Yarn Crawl

Virtual Vacation: Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman

First off, our presentation yesterday went fine. Not amazing or fabulous (at least not as much so as if I would have rolled out my couture knitting business) but OK. Not the best or worst group, which usually would upset me, but in this case, I'm just happy it's OVER. The only other thing is the final next week and that will be easy.

Anyway, it is rainy and gloomy out today and I thought we would revisit Grand Cayman today, specifically Seven Mile Beach in December 2006. Now here would be another business opportunity that would actually be viable - a bar on the beach. There was one bar for the whole beach, and we talked to the guy who owned it, who had come down to Grand Cayman to make a go of this business from New Jersey. The place was totally busy and fun.

Here's me and Jim having Red Stripes and margaritas at the bar:

me wading through the beautiful water

and doing some meditation, letting the surf greet me and then fade away.

Seven Mile Beach is in my Top Ten of beautiful beaches visited and I would love to go back. Now, actually!

Virtual Vacation: Maui

It's that time of the week again, and today we're going to visit Maui.

Jim and I visited Maui as part of the Hawaiian cruise we took in March 2006, and chose another helicopter tour here as the best way to get an overview of the island and its scenery.

Here we are starting our tour - you can just barely see me seated in the middle of the front row, next to the pilot again:

We saw golf courses

meandering waterways in the midst of lush greenery

greenery covered mountains

waterfalls carved into mountains

waterfalls on their own

and last but not least, beautiful beaches:

Isn't that last picture exactly where you'd like to be right now? I know I would.

Virtual Vacation

Today we're visiting the big island of Hawaii, on the volcano side. The time? March 2006. This was part of a cruise we did that started out in Los Angeles and sailed to the Hawaiian islands, visited each for a day, then sailed back.

The big focus of this day was a helicopter flight, the first for both Jim and myself.

Blue Hawaiian Helicopters is the tour company we used and they have their own hangar/terminal for takeoff/landing. At the terminal, they weighed us to determine seating on the helicopters. The helicopters seat five adults, with specific seats assigned depending on weight, within constraints of the overall weight limit. Jim and I were clearly the lightest (he weighs about 25-30 pounds more than I do, which I probably shouldn't admit) and got to sit up front with the pilot (the best seats in the house as there are windows all around, in every direction).

Here's me sitting next to the pilot:

First we flew over our ship, Celebrity Infinity:

and over the port as a whole

to Kilauea, an active volcano in Hawaii in Volcanoes National Park.

As it was daytime, we didn't see dramatic spouting lava, but we could see some on the ground:

The volcanic ash beaches were dramatic against the beautiful blue-green water, and I really loved those views:

Wandering Wednesday

I thought we would take a virtual vacation today, it being "hump day" and all today.

Today's destination is Monaco, Nice and Cannes, June 2002.

This was the first stop on our Mediterranean cruise (on which we were married on June 14th) and was an absolutely beautiful place.

We actually docked near Monaco, and drove through it on the "corniches" (narrow roads that ultimately claimed Princess Grace's life). A few times we thought we would be going over the edge ourselves as the tour bus was making some pretty tight turns:

When we arrived in Nice, we walked around and had some time to explore.

Of course I found cats along the way:

and an Armani store:

Next, we had a great lunch in a restaurant with a beautiful rooftop terrace. This was our view:

then we had went to Cannes and had some free time to walk around:

I may have mixed up a few of the photos within the region, as they were all on the same roll of film. But this gives you a feel for the area and a virtual vacation for the day!

Happy Wednesday!

3/15 - Buenos Aires, Argentina and Flight Home

We were able to exit the ship with the first group (a lot of snotty people sitting around sipping coffee in the SS United States Restaurant, kind of like the ones in first class on the plane, looking at us like we were way too young to be there). It was good to be able to leave first, because we found our bags in the port area, went through customs and got a taxi all very quickly (total of maybe 15 minutes?) before the 3,000 other passengers exited the ship.

