On any other cruise trip I’d call this a Day at Sea and I’d be bellyaching about boredom. We might not be coming to a port today but the bellyaching I have to report has to do with the seas of the Drake Passage, not boredom.

Actually, the seas, while not calm (they call it the Drake Lake when seas are calm) but it isn’t as bad as it could be. Our captain reports seas are running 4 to 6 meters, or roughly 12 to 19 feet. Winds in the 30s, too strong to open the walking deck. But the skies have been partly cloudy with lots of sunshine so we’re not in the middle of a storm. Temps in the low 40s.

As for my belly aching, it hasn’t been all that bad. It started getting rough during the night but we both slept well. The motion has continued at about the same intensity all day. At first I though I’d be fine. We attended a mandatory 8 AM briefing about protocols for shore visits. Summary: don’t do anything to damage the environment, either by changing the landscape or by introducing foreign substances and especially disease. The environment here is unique and quite susceptible. Avian flu is a particular worry. Watching the screen, I felt the beginnings of queasiness and so chewed a Bonine.

A bowl of oatmeal for breakfast made me think again, but I retreated to the cabin and watched the horizon for an hour and felt better, either by the calming influence of the ocean or the Bonine.

I did quite well at 10 AM when we went down to A Deck to be fitted for boots and shore pants and for a mandatory cleaning of any exterior garments we intend to wear ashore. It was actually a fun process, giving us a chance to meet some of the expedition crew who will accompany us in the zodiacs when we land.

Immediately afterwards was a tour of the ship, starting on Deck 1 and moving up. I made it half way through Deck 2 and retreated once again. This time, after Judy returned, I put on a patch, the one with prescription scopomine. A little more horizon watching and I was ready for lunch. Rather than do the cafeteria feed at the World Café, we went to a Norwegian café called Mamsen’s. A bowl of Lentil soup hit the spot, along with a Norwegian cake of some variety.

One of the side effects of the patch is drowsiness, a warning I took to heart immediately after lunch. I’d spotted a pleasant spot in the Living Room on Deck 4 so we went there at 1 PM. I told Judy I’d be there until our next event at 3 PM. Two hours and two naps later, I was feeling fine, ready for a third nap, but totally void of mal de Mer.

At 3 we attended a lecture by the Octanis’s Chief Scientist who explained the eight or so scientific studies being conducted on this ship and the sister ship Polaris. They study all sorts of natural phenomena here and the Great Lakes and everywhere in between. The research is done in conjunction with scientific organizations and Universities.

As an example, Viking had established a PCR lab on board for Covid testing back when testing was mandatory of Viking cruises. No longer needed for Covid testing, they’ve converted the equipment to be a full DNA sequencing lab to do marine research. A PhD student is doing dissertation work using the lab. The scientific studies are funded by Viking, and of course by extension, by passengers. The data they collect in the remote Antarctic region especially useful since it would not be economically viable to use  a research trip ship to gather the data.

Now it’s 5:30 PM and time for the welcoming party (“Let me introduce your Captain . . . “), followed by dinner at 6 and a lecture “Introduction to Antarctica.” Let’s hope my patch doesn’t fall off.

Judy’s doing just fine without chemical assistance, thanks for asking.

The welcoming session turns out to be more interesting than most. In addition to introducing the ship’s executives, All 24 expedition team members were individually introduced. An interesting group with widely varied spheres of knowledge and interest.

Dinner was fine (we both had lobster and scallops) and after, the 8 PM lecture that Judy tells me, was about the natural history of Antarctica. I’d read the book and elected instead to enjoy the drowsy side effect of my seasickness patch, which continues to work well. Judy kept poking me in the ribs, embarrassed to have me napping in public, but that was a minor disturbance.

And, lo and behold, upon returning to our room, we  found certificates from the captain attesting to our successful transit of the Drake Passage. Let’s not count our chickens . . .  We’ve got several more hours before we hit dry land, or what passes as dry land down here.

Not many exciting pictures today. Just a few shots of what the ship is like.

Tomorrow, we’re supposed to be at Astrolabe Island at the northern reach of the Australian Peninsula. We’re scheduled for a zodiac ride, but not landing, at 4 PM.

Note from Judy:

My stomach has been fine with the use of the wrist bands on the acupuncture spot that I assume is for nausea.  My problem is that I act like a drunken sailor and it is not from  alcohol!  I hold the railing or wall to steady myself.  I also took three naps: one after breakfast and two in the afternoon but stayed awake for the lecture.  The reason for my naps is that I love sleeping when the boat is rocking.  My father always told me to just imagine rocking yourself to sleep and it really works for me, at least so far.  I have had lots of memories today of my parents as I fall asleep and when I am unsteady on my feet My Mother as she had the same problem.  I am looking forward to tomorrow and a little anxious about leaving the ship but hopefully all will go well. 

