South America Cruise 2019

Nadia, Peter Jen, Trish, Jo & Christine (Murray missing in action)

Most of you will have been aware of our recent 31 day trip to South America, of which 15 days was on a cruise. The photo of most of the Aussie contingent is at Sydney Airport en route to South America. Nadia is in front taking the selfie. After Peter's nasty ordeal of chemo and radiation for his throat cancer, he and Jenny were keen to travel and forget the past several months. We flew to Santiago (Chile) where Maraka and Peter joined us for the flight to Rio de Janeiro. The travel adventures before and after our cruise will be in a separate blog.

Cruise Itinerary

First day on the ship - Murray and I with Peter and Jenny

On Thursday 21 February 2019, 9 of us Aussies boarded our cruise ship, MS ZAANDAM in Buenos Aires and settled back to enjoy 15 nights on board. Our Stateroom 7043 was very comfortable and from our balcony, we could enjoy the scenery as we sailed. The ship only holds around 1400 passengers (880 crew), being one of the smaller cruise ships that we have travelled on in recent years. The decor was tasteful, and there were lots of comfortable areas to enjoy shipboard life. For the first time ever, we boarded the ship the day before we sailed. On the second day, the 4 of us voted it the best cruise ever, and we hadn't even left the port! 

Of course, the first thing Jen and I did was head to the gym to try out the equipment. It didn't quite meet our strict standards, so we left the machines for Murray and Peter to use each morning before we all met for breakfast. After their workout, the guys enjoyed their made-to-order omelets, and were on first name terms  with the omelet maker early in the cruise! 

Me with my American colleagues: Dick, Jan, Rainie,
 Ann,  Steve and Kathy

Whilst there were 9 of us Aussies who booked in one group, there were also 10 of my American friends - I worked with 6 of them during my 2 year posting in America in 2002 - 2003. Three brought spouses and one brought her sister along. Whilst we have regularly caught up with 4 of them, it has been great to catch up with all them again, as it has been 16 years since I saw many of them in Maryland, USA. Most days on board, we had 2 teams of 6 to join in Trivia games in the Crows Nest, and then often continued on with a game of rummicub, followed by High Tea in the dining room at 3pm. Tough life!

Trish, Jan and Jenny playing rummicub

High tea - Nadia, Jenny, Trish, Rainie, Jan, Kathy

The Americans enjoyed working on this 3,000 piece puzzle - rough seas disturbed it once,
but they had it finished it by the last day!

At Montevideo, Uruguay, we walked around the city with Jenny and Peter, watched some locals fishing and commented on the diverse balcony designs as we passed.

Next port stop was Puerto Madryn in Argentina. As we walked down the long jetty we saw numerous Magellanic penguins in the water - boy are they fast swimmers! We also saw (and heard) some noisy sea lions basking on concrete steps at the jetty. The sun came out and it was glorious walking along the beachfront amongst the market stalls. Meanwhile, once aboard, the seas became rougher, and sadly we had to cancel our planned stop in the Falkland Islands, which would have included a tour of a penguin colony that Jen and I were looking forward to visiting.

At Punta Arenas, Chile, we took a photo (yes it was cold) at the famous statue dedicated to the explorer Magellan. At the markets Murray saw a belt that was very close to his St Kilda football club colours, so he quickly bought it and then we were on our way to check out the township. We were befriended by a local dog as we walked to check out the Pioneer cemetery. It waited with us to cross the road and walked with us and saw us safely reach the cemetery, and then it left. As we wandered the streets, we were amazed at the number of department stores, school uniform stores, sport and stationery stores that we passed. There were lots of camping stores too, but that wasn’t so surprising given the number of trekking tours done in this region of Patagonia. 

As we passed a small roadside fruit & vegetable stand, we noticed strange bundles included in the display. When we asked the man what food they were, he said something unintelligible. He noticed our confusion, and once he ascertained we spoke English, he put his Spanish word into google translate and it turns out that what we saw were bundles of dried seaweed that are very popular in Chilean cooking.

The cruise took us through Glacier Alley - from 6am, coffee and pastries were served in the Crows Nest on Deck 9 where a live commentary on the glaciers and surrounds was provided. 

Peter and Murray had prime window seats on Deck 8 (food hall), so we spent the next few hours there nibbling and sipping tea or coffee. Sea spray on the windows wasn’t so good for photos, so every now and then Jen and I braved the chill and went out on the open deck to get our photos of the glaciers and waterfalls as we glided past. 

This photo of Murray was taken by Jen - looking towards the quaint seaside town of Ushuaia, Argentina. So pretty...

Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse - Lighthouse at the End of The World - seen on our catamaran tour

Ushuaia - all ships to Antarctic leave from here

By midday we had docked in the pretty port of Ushuaia, the world’s most southernmost city and the capital of Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego province. What a pretty place - even the buildings were quaint with unusual architecture. The population surged after 1970 when the government provided a tax free haven for businesses, and the port now has around 80,000 residents. It is the departure point for all expeditions and tours to the Antarctic, which is 600 miles/1000 km to the south. The temperatures average 1 C in winter to 9 C in summer, with winter overnight temperatures not usually going lower than -1 C. The highest summer daytime temperature only reaches 15 C, so not a place I could live! From Ushuaia port we took a 2.5 hour catamaran tour and saw numerous cormorants, some petrels and albatrosses, as well as a lot of basking sea lions. A humpback whale named Itsa put on an aerobatic display right beside us - much to our delight. Click on the video below that I took with the whale literally just below my feet…I was scared that it might nudge the boat and my iPhone would go overboard, so I gripped the phone more tightly!

Video of whale entertaining us

No rest for the wicked, the next morning we were back in the Crow’s Nest to witness rounding Cape Horn. As we did so, the Captain sounded the ships horn. It was 7.58am. Simply amazing just to be there experiencing it all. From a distance we could see the aluminium sculpture (poem about it in photo on the left), created as a memorial for those sailors who lost their lives rounding Cape Horn.

Although we had seen glaciers in Glacier Alley a few days earlier, we were in store for yet another Glacier - this time the Brunjo Glacier in the Patagonian Ice Fields. It was 2km wide (1 mile +) and chunks regularly fall off and litter the water below. Beautiful. We were eating dinner as we approached it, and although Jen and I left our first course and braved the chill to go down one floor and out on the deck to get an uninterrupted view of it, I like this photo taken through the seawater sprayed window from my dining seat position. 

 Brunjo Glacier

Jen at dinner with Brunjo Glacier view

Dining Room table and our Indonesian waiters/sommelier - same table every night

Our balcony cabin and various towel animals created by cabin staff

Sunset from our balcony

The final destination on this cruise was San Antonio: our cruise ship port for visitors to Santiago de Chile, the capital of Chile. Then the next part of our holiday started…time for Santiago, Machu Picchu & Cuzco.