We went to the Marriott Plaza Hotel Buenos Aires as our home base to explore from while waiting for our 11:30 pm flight out of the city. We had decided to get a hotel room for the day even though we wouldn't be staying there that night, as our flight was so late, and were really glad we did, as it was hot and humid and we were grateful to have a place to take showers and relax before heading to the airport. We could have done a shore excursion that lasted all day that started from the ship, which would then take us directly to the airport.

I had been second guessing myself a few times, thinking maybe we should have done that excursion as we would have seen more of the "sights" rather than just getting a sense of the place on our own, but after our day, we were glad we didn't do this, as it was much more relaxing and fun our way. Less structure. We could just imagine ourselves (especially Jim) getting crabby after being on a 10 hour tour (many of that time probably on a bus) and not knowing what kind of food we would be having during the time, etc. Also, we ended up talking to some other people sitting nearby on our flight home who had done that excursion and they said it wasn't really worth it and was exhausting.

So, this is what we did. After lying down for a nap as Jim had started to get a cold and was low-energy, we had lunch in one of the hotel's restaurants. Again, "Sin Gas" on the water came in handy, but no weird food this time. Our food was almost *too* Americanized (maybe because Marriott had acquired the hotel recently - no one referred to it as the Marriott, but as the "Plaza Hotel") and I wasn't crazy about my lunch. I had ordered broiled chicken with honey mustard sauce on the side, rice and vegetables, and I thought it would be a skinless, boneless breast. Nope! It was half a chicken, with skin on. One of my idiosyncrasies is that I hate having to pick at stuff (bones, shells, etc.) to get at my food. When we get crab legs or claws or lobster, or even ribs, Jim will "kill" it for me (we are goofs, we call it that) by picking out the meat with his fork or other implements, and giving it to me. I know, it's kind of like what you'd do for a kid, but he likes spoiling me that way. With chicken, though, I just never order a half a chicken - only the breast, as I hate all the other parts. This was way too much discussion of chicken and my weird food habits - sorry if it was TMI. Simply stated, Jim had a roast beef french dip type of sandwich, which was pretty Americanized as well. Our lunch was OK but nothing to write home about (even though I am, ad nauseum)- typical "hotel food".

So having had lunch, we decided to walk around outside in the area.

We had chosen the hotel for its proximity to the Plaza del San Martin, which was noted as a nice historical area to start a walking tour from. The plaza square was really pretty, and there were a lot of what looked like college students sitting outside on the lawn on this nice warm day.

We gathered that some of the memorials had to do with the war in the Falkland Islands, as there was no English, but there were some Spanish words we picked out and a map of the Falkland Islands. We couldn't take a picture straight on, as there was a military guard there and I thought it might be disrespectful, but here it is from outside the memorial.

I didn't know much about this war, but Jim is a war and history buff so he got the significance.

After walking around, we tried to figure out where the next Harley dealer was, as Jim had the address in his dealer manual. We looked at the subway map and found one of the cross streets for the dealer, but not the other, and we debated on whether we should walk over to the cross street we did see on the map (about 2 miles away) and then try to find the other cross street, or just take a cab. Finally, we decided to just take a cab, as we weren't sure how far we would have to go to find the other cross street and/or what type of neighborhood it would be. We were really glad we took the cab, as the ride took FOREVER. It went through a lot of nice neighborhoods, no worries about that (the only time we saw any slums was off the highway on the cab ride to the airport that evening) but it took us to the complete opposite end of the city and took 45 minutes or so. When we got to the dealer, it was indeed a normal dealer with T-shirts and chatchkes, but it was 2:45 pm. The dealer didn't open back up until 3 pm, as they apparently participated in the custom of a sort of "siesta" that they did throughout Latin America.