Oh, the wages of sin and depravation! After two-thirds of a bottle of Trabiche Malbec that accompanied the three-course Argentinian beef dinner, followed by a beer during the tango show and 12:30 AM lights out, the 6 AM alarm was a most painful event. But do I regret it? No, not even the double dip of dulce de leche that preceded the night’s excesses. The meal was great and the show met our every expectation.

We came to the show with something of a critic’s eye, having experienced a tango show at this same venue five years ago. “Will it be better or worse? Will we recognize the dancers and musicians? Were we wrong to come here again, bypassing other similar shows in town?” The short answers are: better, different and correct.

For one thing, the venue is quite intimate. Having sprung for the VIP option, we were seated in virtually the same position as last time, this time however one row back rather than stage side so our photos have backs of heads every now and then. But that didn’t detract from the pleasure of the art.

The show had four main sections. First, tango dancing that I would term playful and smiling. Later, the more traditional tango dancing was emotional yet serious. The general idea was competition between ladies and gentlemen for dance partners. Attendant jealousies displayed. A singer interspersed songs during the dance routines. Fun.

A man and woman duo divided the two tango sections. There’s probably a term for it, but I would call it rhythmic dancing. Not tap dancing, although there was lots of rhythmic foot stomping going on. They accompanied each other on large drums and then danced together with the drums. The highlight, though, was their use of long cords with weights of some sort fastened to the ends. The dancers would swing the cords in large arcs, timing it so that the weights hit the floor in time to the impossibly fast rhythms established by the dancer’s feet stomps and/or the accompanying drums. Amazing.

The second tango performance was more similar to what I expected. Sensuous, dramatic and serious expression of emotion and, I suppose, love or at least attraction between man and woman. Classical tango moves that gives El Viejo Almacén its reputation as the home of classical tango art. Emotional.

The tango dancing we saw was certainly required high degrees of athleticism. The moves can only be accomplished by use of highly developed and highly controlled muscles. The same dancers do the same performance seven days a week. The dancers are fit, but show no signs of high musculature development. And the dancing isn’t a display of athleticism. Each move, no matter how complex or difficult, is performed with seeming ease, as if doing that twirl or toss or impossible pose is the most natural thing in the world.

The final act was an appearance by Hugo Marcel. I mean THE Hugo Marcel xxxxxx. Surely you’ve heard of him? Me neither. But the Argentinian crowd went wild when he hit the stage. I’d call him an old fashioned Argentinian crooner and it was fun to imagine his career as a popular idol in Argentina. He’d start telling a story of unrequited love (it was all in Spanish) and, when the emotion became more than he could bear, he broke into song, the only way he could explain the full scope of his feelings. Insightful.

Now, as I type, we’re half way through our 3:20 flight to Ushuaia. We’ll go to the boat and, hopefully, jump ship to reacquaint ourselves with Ushuaia, the southern most city in South America. Full report to follow.

Ushuaia has grown quite a bit since 2019 – population is now 80,000. While summer guests and workers leave in the fall, Ushuaia enjoys a strong winter skiing season with visitors from South America and as far away as Europe.

Our ship was docked close to the place where we stayed last time. After getting our carryon stuff in our cabin and checked in with the life saver drill, we headed ashore and walked a short  distance up the hill to the Main Street of town and from there a few blocks to our old hotel. Main Street hasn’t changed much and it was nice to revisit the pleasant memories from times past. A hit on the dulce de leche helped too. A beautiful day, temps near 60 with a moderate breeze and great views of the surrounding mountains.

That’s the good news. We’ve learned that, due to weather, our itinerary has been turned on its head. We’re heading tonight across the Drake Passage toward Antarctica. Then, we’ll proceed to South Georgia and finally Falkland Islands, the exact opposite route as had been planned. The main reason is that bad weather is forecast for the Falkland’s for the next few days, weather that would make the trip over miserable and preclude any shore landings while there.

Not to say that the Drake crossing is going to be a piece of cake. The captain informed us a few minutes ago that, once clear of the Beagle Passage where we’re sailing at the moment, around midnight, we’ll experience winds gusting to 55 – 60 knots and ocean swells of 12 – 15 feet every 9 seconds or so. Once in Antarctica the winds are forecast to be much more reasonable, especially in the lee (eastern side) of the Antarctica Peninsula. We’ll let South Georgia and Falklands do what they will do in a week or so.

