperatures. Our daily ship’s newspaper tells us that we have 3 expedition events scheduled for this day at sea. First at 11 a.m. we meet the Expedition Team, and its Leader Allan Morgan. The Expedition’s Marine Biologist will give a lecture on Ecology – Patagoinia to Antarctia. At 4:30 p.m. we get two back to back lectures. Our expedition Historian, and our Geologist will brief us on our notable forebear, Charles Darwin, in whose tradition we are evidently traveling; and then our Expedition Ornnithologist will tell us about Seabirds of the Southern Ocean. If upon my return the Smithsonian Institution offers me a research position I will have to give it serious attention.

Otherwise we pass the day at sea with out usual opportunities starting with Walking and Stretching at 7 a.m. with our fitness instructor. During the day we may take lessons in Spanish, rubber stamp greeting cards in Crafts class, learn the Tango, Opening Bids and rebids in Bridge, or study Pilates. Those wishing to exercise their skills and knowledge rather than increase them may work on the daily brainteaset, take the trivia challenge, the Golf Putting tournament, Bingo Frenzy, a Carpet Bowls Tournament, a preview of the Art Auction, or the real thing an hour later after the free champagne has done its work, join the Chess players, the Duplicate Bridge players, or the Slots Tournment (we have a Casino onboard). They have announced a Shuffleboard Tournament as well but as I write the decks are closed due to the weather. This evening is pure entertainment. After dinner in what is loosely defined as formal dress (jacket and tie),we will probably attend the Captain’s Welcome Receiption – our old captain left us in Buenos Aires, Then there is the music and dance show at the Ambassador Lounge, and to wrap up the evening, Jeopardy in the Charleston Club, followed by Disco dancing until the DJ gets tired.

We had taken the city tour last time we were in Buenos Aires, and the Tigre River tour which was wonderful, This time we decided to just go have adventures. For our first adventure we walked about a mile from the ship to the Florida avenue pedestrian shopping area. We passed the train station, which is a main way in and out of the city. Later we saw a passenger train coming in with people clinging to the doors and hanging out the windows – shades of India.

In Florida St our mission was to find the Galeria Florida, which is a restored old department shore, now filled with upscale shops. The central feature is an enormous 3 story high rotunda decorated with 1930s murals in the style Benton used in the U.S. and which I am very fond of. Wonderful art, but difficult to photograph. It as in the high 80s, at least, outside but the Galeria is air conditioned, and has a food court on the floor level of the rotunda.

Back out into the heat we located a camera store which featured Olympus cameras. I had decided that someone would steal my camera in Buenos Aires so I carried the old 10x zoom Olympus and left the new 18x zoom on board. Great idea but it needed a memory card. They had them. To give you some idea of what kind of miracle that is, I still can’t use my T-Mobil cell phone because I have not seen one of their stores since thcir guy in SF said not to worry T-mobile was so all over the place that there would be vendors at the airport in Rio selling local chips to actives the phone in South America. Wrong. Not a flicker. But Olympus camera memory chips – no problem.

That problem solved, we realized we were looking a bit shaggy, and the Spa on the boat charges unbelieveable rates to cut hair, so a barber was in order. But not in sight. I went into the Sheraton Hotel (rates start at $319 US per night) looking just like the kind of tourist who might be staying there and asked the desk clerk where to get my hair cut. He recommended Gloria’s right down the side street 1/2 block. Not a sign of it but there was a hairdresser so we went it. Turned out to be Gloria’s. In an hour they could help us. Ok, coke at the place across the street 20 minutes. Walk down the block to a monument to someone who was a friend of a famous revolutionary in the 1800s and decipher the inscriptions,25 minutes. We walked back and as we turned into Gloria’s street theire was this very loud drumming like a parade. It was a labor action by about 100 people who seemed to be related to health care and they were leafleting and seranading the Fedex office. Why? Not a clue. They had a number of drummers, some and every so often a cherry bomb would go off. It was wonderfully noisy. Better even than the Mendocino County DA/PD strike. This was the background music for our excellent haircuts. Two of us for $30 including beard trim and haircut for me
As we left the labor action left also with a pickup truck ahead of the parade and a bus bringing up the rear, the labor action went offdown a main street with us chasing after it hoping to get some photos. We did, too.
Taxis are plentiful and cheap in Buenos Aires, and seem all to be driven by men in their 50s and 60s. I believe they are middle class men were wiped out in the economic collapse following Argentina’s loss of the Falkland who s war (they lost the war but still claim the Falklands, in the face of all common sense. Being a southerner I can identify with that.). Naturally when we get into the cab we are in the same situation as Little Charlie and his wife in that She don’t speak no English and we no hablo Espanol. We do have maps, but our driver had been hiding behind the door in heaven when map reading skills were handed out, and wasn’t quick to pick them up when I showed him where we wanted to go. The problem turned out to be that he didn’t know passenger ships berthed at the container docks & so just couldn’t grasp the idea that we wanted to go there. He kept saying “No, no no” as we got closer, and actually took us in the wrong direction once, and to the ferry boat docks a second time.

Second day we grabbed a cab at the port, or actually I grabbed a young woman who was getting into one and asked if we could share it with her and her girlfriend. Yes. We were all going to the Plaza Cortazar in the Palermo area of Buenos Aires and the driver told her it would be. $20. That’s $5 each. She and her friend were dancers on the cruise ship Rotterdam which had come into port that morning and they were off for some good shopping. We were off for a bit of shopping, an exotic meal on the Gastronomic Route that Lonely Planet liked, and the Museo Latinamericano.