As a detour, let me say a few things about this custom, as it did impact our trip in small ways. Our tour guide in Puerto Montt had told us that the typical workday throughout Chile started at about 9 am and then businesses (including offices) closed from around 1-3 pm. During that time, people typically went home, checked on their kids with their nannies (she said most working Chilean women had nannies in their homes instead of bringing the kids to daycare) and had lunch with their families. Then they went back to work until 7 or so. This impacted all (participating) shops as well, and really between 1-3 pm, only the restaurants and bars were open everywhere. Our guide did say that in the offices, many are starting to try to go to a more "traditional" schedule of 8-5, with a one hour lunch, but that it wasn't catching on consistently.

The thing we found was not all shops went along with this custom (at least not when a cruise ship was in port) so we would find some shops like drugstores, markets, camera stores, souvenir shops open during those hours, depending on where we were. Buenos Aires seemed to be large enough not to really even "notice" that a cruise ship was in port and that that day was one where over 3,000 passengers would be leaving (and probably spending time in the city for the day or even a few following days) and 3,000 passengers would be boarding for the last cruise of the season, with an opposite itinerary to ours. Especially not in this area. This area was beautiful. Tree-lined and residential, mixed with nice looking smaller hotels and outdoor cafes, it reminded me of somewhere else. Maybe even the Lincoln Park area in my own city of Chicago, with its cute small shops, restaurants, tree-lined streets and brownstones. I really wish we would have gotten a picture of the area!

So, back to 2:45 pm at the Harley dealer. It was not open and people were milling around outside waiting for it to open. One of the employees was inside standing around, and a number of people asked if he would open the door. No go. So we ran across the street and asked our cabbie if he would wait for us with the meter running, for about 25 minutes (15 til it opened and 10 to shop) as we were worried about catching a cab back in this area (we didn't see an awful lot of them.) He said no, so we paid him and he left. We walked around the area til 3 pm, then went to the store and finally bought our T-shirts. I didn't get any, as they didn't have any special women's long sleeve or tank ones like they usually do, and I don't do plain short sleeve T-shirts. He ended up getting them for himself and all his friends, so was happy. The interesting thing was, when we were talking to the woman who rang us up at the counter, she said there was another store RIGHT AROUND the corner from our hotel!!!! Ugh. It wasn't in the Harley book, and this is why I'm so NOT a fan of any type of printed reference guides with addresses/locations. The book was probably five years old, and even if it wasn't, those things tend to go obsolete as soon as they're printed. Why not just look online? Anyway. We decided that since we were here already, let's just get what we want here and not bother trying to find the other one.

After our shopping, we walked around the area and bought some bottled water, admiring the furniture stores (they had fabulous contemporary leather furniture in more than one shop in the area - I realized that the focus on leather goods and design/fashion in the area also probably engenders a strong furniture industry) then tried to find a cab. We walked about a mile, but then one stopped for us. It seemed like the cabbies who worked this end of town didn't really know the other end, and vice versa, as ours were consulting maps at traffic lights on both trips.

Oh, and mentioning another thing about the focus on fashion and design. There were model-looking women walking the streets everywhere on this Saturday afternoon in the city. Tall but small-boned, with long brown hair, tan skin and Italian-looking faces, they were hard to miss. They were all wearing very stylish clothes and great shoes, despite it being a weekend. Even the ones dressed casually in jeans were wearing very nice jeans and heeled shoes. We saw some others who looked like they could have been sisters of Penelope Cruz. The funny thing was, the men were non-descript and I can't remember what any of them looked like. I was telling my friend at work (the one who gave me the very nice Elann.com gift certificate because I had given her my jewelry-making/beading stash) about this and she was teasing me about having lots of "girl-crushes." Not quite, as I don't go that route (not that there's anything wrong with it - Seinfeld, LOL) but it was just noticeable. Jim didn't make any comments or even appear to notice. Love that man!

I'm also very happy to report that we got back home on our flight uneventfully (except for tons of hoopla with customs, carrying my artwork I purchased with me, etc. etc.) So that's the trip. Lots of different experiences packed into two weeks. We really enjoyed it and we are both really glad we chose this itinerary and cruise!

3/14 -Montevideo, Uruguay: Juanico Winery

This was another really fun day. We really enjoyed the Juanico Winery. Montevideo is probably a place I would never return to, though. What we saw of it was old, dirty, the taxi drivers drove like nuts and actually had a hard plastic wall between them and us but with the addition of a little slot where you paid the money through (made me worry a lot about crime, especially as we were told not to wear any jewelry or be obvious about any expensive camera equipment.)

On a more positive note, let's talk about our Juanico Winery visit, as that was a lot of fun (aside from the drive there.)

We met our tour group and our guide, and headed directly out of the city to the winery, which was in the country, maybe about an hour away. On the way there, our tour guide said that the bus driver had taken the wrong (less-scenic) route as we saw our first real view of a poverty-stricken area in South America. It reminded me of some of the things you see in Jamaica on the drive from the Montego Bay airport to the resort areas in Ocho Rios. Tin shacks with tarp on the roofs, garbage littering the ground, and men on horseback pulling carts, picking through garbage for salvageable items. It reminded us of a comment from our tour guide the day before in Punta Del Este, saying that the resort area we were visiting was not the "real Uruguay". I think we saw some of the real Uruguay on the way to the winery, and it wasn't an uplifting sight.

Our bus driver was "encouraged" by our tour guide to get onto the highway and stop taking the side streets (Maybe he was making a political statement? this just occurred to me. He didn't speak any English so we couldn't find out) and the scenery started being more of the countryside and spread out houses and commercial businesses. We arrived at the winery and were very impressed. It has been in business since the 1800s, and has been family-owned and operating, providing many jobs to the people who live in the area.

When the bus entered the long road that led to the winery, we drove past grapes in every direction and people harvesting them.

I thought it was interesting that they planted roses at the end of each row of grapes to serve as a sort of "canary in a coal mine" indicating insect infestation. The roses provided a decoy of sorts for the insects, to my understanding.

When we arrived at one of the buildings on property, a woman who worked at the winery and gave tours boarded our bus and told us some facts about the winery. We then all continued on the bus to drive through the roads within the vineyards, with our tour guide pointing out the different varietals of grapes and wines that would be made from them. We then reached a lookout point where we were able to get off the bus, climb up to see the whole area, and then at the bottom, we could actually pick grapes off the vine and taste them.

They were really sweet and tasty! I thought they might be bitter or full of seeds, but they were some of the best grapes I've ever eaten. I only tried the red grapes, as there were no white ones in this section of the vineyard.

We then headed over to the winery itself and each of us were greeted with a glass of sparkling wine (of course, they reinforced that it can't actually be called "Champagne" unless it's from the particular region of France where that wine is made). It was very good - not too dry, and full flavored. I liked it very much, and sparkling wine is not always my favorite, although I do drink it on occasion. I did drink it a lot on this cruise as we were hanging out in the Champagne Bar most nights, and so I got to try a number of different varieties. It is actually slightly lower calorie than other types of wine and I can't really drink much of it, so it's a self-limiting proposition, which works for me as I never totally go crazy on these cruises and do try to keep things in moderation. I just feel better that way and I never like being sick for things that I want to do the next day. There's nothing worse than an eight hour tour with a hangover.

Anyway, we then headed downstairs with our sparkling wine to the cellar

where the local guide told us more about the wine-making process, and we could look at the barrels of wine that were there.

I didn't catch a lot of details because the guide's English was not the best, unlike the tour guide we had with us on the bus (who actually was a translator for their legislative office in the city, and spoke seven or eight languages. This was her summer fun job that she did half days in the mornings.)

We then headed upstairs and were seated for our wine tasting.

We tried six different types of wine. I was not expecting there to be that much food, especially not fabulous food like we had there. We started out with cheese, pepperoni of some sort, crackers and bread on the table, but then the waitresses kept bringing more and more food out. We had cheese empanadas, cheese and sausage empanadas, and they even brought out some sort of sweet apple crisp type dessert to go with the dessert wine. I love those empanadas. Their version was like a baked, slightly crispy puff pastry (not fried, or maybe lightly fried, as there was no greasiness at all - which I would have expected of these, as I think they are often deep fried in the U.S., like a chimichanga) with really good mozzarella and sausage. They were just so delicious. I'm not really into dessert wine like port or ice wine, so I took a small sip and tried a bite of the apple crisp but didn't have any more than that.

I wanted to buy one of each of the wines, especially the local wine (tannat) which is a really nice full bodied red wine, but they told me that they didn't ship to the U.S., so anything I bought we'd have to fit into our carry-ons. Buzz kill! I ended up buying one bottle of the tannat, and taking the list with me hoping that maybe I could find it in one of the larger wine retail shops. I haven't looked yet, but we did tell the bar manager we know at Blu Coral about it and he looked it up online with us while we were sitting at the bar, and he said he would see if he could get it from one of his distributors, as they do distribute wholesale to the U.S.

We then took some pictures of the winery grounds:

We then headed back to the ship and the tour guide told us about a leather factory/showroom that we could be dropped off at if we wanted, with free shuttle service back to the ship when we were done shopping. We decided not to go this route, as our waiter at dinner told us the night before that if we were going to buy leather goods, we should do it in Buenos Aires, not Montevideo, as the quality and prices were better. It was cool that many of the staff throughout the ship had been to all the ports that we're visiting (if they had gotten a day off on that particular day - some seemed to be luckier than others - the front of the house staff like the gift shop salespeople, art auction staff, salon/spa people, waiters, sommeliers and bartenders tended to know all about the ports, but I think the cabin attendants and butlers rarely got to go anywhere as they were always working, which was kind of sad.)

So, Jim had looked up in his "Harley Owner Group" worldwide location guide that there was a Harley dealer in Montevideo, and wanted to go. He likes to buy T-shirts for himself and his friends whenever we visit a city that has a Harley dealer. I even play along and get the long-sleeve T-shirts for me. I have some really cute ones, some with tie-dye and lots of cool colors. We have shirts from Amsterdam, Hamburg, Dublin, Maui, Kona, St. Thomas, Aruba, Las Vegas, Scottsdale, etc. and probably some other places I forgot to mention. Before he got the Harley (2004?) he used to collect Hard Rock Cafe T-shirts and shot glasses. I collect cat figurines from each of the places I go. Some day I'll do a post and show you those.

ANYWAY, after that MAJOR detour on the path of our story, the tour guide walked around our bus and asked if anyone had any questions for her while we were on our way back to the ship. We showed her the Harley dealer guide and the address it gave for the Montevideo Harley dealer, and asked her if she had any idea which part of town it was in. To our surprise, she responded that she knew exactly where it was, that it was near downtown. She then proceeded to say that she lived a few blocks away, and that her husband was coming to pick her up at the port and that she would be happy to give us a ride there!! She seemed harmless enough, so we decided to go for it. So we got to the downtown area and the Harley dealer had a big sign. We're thinking, great. It looked normal:

However, it was not a normal Harley dealer with T-shirts and stuff. It was more like an auto shop - we hardly saw any bikes, even! So after the guy who was working there looked at us like we were crazy when we asked if they had T-shirts, we took a crazy cab back to the ship.

A picture of our ship taken on the way back to it:

So that was Montevideo! That was the last night of the cruise, so it was a casual night and we walked around the ship taking pictures of some of the people we had been hanging out with for the past two weeks. I did get a lot of email addresses, but I haven't sent any emails yet.

This was the regular crowd hanging out at "Cheers" (a/k/a the Champagne Bar); they were from California and Oregon and continually reminded us that they had sons and daughters our ages (yeah, yeah.)

Montevideo from the ship deck:

sailing away from Montevideo, up on the (windy) deck:

one of the guys from Germany that we hung out with:

me in the champagne bar, this time with a fruit-flavored martini:

This was the last day of the cruise, but not the end of the adventure. Tomorrow, we explore Buenos Aires on our own!

