NCL Sun 11/19/16 Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires, Argentina, 14 days, "around the horn"

[skierjj]

Glacier Alley:

 

 

 

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[skierjj]

Glacier Alley:

 

 

 

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[skierjj]

Glacier Alley:

What a show Mother Nature puts on for us. Spectacular!

 

 

 

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[skierjj]

There was good commentary going on by Roberto, (i remembered his name!), our cruise director, I had the TV volume all the way up, I just relayed the info to Mike outside on our balcony. The whole time lasted just about 45 minutes or so. Very exciting!

 

 

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[skierjj]

The next day was Ushuaia, Argentina.

We will be one the beagle channel. One side is Chile [emoji1071] and the other side of the channel is Argentina [emoji1033].

We chose an excursion through NCL for this day. It was a wildlife tour onboard a catamaran. Very comfortable and relaxing.

This trip was not too early so we got a good breakfast and met our fellow passengers at the stardust theater. (All excursions meet here to exit ship together). Our catamaran was right across the pier.

There were snacks, drinks available for purchase. A pro. photographer was onboard to take your pictures. (She was a little annoying, but cute)

There were nice guides to point out wildlife. Their English was good.

There are pretty views of mountains all around.

Take your binoculars and camera. It turned out to be another good day weather wise. It was windy when boat was moving.

So we saw: Sealions, cormorants, albatross and penguins.

 

 

 

 

 

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[skierjj]

 

 

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[skierjj]

 

These photos are really poor. I'll have to get Mike's cannon powershot 50 pics.

 

 

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[skierjj]

So here at the beach, the gentoo and Magellan penguins were really cute. And swimming in waves and running down the beach, etc. I'll see if my videos load:

 

https://vimeo.com/199108833

 

 

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[skierjj]

Just so you can see inside catamaran:

 

 

 

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[skierjj]

Cruise Cape Horn.

"Rounding the horn" is an island called: Isla Hornos

There are many islands here.

3 oceans come together here and it can be very rough seas.

Our captain Eric from Sweden was great. He made the decision based on weather forecasts that was safe to cruise near the island.

The island has a big statue of an albatross dedicated to many sailors who lost their lives trying to round the horn.

Just about then we hit some very rough water and very strong winds. We even started to list at 6%. But our captain sailed us to calmer waters. Yay!

All people who round the horn are named "honorary Fuegans" and belong to a special club now. There is a dumb/cute ritual that all of us Fuegans where a Viking hat and get official horn seawater right from the ocean poured on us! It was very popular that day.

 

 

 

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[skierjj]

Rounding the horn, cont.:

 

 

 

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[skierjj]

Here is the honorary Fuegan ritual:

 

https://vimeo.com/199112271

 

 

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[skierjj]

More:

 

 

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[skierjj]

That night: dinner at Cagney's. Opus One wine [emoji485] ooh la la

 

https://vimeo.com/199112738

 

 

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[skierjj]

Time to call it a night. Good night.

 

 

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[herdingdogmom]

Our cruise director was from Italy. He was funny. Our favorite place for breakfast was the great outdoors. I liked the fresh cooked eggs and I'd ask for 1 egg over easy on top of country potatoes. I like this better than an omelette.

 

Thanks so much for your great review. We did this cruise last Feb and loved it. Roberto the CD is quite the character. Our sailing didn't go around the horn due to a medical emergency so I truly enjoyed your photos of the pool deck festivities.

 

Your tip about the fresh eggs at the Great Outdoors is greatly appreciated. We avoided the buffet, but never checked out the Great Outdoors and will be on board for 15 days in Oct.

[dlstex]

Thank you so much for sharing your trip. We to are from So Cal and leave 1/19for the cruise. If I may ask: who did you make arrangements for the Torres del Paine tour? This look spectacular. I have yet to see it offered. Thanks

Duane

[Oldgoat61]

Really enjoying your review, especially the photos of the Sun.! We will be sailing on her in May.:)

[craiginoregon]

What an amazing vacation report, and so VERY educational to me. Thank You!!!

[skierjj]

Thanks for all the comments!

Dlstx: the Torres Del Paine excursion was from NCL. This is a very long excursion so I wouldn't book a excursion like this from a private tour company because the ship has to wait for the group if anything goes wrong. Good Luck!

 

 

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[skierjj]

The next day was the Falkland Islands.

 

The weather tendering out to Stanley was a little cold and windy. Our group went straight into passenger vans. Our driver was also the Radio DJ. And his main job was in software. All of the tour guides have "real" jobs on the island. They do this to help with tourism and to get a little income. We drove for about 20 minutes. Then we were split into smaller groups to go into 4x4 range rovers to get to the large private ranch.

We went over miles of peat bogs and a fun and bumpy ride about 25 minutes.

 

 

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[skierjj]

So we got out of our range rovers into a driving wind and cold! We visited the penguins for about 45 minutes. The penguins can wander down to the lagoon and also meet the ocean if they wanted to. The penguins on their nests have a cute brown egg, you can sometimes glimpse if they stretch or stand up. They are very cute squawking to each other, juveniles running around playing chase, ruffling their feathers etc.

The species here are mostly gentoos and a few King penguins.

 

 

 

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[skierjj]

So after we had our fill of the cute penguins (and the wind), we headed for the cute cafe for British tea, homemade cakes, cookies and brownies.

It was a trailer with heat from a generator, running water, flushing toilets, lace curtains and sweet hospitality. There is another trailer for a souvenir store where I bought the yummy local jelly made from native berries. It was great on my biscuits with Devonshire cream at the little cafe.

There was this lone King penguin wandering around the tourists.

Time to climb back in our range rovers to return to Stanley.

 

 

 

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[skierjj]

Back at Stanley, I wanted genuine fish and chips. We found a pub. Nice to relax. On the walls were paintings by local artists. ( I did not get pictures of these).

 

There was a very long line for tenders. We all waited for the very last tender, enjoying Stanley. They gave us hot chocolate. There was a light rain.

Still windy on our tender ride back.

Great day!

 

 

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Edited January 13, 2017 by skierjj

[skierjj]

After another relaxing sea day, we come next to puerto Madryn. We debated several times of what we wanted to do here. Punta Tumbo is a 2 hour bus ride to see thousands of Magellan penguins. Or we could have spent $300 on the great Patagonia adventure, that includes wildlife viewing on the peninsula, and a lamb BBQ.

We finally gave these tickets to these excursions back to the shore ex. desk, about 48 hours early.

We decided to use our spa certificates that afternoon, after a nice Argentinian lunch and after we put our feet in the bay.

 

 

 

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