The Octanis is a beautiful ship. This is its eighth voyage so it’s brand new. Everything is well thought out and well executed. But the proof of the pudding will be how well she handles rough water. Stay tuned!

 

For me, I start to relax when I’ve got the l get the carryons in the overhead bins and we’re ready to push back from the gate. All the prep work is what makes me nervous, but when we’re on the plane all that’s behind us and, sure, unexpected problems will arise, but that’s part of the challenge and fun of adventuring. BTW, thanks, Marilyn and Steve, for the stress-free ride to c.

No sooner had I slammed the bin door shut at Tampa International, but the pilot came on to say that President Biden was landing at Miami and the airspace had been shut down. Expect a 30-minute delay. Thirty became sixty became even more and, when we eventually got to Miami, it was a two-hour hold up. Enough to make a guy pull the elephant lever next November for sure.

That caused us a serious issue. Our expected four-hour stay at the Ambassador Lounge was cut to two. We had to gulp down our food and have a quick conversation with Rebecca (we’d talked with Jeff earlier) and beat feet to the gate. Time to spare? Go by air.

Not only that, our flight from Miami to Buenos Aires was delayed by 45 minutes but the wind gods must have been blowing in our favor because we landed right on time, 8:05 AM. That’s Argentina time, two hours ahead of EST, which we’ll be observing for the entire trip.

We cleared Argentinian formalities, found our Viking representatives (it took five Viking folks to herd us from the customs hall to the far end of the mostly deserted terminal. An hour’s bus ride got us to the Hilton Buenos Aires by 10 AM or so. Our room became available almost immediately and, after a departure briefing from another Viking rep (7:20 AM bus call tomorrow, bags out by 8 PM tonight) we were in our room and ready to start exploring.

Buenos Aires is suffering from an unusual 95 F heatwave. And we’re talking muggy heat, not that dry heat from the Australian Outback we experienced last fall. But that didn’t stop us. We set off with four objectives: see the Casa Rosada (Pink House); change a crisp $100 bill into pesos; find some empanadas for lunch and; buy bathing suits.

Wait a minute. Aren’t you guys going to Antarctica? Sure, it’s summer but really. Swimming?

Our problem is that we unquestioningly do what people tell us to do. Yesterday evening while waiting to board the plane, we met two ladies going on our trip (Viking luggage tags was the giveaway). They said, “Hope you brought your bathing suits. We were on the Octanis on the Great Lakes and it has a marvelous swimming pool. You won’t want to miss it.” Hence the swimming togs.

The Casa Rosada is the building where the President of Argentina has offices. The site started out as a customs house, fort and post office, which were amalgamated by 1898 to more-or-less its current state. It faces the Plaza de Mayo, which commemorates the May 25, 1811 victory that kicked the Spanish out and left Argentina as an independent country. The left balcony of the Pink House is where Evita Peron made her “Don’t cry for me, Argentina”  speech that Andrew Lloyd Webber made famous.

So check the Casa Rosada off the list. We actually remembered well our previous visit in 2019 with cousin  Sharon. You can read about that, if you want, at https://jonandjudy.com/day-4-1-9-19-buenos-aires/ and the following day.

We’d been told that Florida Avenue is a pedestrian street full of shopping opportunities. And sure enough, it was. I had my eye out for a cambio where we could do the exchange when much to my delight a random guy said, “Cambio señor? Best rate? 1,190 to the dollar.” Later, I discovered that virtually every Argentinian on Florida Avenue had the same come-on. “Cambio? Dolares?” But whatever. I was feeling a little like a tourist about to be taken for a ride, he led us into a nearby building, up the elevator to a small hole-in-the-wall office where his compatriot made the change, not however, without first casting a dubious eye at my pristine pure $100 bill. Task two accomplished.

In my broken Spanish, I asked Señor Cambio where we could find empanadas. He told us where, and then led us to the street level of the same building where there was a small shop selling “the best empanadas in Argentina!” I ordered two empanadas suave. The total bill, including two bottles of water, came to 4,300 Pesos, or $3.61 U.S. at our newly established exchange rate. I’m not sure if they’re the best but they were pretty darn good, right up there with what we had in Santiago.