3/13 - Punta del Este, Uruguay

FAB-U-LOUS. We loved Punta del Este. There was nothing NOT to like.

Punta del Este is a resort town that attracts (well-off) tourists from throughout South America and they bill themselves as "The Riviera of South America." They are typically only a summer "beach" destination - from Christmas through the beginning of March, when we visited, but are trying to expand tourism to other times of the year.

First, we started our day with a drive across town and saw the surfing beach, on one side of the island.

We also stopped at the famous hand monument which is intended to signify Uruguay's unity with its neighbors and with Spain.

We then continued on to the Casapueblo, a local artist's home-turned-museum-and-hotel.

The artist, Carlos Paez Vilaro, studied with Picasso as a younger man

and we really liked his colorful artwork.

I bought one of his pieces and had it signed (pics to come on the day when I show all my purchases.)

Here's some pics of us out and about on the grounds:

Another interesting fact that our tour guide told us on the bus is that the artist's son was one of the survivors of the 1972 plane crash in the Andes that prompted the book and movie "Alive". If you have seen the movie or read the book, you know how they survived; if not, you can Google it if you have a strong stomach (skip if not.) Anyway, according to the story, the artist consulted a psychic who drew a picture that ended up being a pretty good representation of where they ultimately found his son and the other remaining survivors alive after their long ordeal.

Next up, we went to the Ralli Museum

which is a private museum that was established to enrich the general public by showing collected works by Latin American artists, for free.

This was an interesting museum and I took a lot of pictures of the art inside and out in the courtyards. Here are just a few - to see more, you can click into these and view the others near it in the Flickr set.

We then left the museum and drove through the residential neighborhoods of the area, which had many beautiful homes.

The tour guide said that real estate is valued in US Dollars, instead of the Uruguan peso (which we were told were basically worthless outside of the country itself, and that no other countries would exchange them. About 20 Uruguayan pesos = $1 USD) and that many of the homes ranged from $1M - $2M US. They could have sold for much more than that in some parts of the US, so this wasn't really that shocking. The tour guide said that many Argentine executives had summer homes here.

We then saw the calmer beaches on the other side of town:

and went over a roller-coaster like bridge. It had "waves" in it that made you bounce up and down in your seat like a roller coaster when driving over it - I actually felt my stomach drop on it.

After our tour ended at around 12:30, we took the tender boat back to the ship and spent the afternoon outside enjoying the beautiful warm weather (in the 80s.)

Next up: Montevideo, Uruguay and a superb wine tasting!

3/12 - At Sea (Last Formal Night)

This was a really nice warm day! Pool deck, tanning, etc.

Jim participated in a blackjack tournament at 1:30 in the casino, and I decided to go ahead and purchase some art I had been eyeing at the auction at the same time (photos to come when it arrives in a few weeks!) He did pretty well in the first round, but then one person beat him, so he joined me fairly quickly in the auction area. The casino had been closed all of the days when we were in Chile, because of the Chilean government's prohibition on gaming in their waters (to protect their own gaming industry - we saw casinos in almost every port.)

If I hadn't been going to the art auction, I might have played along too in the tournament, as the $25 entrance fee appeals to my non-gambling soul. I also get pretty nervous about Blackjack specifically when playing for money, because people are so watchful that you follow the "rules" about when to hit certain cards, etc., so you don't "mess up their hand" rather than allowing you to really go on intuition, which is usually a strength for me. That's why I never play that game, besides the whole thing about thinking what else I could do with that money instead of gambling with it. I guess I really am an accountant at heart.

After a relaxing day, we had our last formal night, which was again, a lot of fun. It almost felt like the cruise was over that night, even though we had one more day of the cruise left the next day, as we took pictures and exchanged email addresses with the people we met, knowing that we would be trying to pack the next evening and probably wouldn't be out and about the ship.

Here we are with our entire dining table:

and by ourselves:

Some of my other pictures are at home on that PC and somehow didn't get uploaded to Flickr, so I may edit later with more.

