Well we've done it. We've cruised around the horn. Yes, rounded tip of the continent that hangs farthest south.
It was hard going. We had to get up each morning,
either order room service or choose from the 8 restaurants aboard our humble vessel, walk Gavin and Zoe down to the 7th floor where they met with a bunch of other excitable kids and capable caregivers in the summer-camp-like environment while mom and dad went to relax by the pool or run on the treadmill or 500 meter jogging track around the boat.
Things started to get a little more grueling as the family would reconvene at one of the lunch buffets and then head back to their quarters to nap or read a book on the balcony. Later, we might spent time playing on the decks, in the pools, hot-tubes or watching for whales, dolphins, penguins, albatross or mountains and glaciers together. We would follow that by an early dinner for the kids and evening trip to one of the many theme nights at the Kids Corner, while mom and dad had a relaxing dinner and headed out to the theater, piano or sports bar, or dance club before picking up the kids after 10 pm and heading to bed. As you can see, everyone had to work hard and make some great sacrifices. At times we weren't sure if we would actually make it, but in the end our perseverance paid off.
This is a lengthy blog entry so if at any point you get sick of it and are interested in seeing a few (like 100+) pictures of our adventures, Kim has put a bunch on Shutterfly. Remember that you don't have to sign in to Shutterfly to view them, just scroll down and click on the View Album button. Enjoy!
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Kim and I had a lot of hesitations about going on
an all inclusive cruise boat. We have both done a considerable amount of traveling in our time, most of it shoe-string budget style. We knew we were in for a bit of travel/culture shock when we boarded the Norwegian Sun.
The boat had about, 2200 passengers and 900 staff on it. I was literally a floating resort town. We had a great room with a balcony on the 10th floor on the starboard side of the boat. We were on the top floor of the balconies you can see above and to the right of Gavin's head in the picture.
We flew from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires on New Years Eve. Sadly, we
got bumped up to first class for that flight. You could have fit 5 Zoes in her seat. Nice to be asked to order your airplane food from
a menu and having a nice lady continuously coming by to top up your wine or Bailey's glass. It was the first time in my life I actually did not want to get off the plane. We've been to BA before and love the city. Our good friends, the Urquharts, whom we work with here in SP were traveling on this cruise as well. Jim, Andie, Alexia and Jaimo met up with us in BA and both sets of their parents flew down from Canada to join us, too. We spent 3 days hanging out in and around BA and then boarded our boat.
Here is a pic of our room. Kim is taking it from the balcony. The room stuarts would pull that couch out each night for G and Z's bed. There was ample closet and drawer space for our summer and winter clothes and a bathroom, fridge and TV with cable. We were very comfortable it in.
On Jan 3rd we pulled out of BA and the next day had our first stop across the Rio de la Plata in Montevideo, Uruguay. I went for a good run as soon as we docked (like I did in most ports) and got caught in a crazy rain storm. Then when things cleared up we walked around the city center and had a drink in the Plaza Independencia before heading back to the ship. The Capital of Uraguay is smallish city just over 1.3 million. It is an old port town due to its natural deep harbour. A lot of what we saw had a very 1970's feel to it, though there were one or two more modern building shooting up, like the sail like one you can see in the cities skyline in the picture below.
For the rest of the 2 week cruise we pretty much followed the pattern of one day at sea then the next day stopped at a port. During the sea days we followed the agenda of my opening paragraph.
We sailed down the coast of Argentina to Puerto Madryn, about half way down the country. The big attraction in this area is the wild life.
We hooked up with a local taxi driver who took us to a Puerto Tombo, where lies a huge Magellan Penguin colony. It was a big highlight of the trip for G and Z to get up close to thousands of these odd birds.
Next it was out to the Falkland Islands. We moored at Stanley. Other than a few clusters of farm houses scattered around and a British Military Base (incidentally where my cousin was stationed up until three months ago), Stanley (pop. 2500) is the only town of any size on these islands. Imagine a town smaller than the one Kim grew up in in the middle of the South Atlantic, hundreds of miles away from its closest neighbour, Argentina (whom since the war Falkland War in the 80's, they don't like). Walking around this town was like walking around a small English village. We quickly strayed from the main street with the museum and gift shops as we tried our best to separate ourselves from the mass of humanity that wandered off our boat. We were walking down a tiny street when we struck up a conversation with an older lady, Emily, in her garden. She end up inviting us in for tea, and chips for G and Z. Soon her husband joined us and they told us stories
of the Islands. They are retired sheep farmers from the west island (there are two main islands, west and east, Stanley is on the eastern coast of the east) their family has been farming there for at least 3 generations and before that they think that before that their linage is Scottish, their accent was very English (northern). This was a highlight for me as on a trip like this these kind of authentic interactions with locals can be either very staged or just extremely difficult to come by. We then made our way out to another penguin rookery and I was able to squeeze in a good run over the peat fields before our boat pulled out.
Another day and a half forging southward got us to the cape. Cape Horn Island is a small (maybe a few km around) island and the last and most southerly of string of islands that drip off the southern tip of the continent. The weather and sea conditions are infamously known to be harsh down here. There are many stories of ship wrecks and missing vessels. We were fortunate to have calm and relatively clear weather while we were passing through this part of the world. It is hard to be on a boat down there and not to think of the early explorers like Magellen who were sailing, not motoring, these uncharted waters not knowing was was around the next corner. We think Gavin was understanding a little of the signiface of where we were but Zoe spent most of this time jumping and dancing on the her bed. Two year olds-- we'll make sure to tell her all about it when she is older.
After rounding the cape it was up into the straits and channels of Argentina and then Chile. The scenery was incredible: snow-capped mountains, glaciers, islands and gorges.
In the Beagle Channel we stopped at Tierra del Fuego's city of Ushuaia, Argentina (pop.70,00), the world's southern most city.
A coastal city at the base of the snow capped Martial Mountain Range, this is a stuningly beautiful town. Here we hopped on a small, old, coal train that is the southern most rail way
in the world that a bunch of prisoners built a 100 years ago to haul lumber around. It was a long, slow ride and a bit of a tourist trap, but hey, that was what we were. Gavin loved the train despite the fact that he could have run faster than it.
Heading north through the Straights of Magellan, we moored at Chile's southern most city, Punta Arenas (pop.120,000). Before the Panama Canal this was rest stop for ships on their way from the Atlantic to the Pacific as they cut the corner, or tip, of the continent. Now-a-days it is a fishing, logging and tourist town. As you can see from the pictures and video, although it is summer down there it is still a little chilly. It was in the low teens (Celsius) during our visit. No Gavin didn't really need the mittens, it is just the novelty for him. I guess this is what we get letting this Canadian kid grow up in the tropics.
From this point we cruised north up the coast of Chile mostly zig-zaging around islands, though
channels and straights but at times in the open pacific ocean, this is where they only bout of sea sickness occurred. The boat really rocked on one of the days. Zoe puked up her breakfast on a couple of other kids in Kid's Club and Gavin and Kim felt a little queasy too, but after some Gravol and a lazy afternoon lying on their beds and watching movies everyone recovered well.
One of our favourite stops and possibly the most beautiful one was on Dan's Birthday. We stopped in Chile's, Puerto Montt. This city of 120,000 is about 1/3 of the way up the 4000+ km of the country of Chile, but it is the first city past the thousands of islands that make up the bottom third of Chili.
This area is know as the lake district. Here we went out to some stunning lakes and enjoyed pristine views of a handful of gorgeous volcanoes. We spent some time in Puerta Varas which is on the southern tip of Lake Llanquihue which you see in the picture with Gavin. The perfectly shaped snow capped volcano is call Osorno. Of course Gavin convinced Zoe that it wasn't really a volcano since it was not spewing hot lava and fire balls, but they seemed to enjoy it all the same.
Dan had a great 36th birthday, his family and friends the Urquharts spoiled him with food, drink, baby-sitting and dancing. It is not every year you get to eat your birthday cake in a 5 star restaurant bopping up and down in the Southern Pacific Ocean.
Soon it was time to leave the boat. Our final docking was at Valparaiso, the coastal town about 150km from the Chilean capital of Santiago. We said our good-byes to the Norwegian Sun and hoped in a rental car with the intentions of stopping for lunch at one of the many striking lush vineyards on the browning summer landscape just off the route from the coast into Santiago. It was a perfect Sunday afternoon for this kind of thing. To our chagrin it turned out to be the worst Sunday in four years to eat lunch and sip a glass of wine at a vineyard. It was the country's presidential elections so by law all alcohol serving establishments had to close up for the day.
We limped into a sleeping Santiago, found our hotel and proceeded to explore the city. Sometime between when we drove away from our downtown hotel and our return, they announced the results of the elections. There were at least a million people that were happy with the outcome and the minutes ago sleeping streets turn into a chaotic party. There were cars honking, people hanging out of windows and dancing in the streets. Police closed down most of the streets around our hotel so we had to park blocks away and hike it home. The next morning we did wake to find a normal Santiago and got out and enjoyed the city. We found some awesome playgrounds that G and Z devoured for the better part of an hour. There is a big hill in the middle of the city that is a public park with incredible views of the city. It is riddled with people exercising and enjoying being outdoors. A great city.
Later that day we drove out to the airport and boarded our flight back to Sao Paulo (no first class this time) where the real life of school and work awaited us.
Despite our hesitations of holidaying on a cruise ship, for our family at this point in our lives it was the perfect experience. Gavin and Zoe loved the adventure and so did mom and dad.
I'm sure that most of our blog readers clicked away long ago, thanks to those of you who made it to this point. We've enjoyed sharing the tales of our travels with you. Remember as we wrote earlier Kim has put a plethora of photos on Shutterfly, here is the link again-
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days of July. Yes, the school year begins way too early here but with the early June finish date and 5 week Christmas break it all comes out in the wash.
ferry out to Center Island for fun and beach time.
Gavin loved his tie and looked very dapper. Zoe was beautiful in her dress that Grandma Betts made for her. They worked the dance floor and charmed the guests. Gavin and Zoe with their Grandma Betts:
Little brother Greg and his two beautiful sisters Kim and Heather. Heather made it back from China for the wedding - it was great to see her!
Our good friends from our time in the D.R. Paul and Janice and (new to the lake, Sam) , join Wollaston Lake regulars: Mark, Karil, Oliver and Ella some fun times and much needed catching up.
