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Zdravo!

Leaving Dubrovnik
I know, I know, no new updates.  I am finishing up my trek across Europe and heading back to London. Prague was incredible, Berlin was OK, Easter in Amsterdam was great (I have more tulip pictures than anyone should ever have taken), and Venice and Dubrovnik were amazing, and strangely similar. People keep asking why I picked Dubrovnik to visit, hopefully this clears up any confusion-

Dubrovnik is on the Adriatic across from Italy and is incredibly old and beautiful. Here are a couple of parting tulip shots-

When Bears Fly
As an update to the longest bungy jump in the world that I did in Queenstown, I (and Doug) can now claim to have jumped from the tallest bungy jump in the world (The Macau Tower 764 ft/ 233 m):

It doesn't look like it, but I do actually land in the middle of the target... after being lowered down to it. The red ropes are attached to guy lines that keep you from swinging back and hitting the tower, and you only stretch about 2/3 of the way down, which is why it is the tallest, but not the longest. In the motion video, it looks like I am reaching out to grap the ladder at the upper left corner of the air bag, but I didn't get any where near it until they lowered me down.

Moai-nudo
I am lucky enough to be on Easter Island during Tapati, which is the annual island cultural fortnight. During this time, there is stone carving, volcano riding, banana carrying, flower weaving, and other cultural activities that are all judged to benefit one of the two candidates for island queen. Every Tapati activity accrues points for one candidate or the other. Most of the craftsy activities are during the day, while most of the musical endeavors are at night. Tonight was scheduled to be traditional folk music, but turned into more of a boy-band extravaganza.   Matato'a means "The Warriors", and much like their movie namesake, these guys are heavy on the theatrics, and light on the actual warrior-like activity. Several of the guys were shirtless, including all of the cultural "dancers", and I actually felt sorry for James, one of my Cabanas Manatea neighbors, for drawing the short straw and getting to attend this Tapati event while his girlfriend stayed home with the children. Screaming women aside, this was not the sort of cultural festival I was expecting, though I have to admit that like a "King of the Hill" episode, I enjoyed the boy-band theatrics and melodies, which were more contemporary than the rest of the music on schedule for the week.
Maunga Ana Marana
No time to worry about the morning's injuries, this afternoon is the "let's slide down the side of a volcano on the back of a couple of palm tree's" final, including an island-wide picnic. I made my way 15 km across the island to Maunga Ana Marana to the site of the festivities without incident. I queued up with several hundred other people for free food, followed by the main event.
Office Pool
For those of you back in the office I no longer visit, if you picked February 1 as the date I would have the first accident of the trip, congratulations, you are the lucky winner. I made it through three continents unscathed, but this morning I and my scooter became one with a gravel hillside. We both endured only minor scratches, but I am now much more leery of gravel roads of any type. My goal for the week is to make it down this hill without killing myself (no fair betting on that), since it stands between Cabañas Mantea and town. This picture doesn't do it justice, it is really about ten times this high (no really)-
I'll spare you the pictures of my leg, but after video conferencing with Sheila, my sister/nurse, I think I'll live, though possibly with a roguish limp, however temporary.

Easter Island

Or Rapa Nui, or Isla de Pascua, or Ile de Paques. Whatever you call it, I am here.

I was greeted inside the cramped terminal by a burly guy with a luggage cart and a lei.

He didn’t look like either of the people from the Cabanas Manatea website, but he had a placard with my name, so I went with it. While I was waiting for my bags, a woman came over and gave me a big hug and welcomed me to Easter Island. I thought she had the wrong person, but it turned out to be Carmen, one of the owners of the cabanas. The cabanas are actually a row of four rooms, with a separate kitchen facility.   I have no idea of the star rating, but here is the room-

Whatever Cabañas Manatea might be lacking in amenities, it more than makes up in location. The view out my door is wall to wall ocean, and we are about 100 yards from Tahai, one of the more famous sites for Moai (the stone figures that everyone comes here to see). Here is the first of I’m sure many photos of Moai-

So after staying up all night doing laundry and repacking for the fifth time, it’s nap time.
Two-buck Chuck, meet Buck-fifty Conchy

For those of you not from California, Charles Shaw is a winery that is sold exclusively at a store called Trader Joe’s for the low, low price of two dollars a bottle. It is known as Two-buck Chuck (even in the store), and I would have thought that bottling, corking, and shipping water would cost more than that. In Santiago, Concha y Toro sells for under 900 pesos, which is less than $1.50.

This is even less than a similar sized bottle of cold beer (see the counter of food picture below). Warm beer may actually be cheaper, but like Argentina, markets seem to price identical items more if they are refrigerated. I tried the white and the red and they were OK, the white was nice chilled, and the red was fine with the lasagna. So next time you see that Concha y Toro label at the wine shop, just know how much you could save if you just flew down to Santiago and picked up a couple of cases.

More Songs about Buildings and Food
Chile has much more interesting architecture than at home in California. When I saw this brick building, all I could think is that is would be like a cluster bomb if there were to be an earthquake, or one of those flyers with the pull off phone numbers-

You can’t really tell from the picture, but the middle rows of brick don’t meet the wall, they cantilever out. Here are some more interesting buildings-

Being that I am now in a suite, I have a full kitchen, so since I love to cook but haven’t for three weeks, I decided to hit the super-mercado. I couldn’t understand why all the food in the supermarket was so skewed toward Italian (I couldn’t find hot sauce for the chips, but the store had three brands of spaghetti sauce), then I remembered my proximity to the Plaza d’Italia and thought maybe that had something to do with it. I went with the flow and bought stuff for lasagna, with an afternoon snack of guacamole.

FYI, avocados are paltas here and not aquacates like in Mexico, you know, in case you ever find yourself in a supermarket in Santiago trying to find ingredients for guacamole. In the absence of hot sauce which is my cheat if regular ingredients like jalapenos and other spices are unavailable, I made do with what I thought was cayenne but turned out to be paprika. I did manage to find a small baggie of something like salsa in a corner market, so the guacamole was saved.
Dinner turned out well, but the ice-cream I bought had pretty much melted on the way back to the suite, so I ate it for breakfast instead.

You know I’m excited about food when I have managed to not only write text, but take pictures of my limited cooking experience. Some things never change, I made enough lasagna for about eight people, so if you’re in the area…

Three-star Santiago
Today my cruise officially ends, and I am back to making my own travel arrangements. I moved down the food chain to three-star digs near the Plaza d’Italia. The good news is that I have a suite on a high floor of a mostly apartment building.

The bad news is that I have no air-conditioning. I’m not sure which star actually means air-conditioning, but it must be somewhere between three and four.

The Rice Connection
One of the people I met on the cruise was Doug. Doug was the only other guy my age on the cruise, and Doug attended the same small college I did in Houston. Doug was in the same graduating class I was. Doug lived in the residential college across from me (Will Rice for those of you keeping score). Doug's room actually faced my room about 50 yards away for much of that time. Doug graduated from Rice and then went to work for a Texas-based airline like I did. Doug and I knew the some of the same people at Rice. Doug is from California but now lives in Texas, while I am from Texas and now live in California. Doug drives a Lincoln, while I drive a Kennedy. Just kidding about that last part, but what are the odds that I travel to the actual end of the world and meet someone for the first time I should have probably met a million times before? While it may seem impossible that in a class of under 700, Doug and I never met, Rice is weird that way because your residential college becomes your life the same way a fraternity or sorority would, so most people only know about an eighth (at that time) of the students they go to school with. However it happened, I'm glad we finally met up. BTW, Doug is one of my "premium" friends.

Four-star Santiago
Santiago is very clean, at least the upscale parts of town we were able to visit. The drive in from Valparaiso included a city tour of Santiago which was universally panned by everyone I spoke to. It included a tour of a residential neighborhood, skipping the main plaza because it was too hot, and a half-hour trip to a artisan workshop to buy more overpriced lapis kitsch. Finding my own entertainment, I did see an Oldsmobile convertible similar to the one David Wiley had in college-
And the Chilean flag looks a little different in the capital-
Was Chile one of the states that Texas could sub-divide into? My group is staying in the four-star Intercontinental-
while the premium group is staying at the four-and-a-half star Park Hyatt-
and another group is staying at the Sheraton. Since I made several “premium” friends, I spent some time at the Hyatt and that half-star makes a huge difference. We had a rooftop pool; they had a waterfall-fed lagoon-
We had a two-story lobby; they had a twenty story atrium-
Both hotels were in the financial area of Santiago, and it was very safe to wander around even late at night. I ended sitting on a bench in a park at 1:30 am, typing away on my laptop. There were lots of people on their way home from dinner and/or drinks. Unlike Buenos Aires, even during the week, people in Santiago eat really late lunches and really late dinners. I talked to a Chinese guy named Paulo who grew up in Panama, went to work for an Engineering firm in Los Angeles and had now moved to their Santiago office. He had spent the summer in LA, and now a second summer in Santiago, so he was looking forward to a snowboarding in the Andes when winter finally comes.

None of the city tours interest me, so I will probably spend more time wondering around the city and trying to figure out the bus system for when I am on my own after my two days at the Intercontinental.

Valparaiso

We have now come to the end of the cruise portion of the trip upon our arrival in Valparaiso. From here there is an additional two days in Santiago with more city tours and the like. Some people are heading directly home, or going off on their own, so this is the last chance to see all the great friends I have made on the trip in one place. It was also the last chance to see the crew. I realized that I did not get a single picture of Andrea Lowde our Cruise Director, so when I heard her voice on the PA, I ran to the front desk to snap a quick shot-

Sorry Andrea, I could have gotten your picture during any one of your singing performances, but I guess I was too busy enjoying the performances to think about it. In addition to keeping everything on schedule, Andrea hosts the trivia contests, does an evening of songs from her CD, and performs in the Yacht Club, when she is not inviting people like me to dinner to find out how we are enjoying the cruise. In addition, when she is home in London, she lives on a boat in the river Thames. Way cool.

There was not much of a chance to see any of Valparaiso except for what we saw on the bus on the way out of town. We then traveled through Chile’s version of Napa valley and here is a shot of a typical winery you might see-

We stopped for a snack at another tour-selected venue, and while the empanada was OK (note-olives should probably be pitted before putting them inside a pastry), the best pasrt were the llamas corralled nearby-

Puerto Montt

If I had known we would be arriving in Puerto Montt on a Sunday, I would have booked a shore excursion. Instead, Michelle and I headed out to an entirely closed city. We did see some interesting sculpture, and some not so interesting sculpture-

We also wondered around long enough for the museum to open. The first half of the museum tracks the glaciers and early inhabitants, and the second half chronicles the arrival of the Germans in the 1850s. It was all in Spanish with no attempt at an English cheat sheet, so the tour did not take long. Obligatory museum pics-

So it was back to the ship for lunch again, with an afternoon jaunt to the craft market conveniently located adjacent to the port. Then more sailing into the sunset on the mv Discovery-

Fjords, fnords, fjords
We now head further north through even more Chilean fjords. They seem to be never-ending. It is sort of like being in a water maze with, like, 23 different paths. The ship shoots up a canal only to reach a dead-end, sometimes with a glacier, and then we turn around and go back a ways and try again. I’m sure this is all intentional, but it does seem haphazard.

Gratuitous fjord shots-

This one is a panorama, but I can't seem to get it any larger, when I do I'll replace it-

Even though the pools are all dry, they have finally filled up the hot tubs, so I spent the afternoon soaking up the scenery while soaking in the hot tub. Of course hot is relative, I think the pool at my gym has warmer water in it, but it is therapeutic nonetheless.

Hot Pockets
Michelle and I stopped at a market on the way back to the ship and picked up empanadas to try. Unfortunately they were not hot, so the cheese had hardened inside. We have no kitchen facilities in the room, or at least I didn’t think so until Michelle reminded me that we all had built-in convection ovens in our desks. Unfortunately, they are very small and required removing a portion of the empanada-

A few minutes later and I had the most tasty melted queso empanada in Punta Arenas.

Punta Arenas

Punta Arenas is a city of about 130,000 and is about 160 years old. It is sprawling and colorful, but there is not a lot to do except paint graffiti on buildings apparently. The city has given up on stopping the graffiti and instead just asks everyone to paint their house once a year. I didn’t sign up for any shore excursions, so Michelle and I wandered around the town square-

took some photos-

Note I am over 11,000 km from home-

saw the one museum on the square, and headed back to the ship for lunch. The Sara Braun house is now the Club de la Union, but is open for tours. You basically pay your 1000 pesos and the woman unlocks the doors to the rooms and leaves, so you can wander around as much as you want.

The most impressive architectural details are all the ceilings, from wooden coffers to plaster frescos.

Those are probably both redundant phrases, but I’m not going to take the time to go google it to see. For those of you who like to quilt (Susan and Susan you know who you are), if you ever need to incorporate a penguin into your quilt, you can use this pattern I saw on the side of an adjacent ship in port-

Pining for the Fjords
Today we are making our way through the glaciers and fjords towards Punta Arenas. Here is a passing shot of Ushuaia-

Here is a glacier with a waterfall coming out underneath-

It is probably not good news when a glacier springs a leak. There are waterfalls everywhere-

And every now and then you can still see an iceberg in the water-

We will be going through the fjords for the next few days so you’ll get a chance to see more I’m sure.

The Drake Passage and Ushuaia
Today was another of the many days at sea. This time we are heading back across the Drake Passage back toward the Chilean tip of South America. We are going back through the Beagle Channel, past Ushuaia, but not stopping this time, then on toward Punta Arenas, Chile. The passage is known as the Drake “snake” or the Drake “lake” depending on conditions. It was pretty lake-like on the way over and seems to be that way for the return. I would like to thank Susan Gray Mason for the wrist bands andIt will take two days to get to the Chilean fjords, so other than more views of the ocean, there will probably not be a lot of pictures. I have met tons of people on board. The one thing everyone seems to have in common is a sense of adventure, and a lot of past travel experience. It is great eating lunch each day with new people and getting new ideas for what to try in everyone’s home country. Here is lucky table 77, my dinner dining companions-

Barb worked for the phone company in Cincinnati, Taki is Armenian via Lebanon via Zuma Beach, Bob splits his time between Florida and California, Michelle is from Oregon and is taking the cruise at the last minute in place of her grandmother, and Frank lived for years in Malawi, but while still British currently lives in southern Alberta. We are lucky Table 77 because after dinner each night we play as a team at the trivia contest and have won twice. Fortunately one night was Wild West trivia, so we got every answer right. Since it is a British cruise line, a lot of the questions are obscure to the U.S. passengers (“What is the third largest cathedral in England?”), but when they have U.S. questions they tend to be easy (“What state is Las Vegas in?”). There was even a true/false trivia quiz, which was a lot harder than it sounds.

Andrea and Joe sat at a table near us, and had the stateroom next door to mine. They are originally from Malta but now live near Toronto. Andrea was mistaken for Liza Minelli so many times in Toronto that she actually worked as a look-alike there (I hope I got that part right.). Hopefully by the end of the cruise I will have provided the bios for the other 340 passengers, like Dennis from Ireland, Judy from Sydney, or John and Ann from Christchurch, England. And Jean, if you are reading this, I have tried emailing you the seal pics, but I must have your email address wrong. Contact me and I will resend them.

Half Moon Island
Today is our last Zodiac landing and as we are the yellow landing group we get to go first. I was lucky enough to get on the first passenger Zodiac (the penguin police and the boot scrubbers were already ashore), which meant that I not only got to take some pictures before the snow really started coming down, but I got to see this fur seal chasing after brunch-

Since this is not a zoo, you are treated to the full circle of life, as there is no one to clean up the evidence of penguin attacks, sorry-

We also witnessed two Skua swoop in and grab a baby penguin and begin devouring it-

So penguins are getting it from air, land, and sea- it is a wonder that any survive from year to year. Fortunately many chicks do survive-

And many of the adults take time to ham it up for the cameras-

He or she is probably just cooling off, but there were many other rocks further away from the cameras, and I watched this bird wander out of its way to plop down right in front of me. This island also has an Argentine base camp, Teniente Camara, but I didn’t see any activity while we were ashore-

It then began snowing harder, and my hour ashore was up, so I headed back to the Zodiac, but not before hitting the scrubbers-

Because the penguin guano smells so strong and tracks badly through the ship, and they do not want cross-contamination across the islands, we had a team of cabin stewards (my steward Marvin said this is the worst job of the cruise) who poke, prod, and scrub to get everything off of your boots before you get back on the Zodiac. Unfortunately, I stepped in the poo bucket, so I’m not so sure how clean my boots and pants got, but I gave them an additional bath back in the room before leaving them on the ship at the end of the cruise. I was told that the people in the hotels in Santiago know when the Antarctic passengers arrive because they can smell their boots even inside their bags. This was a rare time I was glad I don’t have a full sense of smell.

After the cleaning, we climbed in the Zodiac, saw a group of hungry hungry fur seals on shore (there were no penguin remains in sight) and headed back to the ship.

Lemaire Channel

Now we head to our southernmost destination, Lemaire Channel. Lemaire Channel is a very narrow, fairly short channel that has steep sides and is about a half-mile deep. It is supposedly very picturesque (nickname- The Kodak Gap) but we may not be able to traverse it as icebergs have a tendency to pile up in the narrowest section, and no Discovery cruise has made it so far this season, but the sun is out and the reports are good, so we may have a chance. Sorry, that wasn't meant to be a cliffhanger, I just haven't had internet access for a few days now.

Lemaire Channel is a very narrow, very deep and very short channel located between the continent and Booth Island. It is one of the top tourist attractions in Antarctica, but so far this season our ship has been unable to make it past the entrance to the channel due to the number of icebergs that float down the channel and get wedged at the narrowest point. Luckily, with good weather and a clear report, we are the first, and our cruise was able to make the trip and we were able to take even more pictures of “Kodak Gap”-

Another nice thing about the channel is that the waters are very calm so you can get the rare reflection shot-

At the end of the channel, at S65.11960 and W64.01128 according to my GPS, at 16:34 local time, we reached the southernmost point of the cruise, and I’m guessing the southernmost point in my round-the-world trip.

Now we head back North for one more landing then back across the Drake Passage.

Neko Harbor
Today, we have traveled further south to Neko Harbor on Andvord Bay.

We headed to shore in the Zodiacs-

to view the Gentoo penguin rookeries-

along with some cormorants-

We are unable to land, so this turns into another drive-by, but we are able to get as close and take better pictures than being on shore, so since we have already landed on the continent, I am not too upset. The scenery is truly incredible. Here's a cave we saw on the way back to the ship-

It is a little disorienting having to queue up for Zodiacs, suit up with boots and life vests, then get quickly herded on and off the boats so everyone can get their chance at an up-close encounter with the continent, so I'm glad I kept clicking away the whole time even when I wasn't sure why I was taking pictures, becasue after uploading the cave picture, I realized I didn't really remember seeing it in person, so fortunately I have the picture to remind me I was actually here. When the ship is at Antarctic capacity they spend all day at each site, instead of the 4-5 hours we are here, so we are actually getting to meander around more instead of camping out at one spot all day.

Landing on Antarctica
After leaving Deception and Greenwich islands we head today for Hope Bay for our initial landing on the Antarctic continent. The Adelie penguins were there to greet us en masse.

Because of the threat of seal attacks, the penguins hit the water in large groups (much like we were hitting their shores in large groups), so they amass at the shore and then one penguin gives the word and they all dive in. I have a video of a false start when a group jumped in, and then quickly got out and ran away when the others didn’t follow.

Hope Bay is about the most northern point on the continent you can land, but it still counts. I landed on Antarctica at 10:16 am local time on Friday, January 16, 2009.

We had to wear special life vests for the Zodiacs, and a colored disc to indicate which of the four landing groups to which we belonged. I was in the yellow group. Even though there were only about 350 passengers on board (and 250 crew), in Antarctica you are only allowed to have 100 people on shore at any time, so we would go in groups each day, rotating which group went first. We started last and there are four landings, so we will be first group for the last landing if conditions allow. Anyway, back to the penguins.

The penguin villain from the Batman comics was obviously based on actual events. These guys are evil. They travel around harassing the tourists, begging for money and bumming cigarettes. Not quite the image I had of them from the brochures. Fortunately, the Antarctic tourism board has hired a police force to keep them in line-

I didn’t see any arrests, but there was much ticketing for vagrancy and general aloofness. If a penguin got within 15 feet of a tourist, the police would make the tourist stop and wait until the penguin realized the error of his ways and vacated the premises, then the tourist could continue, free from attack.

Everyone I knew made it back on the Zodiac safely. This time…

It really is a march of the penguins. During feeding season, there is a continuous trail of penguins going to the bay, filling up on krill (shrimp-like shellfish), and coming back to feed the baby penguins, who look like gray tribbles at this point. You can actually tell which way the penguins are heading based on the size of the stomachs.

In the picture, the face-down penguin is on his or her way back from the bay. Penguins will stop and lay on the rocks to cool off, since it is the height of summer here. The red encampments up the hillside are red due to the lack of lavatory service available on the island. I thought we where seeing a new red-breasted version of the penguins, but they were just on their way to the bay for breakfast and a bath.

We headed back to the ship after our landing was over and had to badge back in with our ship card, probably to insure no one was abducted by the penguins.

It was a really sunny day. You can see the absence of ozone around the sun-

Oh well, I guess pictures can’t really show you what it is like here. The sky turns all sorts of blue when the sun is out, but when you take a picture it just looks like this-

It is not as cold as I expected, but when the wind blows, you definitely feel the chill. We left Hope Bay in search of an iceberg field. It seems kind of stupid to go in search of icebergs in an un-reinforced hull ship, but we do have our concerto trio in case anything really bad happens. This first picture is a table-top iceberg, the second just looked like a ship (they have names for all the different sizes and shapes (growlers are little iceberg chunks that growl along the side of the ship), but I didn't pay close attention to that lecture)-

Also, it snowed last night, so there is still a snowman on deck even though the most of the rest of the snow is gone.

Flying Penguins and Glass Ears

Today we are officially in Antarctica, specifically Deception Island and the South Shetlands. Deception Island is so named because it is a crescent-shaped caldera (collapsed volcano) with a single narrow entrance, making navigators search the entire exterior of the near circular island for the actual entrance and not just one of the deceptive coves that look like they could provide entrance. The water inside is supposed to be warm enough to swim in, and when the magma is flowing, it can actually boil the water on the interior of the crescent, but we would not find out, as our ship was apparently too large to make the trip through the entrance as scheduled, but this smaller ship was able to-

As we approached the island, before we could even see them, we smelled the penguins. There are several rookeries on the island with more than 50,000 penguin pairs each, so all the whiteness in the pictures is not just snow. Since the penguins feed out in the open waters, there were hundreds of them in the water around the boat as we sailed near the coast. They swim much like miniature dolphins, so you would see schools of them leaping out of the water through the air before diving again. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but maybe the video will better illustrate-

There were also some whales feeding just off the shore, but they were hard to see without binoculars, and even zoomed in at maximum it was hard to catch anything with my camera. After Deception Island, we headed for the Shetland Islands in search of a place to make Zodiac (inflatable rafts with outboard engines) landings, but we were treated to Zodiac tours instead. We were also able to see a lot of Glass Ear ice floating around the boat near the islands. It took two or three times before I understood the announcer's New Zealand accent, and realized we were, in fact, seeing glacier ice.

Midnight at the Oceasis

This is what midnight looks like this far South this time of year-

It's strange to come out of the theater after an 11:00 evening show and be greeted by daylight (nightlight?). The evening show was a Romanian trio performing classical music (The Little Night Music (I'm not looking up the German name... Eine Kleine golookitupyourself), Intermezzo Sinfonico, Mazurka, Swan, Piroska, and Romanian Spring Flowers). It was good to know that in this land of icebergs we had the appropriate musicians to play "Nearer my God to Thee" as the ship goes down...

Penguin Suits

Tonight was a formal dinner night and I was seriously shocked by the number of people (I guess in hindsight they

were all men) in tuxedos. I barely had room in my suitcase for the rubber boots that were required. These guys

must have worn them on the plane or something.

Top of the World, Ma!

In my bid at global equality, I've decided I'm actually at the top of the world, and with nothing but water in every direction and the sun overhead for hours and hours a day, I think I have a good argument. The sun does actually set for a few hours (especially as we were leaving Ushuaia last night), and if I remember correctly, Tierra Del Fuego ("Land of Fire") is so named because the explorers that first came to the area mistook the clouds as fire, which is easy to believe especially at sunset-

I would look it up, but the connection is much slower as we head South, either from the link, or just the volume of people using the internet. So, if you get a phone call with a strange ID and no one says anything, it might be me trying to use Skype to call you. Also, I know there are typos, hopefully I can correct them soon.

David Clark did look it up, and I was wrong, it is because of all the tribal fires from the the explorers saw along the shores. Sorry-

Today we are cossing the Drake and with no shore excursions I have filled the day attending lectures. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not good at getting up early for classes, so I have watched most of them as replays on the cabin television. The lectures on board have been very informative. Maybe too informative, as I can't tell you for sure if this is an albatross or a petrel off the back of the boat-

Before I would have just guessed sea gull (sorry Michael).

It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)

Welcome to Ushuaia, the Southern-most city in the world. The bottom of the world or the top of the world I guess it depends on your point of view. It is very beautiful (and a lot warmer than I expected) here, and the ship has satellite internet access, so there should be more updates to follow, otherwise, see you in Santiago!

Adios Buenos Aires

I leave in the morning for Ushuaia so this is my last night in BA. As with my last visit in 2000, I am again thinking how cool it would be to live here for a while, although cool may not be the best word since it has gotten into the 90s on almost every day I've been here. Anyway, more highlights of the city-

This is the view from the top floor of the Sheraton. The tower was a gift to Argentina from the UK and used to be known as the English tower until the whole Falkland Islands thing. Now it is just known as the historical tower. I saw the Gout Cafe and given my history of gout I thought what better place to have lunch (I know it is not really the same Goût, but this is a travelogue and I have to make connections when sometimes there are none). The food was good and the presentation was even better-

Those are cold chunky hash browns on top of the salad, odd but tasty. The sandwich was the house specialty which was a hollowed out brioche stuffed with ham, shredded chicken, mushrooms and cheese.

This is the Evita museum; unfortunately it is closed on Mondays.

Around the corner is the apartment building from the movie "Apartment Zero"; a sort of a new wave Alfred Hitchcock movie from the 80s which was filmed in Argentina.

This the Caminito area-

It is the Boca disrict and looks like this because the poor immigrants that originally moved to the area built their homes out of corrugated steel and then painted them using whatever leftover paint the various ships that were docked would give them. I find it a little hard to believe there were that many fuchsia and turquiose ships back in the day, but it makes for a nice picture...

I had dinner last night at a churrascaria in the Puerto Madero area. The restaurant was "Spettus", and it is located next to a Calavaras-designed bridge that is very cool. Even cooler is that the middle of the span swings around 90 degrees to let ships through.

The restaurant was good, but no Fogo de Chao. It did have some colossal shrimp-

Finally, this is the Pacific Galleria, which still has its Christmas decorations up. The murals on the ceiling are really nice-

Late Night Attractions

Walking around the surprisingly-filled streets of Buenos Aires (Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre), I finally experienced the “fair winds” this morning at 4 am. Very nice weather at this hour for a shorts and flip-flops stroll. Rather than an ancient Indian burial mound, Hotel Hispano appears to be built on the remains of several discarded 70’s discos (Red Bell Saloon and another more discreet, no-name, big-bouncer dance club take up the backstreet ground level real estate). The bass thump-thump is only noticeable because I am already fast-awake. I definitely prefer this to the sound of crickets that indicates a city with no pulse.

To Bidet or Not-to-Bidet

One of the travelogues that I read before starting this trip mentioned that while Americans consider themselves first-world, they do not avail themselves to bidets as the Argentineans do. In college, I repeatedly rallied for a bidet installation at my residential college, without ever considering the consequences. Even the most budget of hotel rooms here has a bidet, so I thought I would give it a shot, so to speak. After three attempts, I can assure you that I have one of the cleanest bathroom ceilings in all of Buenos Aires. I assumed that I was doing things right as I did follow the cardinal rule that “Drinking from a bidet is not recommended.” (nor is bathing small children), but for now, I think I will stick with TP.

Where am I again?

OK, if you had to guess the city based on the following picture, what would you guess?

Buenos Aires has a lot of Parisian architecture, but a decidedly political graffiti network is at work-

Hola desde hermosa Buenos Aires!

I made it to my first stop- Argentina. After an afternoon of sightseeing, I promptly crashed for eight hours, having gotten about four hours of sleep in the last two days. More to come, but here are a couple of shots of the place I am staying. The only presence at street level is this very small entrance, but it opens up into this great open-air courtyard-

As you can see from the entrance, this is a 2-star hotel, but it has ten times the ambience of the 5-star Sheraton where I will be staying starting on Sunday, as part of the Antarctica cruise. Hotel Hispano was listed in the Eyewitness Guide, has free unlimited internet access, and a very friendly staff. It’s weird, because it is actually looks better in person than on the website.

I had checked at the Sheraton first to see if I could just check in early, because that would have been easiest (and in 95 degree summer heat I wasn't looking forward to wandering from hotel to hotel), but I decided if I was going to make it on the road until May, I was going to have to stop throwing money at situations to make them easier and start doing a little legwork, and it definitiely paid off. This place is six times less than the Sheraton and located directly between the “Pink Palace” and the congressional building on Avenida de Mayo.

FYI, I don't think Latin-American street names could exist without a calendar. Everything from 9 de Julio to 20 de Septiembre- if I could only find 14 de Octubre, my birthday plans would be set. Alas, I was born two days too late, 12 de Octubre seems to be all the rage in Argentina... stupid Columbus.

I did a little more research, and not only is 12 Octubre the day Augusto Laserre founded the city of Ushuaia, my next stop (there are no coincidences on the internet), but it is also a national holiday (Cultural Diversity day or Valentine's Day, or Spanish Independence day... curse you google translator!).

As I said, more to come, but now I am off to dinner (or “ir a cenar”, I'm a regular Dora the explorer...).

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Getting There...

I left today for beautiful Buenos Aires. I got to SFO in plenty of time for my flight for a change and met great AA employees along the way. It truly makes me miss my days at the airline. For the first time in a long while I was actually looking forward to a day of flying, and because the ticket agent put me on the standby list properly (DSR F), I was able to get first class on the flight from SFO-DFW, which means I am actually now confirmed in Business/First for all the possible available flights on my RTW trip (sorry RDU-DCA!). The Admirals Club in SFO was sort of a let-down after the SFO British Airways lounge I utilized on my trip to India last Spring, but the food and the people on AA more than made up for the material shortcomings. I had a great Chicken Caesar salad on the flight, including black olives (which I guess are as Italian as “Caesar”, but still reminded me of the Harper's statistic on how much AA saved annually by eliminating the black olives from the first class salads back when I started with AA in 1987), and spent a relaxing couple of hours catching up with family and friends at the business center of the DFW Admirals Club. The flight to EZE was great, but I could, even as tired as I was, only sleep a couple of hours. Here is the constellation of seat position choices I dozed to-

The ZZZ position was supposed to promote sleep, but because of the downward slope, all I could do was hope one of the other multiple adjustments would give me the relaxing recline I so desired. Even without the flat recline, changing seat positions provided a complimetary massage (or, more like a complimentary rolfing). You know you are in trouble on a flight when just using the seat controls neccesitates its own four minute video-

One of the great things about AA Business Class is that the tray tables (there were two) docked to form one super-table that gave me plenty of room to spread out and do much-needed research on Buenos Aires.

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Happy New Year!

I will be beginning my round-the-world odyssey in just a few days. Here is a rough guide to the trip-

Click the map for routing info

If all goes well, when I am done, I will have travelled over 50,000 miles and visited all seven continents on the one trip.

Here is the current estimate of my timetable-

Argentina: January 9-13

Antarctica: January 14-20

Chile/Easter Island: January 21-February 8

New Zealand: February 10-14

Australia: February 14-17

Thailand: February 17-20, February 25-March 10

United Arab Emirates: February 20-25

China: March 10-13

South Africa: March 13-21

England: March 11, April 4-April 11

Italy: March 13-18

Croatia: March 18-24

Czech Republic: March 24-29

Germany: March 29-April 4

Washington: April 11-16

Fort Worth: April 16-21

Hopefully, I can keep this page updated with pictures and info along the way, we'll see how that goes. To make room for the new pictures, I have taken down the old ones.

-Paul

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