3/10 - At Sea and 3/11 - Puerto Madryn, Argentina

Finally, a little bit warmer weather and SUN!!! We were able to hang out on the pool deck with a blanket at least, so I kind of looked like a burrito lying on towels on the deck chair, with a blanket wrapped around me on top so it wouldn't blow away, with only my face sticking out, hanging out by the tall speaker playing salsa music. The wind was pretty strong and cold, but the sun was warm and felt good after the past few gloomy days. There was no knitting outside because it would have blown away immediately! I had to tuck the heavy wool blankets under me just to keep them from blowing away! That was the extent of the sea day, just hanging out on the deck or knitting/shopping inside.

On 3/11, we arrived in Puerto Madryn, Argentina.

This was another laid back day, and our first beach day. We had cancelled our tour as we didn't really feel like going to the museums that were offered (I think they were paleontological and railway museums) and it seemed that any other options in the port were things we'd already seen in bigger and better form (penguins, sea lions) and were too far away (like 3 hour bus rides each way on buses that we were warned were not up to snuff on dirt roads, etc.)

After waiting for everyone who was doing tours to get off the ship (and some knitting in the meantime - little did I know Jim was "knitstalking" me for the picture while walking around the ship on his own)

we decided to have a laid back day exploring the port on our own. There was a shuttle bus that went back and forth from the port to the main area of "town" and so we took a ride on it. After walking down the beach about a mile or so,

we found this Warsteiner bar (more German influences) and decided to sit and have a beer.

After a tasty beer

and some knitting

we decided to order lunch. Hooboy, was it "interesting"! The menu was solely in Spanish, so we had a heck of a time guessing what to get. We went with calamari and what we thought might be a type of sausage "longinistas" as it sounded like "linguica" which I know is a type of really yummy Portuguese sausage. We ended up with calamari, all right, but in a form I had never encountered before "in the wild"

and the longinistas were actually shrimp

which surprised us as we knew the word for shrimp is "camarones" and we didn't see that word anywhere on the menu. So we ate a decent amount with some of the bread, which was saltier than bread I've had before but good, and then left.

After more walking around, we then went to this other cafe and ordered one of the local Argentine beers, Quilmes. This was "the" beer throughout Argentina.

It tasted OK (not great) but the bottle was way too big! The trend seemed to be for people to sit in the cafe and either read the newspaper or people-watch, and share one of these huge beers.

On our way back, we saw our favorite bartender lying like well, a (skinny) beached whale, or maybe sea lion, on the beach. He had come into port for a traditional Argentine roast beef lunch and was literally "belly up".

So this was our crazy day in Puerto Madryn. Lots of local color and culture!

3/9 - At Sea: Cruising Around Cape Horn

We had been told that we would be approaching "The Horn" at about 7 am this morning, so to either be on deck or turn on our stateroom TVs to the ship's information channel then. The "Renaissance Man", Colonel Reid, was giving a talk on the ship's information channel regarding the history of sailing around the Horn. He was an interesting guy who was giving lectures throughout the cruise on the area, as he is an expert on South America in general, and on the southern half of it specifically. We bought his book too, which was specifically about exploring South America by cruise ship.

Anyway, it was super super cold that morning and this is what it looked like off our balcony. We stayed under the covers, but opened up the balcony door so we could see what was going on.

Here's what we saw at about 7 that morning - the sun doesn't come up until around 8 or 8:30 around there:

Then later on:

Later that day, it was still way too cold to do anything outside (I think it was about 30 degrees F) so I spent a good amount of the day sitting on my couch next to the balcony, knitting away on Forecast:

We had our second formal night that evening as well and it was a lot of fun. Here's some of the pictures:

Here we are at dinner with Martinho and Ned, our waiter and assistant waiter:

When we got back to our room after dinner, we saw that we had received these certificates for sailing through the Strait of Magellan and around Cape Horn:

Nice idea, even though the verbiage doesn't make a whole lot of sense - we got the idea!