Speaking of exchange rates, Argentina recently elected a new progressive-right president. Some call him the Donald of Argentina. One of his first acts was to devalue the peso. Our guide driving from the airport said the current official exchange rate is 800 pesos to the U.S. dollar. Before devaluation, it was 300. That makes the “blue” rate that we paid on the street attractive but not as attractive as it was a few weeks ago. They’ve been holding strikes here in Buenos Aires in protest. Hopefully that won’t cause problems for us tomorrow as we travel to Ushuaia.

Traje de baño is the Spanish term for bathing suit and it took us several stores to score one for each of us. Actually, they were running a BOGO at my store so now I have to figure out how to cram two suits into my already overloaded suitcase. In Judy’s case they had a buy two get one free deal, so she ended up with a two piece and a one piece with the same packing issue.

So now it’s siesta time, catching up on our sleep (we each got about five hours on the plane last night) and getting ready for our night out at the tango show. We’ve booked dinner and the show at the same place as we did in 2019, El Viejo Almacén. We looked at a number of other venues but they all looked like tourist traps styled after Las Vegas shows. One of the Viking guides told us, “Good choice. It’s my favorite and the only one that does the real traditional tango.”

After our nap, we went for an helado (ice cream) run to a food truck kind of place along the river. Turns out, our hotel is in the trendy Puerto Madero district, an eating and shopping complex on either side of the Rio Darsena Sur. The Punte de la Mujer (Woman’s Bridge) connects both banks of the river. We had dulce de leche cones. I dropped my double scoop on the ground just like a five year old. The nice guy gave me a new one, just like he’d do for any little kid.

Wikipedia says of dulce de leche: “Dulce de leche, caramelized milk, milk candy or milk jam is a confection popular in Latin America, France, Poland and Philippines prepared by slowly heating sugar and milk over a period of several hours. Next time you’re in Buenos Aires or any of those other places, try some. That’s an order, not a suggestion.

They’re picking us up at 7:30 for dinner, the show starts at 10 PM so we’ll be back in bed by midnight, ready for the morning trip down to Usuaia and the good ship Octanis. Rather than staying up past midnight, I’ll post the report on the tango show tomorrow.

Rememberer when we swore, “No more wild and crazy trips? No 12-hour plane rides? No extreme activities? We’re going to act our age!”

Fergitabouit. We’re off to Antarctica, a place we took off the bucket list back in 2018 when we toured Patagonia. The seas are too rough, the weather too cold and who needs to see a stinkin’ penguin, anyway? Someone said the other day, the trip to Antarctica starts smelling like vomit and then smells like the poop of 1,000 penguins.

But . . . It will be our seventh continent (depending on how you count ‘em) and everyone we met on our last trip said, “You gotta do it. The incredible wildlife and scenery make the pain and suffering worth it.”

So here we go, flying on Tuesday, January 30 to Buenos Aires, overnighting there (tango show, anyone?) and then to Ushuaia, Argentina where we board the expedition ship, Viking’s Octanis. From there we sail to the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. Both are sub arctic locations with their own characteristics and wildlife different from what we’ll see on Antarctica. We’ll spend five days on Antarctica, most days making landings via zodiac boats.

Then the dreaded Drake Passage, said to have the most violent water in the world. The currents from the South Atlantic and South Pacific meet here in the narrow slot between South America and Antarctica. Each ocean has several thousand miles without intervening land mass to build up a good head of steam before they crash into each other. The Southern Ocean, which circulates around the globe at the 50th parallel with no intervening land, contributes to the mayhem. “Hasten, Jason, bring a basin. Never mind Jason, bring a mop,” as Judy’s father used to say.

My erstwhile traveling companion, Judy, having read the above, said, “I don’t want to go!” Never fear. She’ll be there holding the basin for me, in sickness and in health.

I’ll post a couple of maps to give you the lay of the land. As you can see, we, like most cruise expeditions, visit only the northern most tip of Antarctica and set foot on the continent proper on only one landing. Pray for good weather that day!

As usual I’ll be doing daily blog postings, stomach condition and Internet connectivity permitting. If you received daily email reminders from our previous trip to Australia, you should get the daily reminders this time too. If not, and if you want them, shoot me an email or text and I’ll add you to the list.

By the way, I think I’ve fixed the problem where some of you didn’t get daily reminders on our trip to Australia. Seems some of the email providers, like google, blocked my blog emails from even reaching your spam folder. Other providers didn’t. With any luck, I’ve figured out how to get around that problem.

Here’s the world view of our trip. See what I mean about seeing only the tip of Antarctica?

Here’s a closer view of Ushuaia, Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica.

And here’s detail of the three destinations: