Explorer Feb 1-17 Buenos Aires to Santiago Live

[RachelG]

February 7, 2019–Stanley, Falkland Islands

 

Yes, we made it!  After a smooth night of sailing, we awoke, and outside our window were the Falklands.  They were putting down the tenders, as the Stanley Harbor is too shallow for our ship.  Also anchored beside us was Seabourn Quest.

 

It was significantly cooler, in the 50s with a breeze, so we layered up for the tender ride.  Stanley has a population of about 3500.  Riding the tender in, we could see the brightly colored roofs.  There are no trees on the Falklands with the exception of ones that people have planted, so the houses are all built from kits ordered online.

 

We arrived at a neat little harbor and boarded our bus for a tour of the Falkland War battlefields.  Our guide was a retired British Army colonel.  He wasn’t in the war as he was in university at the time, but he had plenty of stories and history to share.  First we drove through the very neat town, which reminded me of towns in Scotland. The road was paved initially, but once out of town, we drove up in the rugged tussock and stone covered hills on gravel roads.  

 

There was a little excitement when we encountered a flipped over truck.  The wreck had just happened, and the truck was demolished.  Fortunately the driver was ok.  Another truck came along and gave the guy a lift to town.  

 

We saw the remains of an Argentina helicopter that had been shot down.  We went to the sites of some battles, but unfortunately it had started raining, so we couldn’t really get out and explore much.

 

Back in town, we went to the small local museum which is very well done.  We poked around there until it stopped raining, then found a place for lunch.  George had some really good fish and chips.  I stayed healthy with a salad though I did sneak a few chips.

 

We then walked down to the dock and found a local guy who was taking people out to see the penguins in his Range Rover.  We got another penguin fix.  There were not nearly as many as the other day, but they sure are cute.  Fortunately by this time, the sun had come out, so it was comfortable to walk around and explore.  There was a good path and viewing site, but you aren’t allowed to just tramp around off the paths due to the possibility of unexploded land mines.  Our morning guide had told us that they are mostly cleared, but every so often someone will find one.  Thankfully no people have been killed or hurt by them.

 

We rode the tender back.  This really was a perfect day as far as tendering as the water was completely still, much better than in Punta del Este.  Trivia was a bust.

 

We were able to get another reservation at Pacific Rim.  It was as good as ever.  We started with dim sum, had soup then the main—shrimp for me, Korean pork ribs for George.  He says the person cooking that pork really knew what they were doing, which is often not the case.

 

The show tonight was “My Revolution “ which is a British 60’s Rock show. The production company really knocked this out of the park.  So much energy!  They are great.

 

 

 

[RachelG]

The wrecked truck, plus military sites.

[RachelG]

Downtown Stanley and penguins 

[Gilly]

Rachel, so glad you made it!  Thanks for taking us with you too - you did it for the team 😎 (that's all of us who have got so close...but not quite close enough!)  Lovely photos.

 

 

[mom0f3]

Gilly, I thought of you when we got to the Falklands.  You were on Mariner, I believe, on the Lima to BA trip a couple of years ago while we were missing both Saigon and Borneo on Voyager due to weather.  We commiserated at the time.    Hopefully you’ll get to Stanley on a future trip.

 

We are thoroughly enjoying our cruise thus far.  The ship looks beautiful, service is attentive, food has ranged from very good to excellent, and we’ve also enjoyed the entertainment, especially the guest entertainers, who included an excellent classical pianist who performed all of the Chopin etudes, and a very funny comedian who has another show tonight.  And the ACD, Evan Bosworth, is a terrific singer who did a Frankie Valli show and has another performance scheduled later in the cruise.  Sue

[RachelG]

3 hours ago, Gilly said:

Rachel, so glad you made it!  Thanks for taking us with you too - you did it for the team 😎 (that's all of us who have got so close...but not quite close enough!)  Lovely photos.

The pictures are a pain to upload and post—very slow.   But I was determined to do it for all you guys who have come so close to the Falklands and missed!

 

 

Edited February 8, 2019 by RachelG
Spelling

[RachelG]

Just realized my downtown Stanley pic upload last night failed, so will give it another go.

[Gilly]

7 minutes ago, RachelG said:

The pictures are a pain to upload and post—very slow.   But I was determined to do it for all you guys who have come so loved to the Falklands and missed! 

 

I so appreciate your persistence - you really did take us all with you  (now there's a thought...!)

 

@momof3 nice to hear from you!  It's lovely being able to sail with you, Sue, if only on my screen.  With a couple of months still to wait for our adventure, being in South America with you all when the UK is "enjoying" a blustery, squally day is just what we need.  So glad it's all going well and according to plan!  

 

[Hambagahle]

I am so glad you were able to get to Port Stanley.  But really too bad you didn't get further "inland".   Our full day tour (from the Mariner)  to Goose Green and San Carlos was amazing.   The islands are so desolate.  Which I think you saw.  How anyone can live there is beyond me!

[flossie009]

Rachel, good to see that you made it to the Falklands and that the weather was relatively kind.

David worked on construction of the new airfield & RAF base immediately after the conflict in the early eighties. He always recalls encountering all four seasons most days of his 18 months living and working on East Falkland.

 

Thanks for the continuing blog and persevering with photo uploads. 

[briar14]

Rachel, so happy for you that Explorer made it to the Falklands! Thank you for your account and patience uploading pictures. Continuing to enjoy your posts.

 

[Travelcat2]

5 hours ago, Hambagahle said:

I am so glad you were able to get to Port Stanley.  But really too bad you didn't get further "inland".   Our full day tour (from the Mariner)  to Goose Green and San Carlos was amazing.   The islands are so desolate.  Which I think you saw.  How anyone can live there is beyond me!