Turns out that Plaza Cortazar is not a shopping mall. It’s a small seedy park in the middle of a district which is rapidly yuppifying. The stores were botiques in old houses and store fronts – some of the décor was charming with antique furniture and nice rugs. Some was not. We were looking for what Lonely Planet called the Ruta Gastronomique. Sounds like a street full of restaurants, but it isn’t. Its an area where restaurants are scattered in with the shops and houses. It was noon, we wanted lunch. No one else did, so the restaurant we found was empty. English speakers are rare in Buenos Aires, and the closest thing to one was the young waiter but there was a lot of pantomine. I ordered a mixed appetizer dish and decided to hold off on the entre, Mary Alice got a calamari salad. We drank our beer and watched some sparrows whose chicks were just coming out of the nests, and were hoping that mom and dad would keep on feeding them. Got a pcture or two.

Lunch arrived. Mine was on a plate about 18 inches long and 6 inches wide, it will piled high with grilled meats and vegetables. It would have fed a family of 4 nicely. I hoped they knew about doggy bags. Turns out they do, but it has some other name. Now I had a bag with dinner for 3 in it and I was heading for a ship where I had unlimited food available to me. We grabbed a cab and headed for the Museo Latinoamericano. When we got out there was a young woman walking in front of the
Cars stopped for the traffic light. She was wavingtwo sticks, each with a ribbon on it, and waving them so the ribbons went around in circles. It was a faint imitation of the gaucho and his bolos at the tango show. When the light changed she quickly walked among the cars trying to get spare change. Traffic started, she retreated to the street corner to wait for the light. I crossed and handed her dinner for 3. She looked at the food and said “para mi” and I said “Si” and left before it turned out that she didn’t eat meat or something.

The Museo was interesting. Last visit we had tried to get in but it was the wrong day. This time it was open. I don’t care for most modern art, or contemporary art, but there were some nice pieces like a Khalo scattered through the museum. I did like “Slanted lines” which consisted of five or 6 thin colored lines, vertically on a slant, on a white background, and I’m a real sucker for colored neon lights – similar when I consider it. We watched a movie that was 20 minutes and 19 seconds long consisting of stop motion ceramic kitsch pieces and seemed to be about Life. I’m a sucker for motion, too.
No photography allowed in the museum.

Our cabby got the idea from the map, this time. Much wiser cabby. When I added uip the 2 fares I paid to get back from the Palermo I realized the girls had mistaken the fare. It was not $20 US, it was $20 Argentine, which is about $7 U.S. (the currency is called the Peso, but signified by the dollar sign). No wonder the cabby who took us out was happy.

Back at the ship it’s a whole new crowd. Everyone getting on in Benos Aires is going to Antarctica, and they are a younger crowd than we have been traveling with. Still 40s and 50s. Tons of camera. We all took pictures of the tugboats taking us out to sea. I ran into one with a long lens – make what you will of it, that’s how you tell the expensive cameras from the cheapies – he said he was still shooting film, and taking it home in lead lined bags so the X-rays didn’t harm it. “I’m pretty serious about my photos” he said. Seemed like it, he never cracked a smile during our talk.

This morning it was possible to photograph the Norwegian Dream without shooting into the sun and it appears that the damage is more severe than it seemed yesterday. Look at this photo of the bow – there is a webbing of discoloration below the notch. It might be rope but more likely it is places where the hull was bent so much that the paint fell off.



Here's a close up:



As you might have guessed at 8 a.m. this morning we were still anchored out in the Rio Platte waiting for the port of Montevideo to reopen. Latest news is that it will occur at 10 a.m. but I’m not holding my breath. Neither am I suffering. If you look off the bow towards Argentina you see nothing but sea. It is as if we are sailing on a very calm sea heading “for God knows where.” That’s ideal for me.

Mary Alice and I will take out own walking tour of old Montevideo should the ship make port today. We’ve got a map. In Febuary of 2006 when we last visited the city we took the grand escorted tour and saw the sights, such as they are. Montevideo is not a large city on the world city scale – perhaps 1,600,000 people – and old buildings are not very interesting to me. What I like is representational art, so I can get a glimpse into what was going on and how they felt about it. Mary Alice likes to go to current supermarkets to see what the local people are getting and using. Supermarkets are the cultural representations of the modern world, I guess.

I did a lot of expensive internet research yesterday, back when I thought we might have dinner in the city, and discovered a strange thing. There is not a comprehensive list of the museums of the city. One has to be careful here, also. There is a tendency for the houses of famous people to become museums dedicated to them –all their stuff is still there. I don’t know if you’ve been to Nashville and seen Jimmy Rodgers’ shoes, but it’s the same effect. I have now seen the radio belonging to Madame Chang Kai Chesk (?)’s sister, who was a notable communist. I don’t feel that I understand her any better.

So the plan is no plan. Get ashore, go for a walk. Don’t get ashore, go to Buenos Aires and take the tango show tour. Maybe I’ll get a photo taken with a couple of tango dancers.

Sorry about the pix but its been almost impossible to upload pix from the ship for the last 24 hours. We are still sitting outside Montevideo harbor and almost certainly will not go to the city today. Tomorrow Buenos Aires, then, incomprehensably, back to Montevideo. Or rather for the 1st time, to Montevideo.

Wed Dec 12, 5:50 pm. Back from walk in Buenos Aires. Got it uploaded at last.