 

Except for the penguins which I love, the Falklands look pretty boring to me.  What do you see if you go further inland?  Just curious.

[RachelG]

February 8, 2019–at sea

 

We rocked gently all night long, which sort of lulls me into a coma.  It made it very difficult to wake up, so I just slept a little longer since it was a sea day.  

 

Waking up, it was apparent that we were much further south.  It was very foggy with a cold dampness in the air outside.  It was raining pretty steadily, and it was soon apparent I would not be able to do my walking outside.  So I resorted to plan B which is to do laps around all the decks inside.  Plan C is the treadmill or elliptical in the gym, but that is my least favorite-too boring.

 

In my walking, it became apparent that the photos in the halls have a different theme on each deck.  Deck 6 is fashion from the 40s and 50s, deck 7 classic cars, etc.  the most interesting is the top deck (deck 13 but called deck 14 as they skipped 13–I guess some folks are superstitious ) with photos of tourism in Egypt in the 40s and 50s.

 

We went for lunch at Prime 7.  We were immediately seated, placed our orders, then waited and waited.  Tables all around us who had arrived after us were already on their main courses, and we had nothing.  It was like we were invisible.  Finally I was able to flag down a waiter.  Food soon arrived and was very good.  George had some mahi-mahi which he said was great.  My Caesar salad with shrimp was good as well.  The service issue was weird though.

 

It finally stopped raining and cleared slightly in the afternoon, but still too damp to do anything outside.  I worked on cross-stitch.  George went to the black jack tournament.  He didn’t win, but did pretty well playing after the tournament.  

 

Trivia was HARD!  We came in 3rd with 7 correct answers, and the winning team only had 9.

 

The Seven Seas society party was tonight.  I had received my platinum pin last year, but George was a couple of cruises behind me.  I guess they didn’t want to make him go up by himself, so they called me up as well.  So now I have two platinum pins.  There was one other couple getting theirs.  There was one diamond level person and maybe twenty titanium.  The production company did an ABBA show for us, and they were great.

 

Looking outside after the party, It had finally cleared off, and land was visible in the distance.  We are hoping for good weather tomorrow as we have a hiking tour.  Forecast is for rain.

 

Dinner in Compass Rose was good, except the asparagus is still over cooked.  I think I am going to have to go back and teach how to cook asparagus properly.  The chocolate mousse was excellent.

 

The comedian had a final show tonight, and I thought George might choke laughing.

[RachelG]

Seven seas party

[Hambagahle]

5 hours ago, Travelcat2 said:

 

Except for the penguins which I love, the Falklands look pretty boring to me.  What do you see if you go further inland?  Just curious.

When we were on the Mariner Regent had those "Circles of Interest" which were excellent.  We signed up for the Falklands one.   A Royal Navy officer who had been shipwrecked TWICE in one day in the Falklands war was the group leader/lecturer.  Another passenger happened to be a British General who led the "mopping up" operations after the Argentinian surrender.   Both of course had a lot to tell us before we got there.  (We were a group of 12 I think...).   Then the day we were in Port Stanley we were taken in vans across the island to Goose Green, site of a major battle during the war.  We saw an argentine view post and a British dug out (It was II Para brigade who led the attack and it was in this battle that Col H Jones was killed, leading his men.   We then had lunch at a farm nearby where the farmer and his family told us all about the occupation.  (I should also say that our guide for the day had run the local radio station in Port Stanley, under the occupation forces and under some duress as you can imagine since he was British).  After that we were taken to San Carlos water, and our RN leader told us about his shipwrecks!   And we visited the little cemetery there where quite a few soldiers and Col. Jones are buried.  It is very tranquil now...

Then we drove back to Port Stanley and had a brief sightseeing tour there.   Our British General had lived in Government House so he told us all about that.

The Falklands are desolate islands.  But when you are being told about II Para force marching for 36 hours to get to Goose Green AND the stories of the Argentinian soldiers who were terrified the Gurkhas (part of the British forces) would slit their throats the Falklands suddenly took on a LOT of colour.   It was a memorable day and we enjoyed every minute (with the exception of being bumped about on the corrigated dirt roads which reminded me of Africa in the 1950s!!   I feel it is  a real shame that Regent no longer offers these Circles of Interest.  We did three on three different cruises and we enjoyed each one.  Well worth the $350 or so we paid...

[RachelG]

Gerry, we went out to Goose Green as well.  Unfortunately it was raining really hard when we got there so we didn’t get to walk around much.  We did see the very rough ground the British soldiers and Marines had to march over at night with little to no cover.  It was quite intimidating, and i am surprised they didn’t lose more men as the Argentines had night vision goggles and pretty effective snipers.  Our guide did talk about the Gurkhas which I found Interesting as our son was leader of a multinational platoon in Afghanistan which included a contingent of Gurkhas.  He really liked serving with them.

[Hambagahle]

The Argentinians were perhaps not used to having a large number of British paratroopers attack them!   the march the Paras made took something like 12 hours. And I believe they came from a direction the Argentinians thought they could not come from...  Involved using some of the local farmhouses as cover (of course the farmers were only too happy to see them!)   But the poor Argentinian soldiers up in the hills were just terrified the Gurkhas would arrive (and they did...)  How interesting that your son worked with them in Afghanistan.  They are just amazing soldiers.

[gnomie1]

17 hours ago, RachelG said:

The Seven Seas society party was tonight.  I had received my platinum pin last year, but George was a couple of cruises behind me.  I guess they didn’t want to make him go up by himself, so they called me up as well.  So now I have two platinum pins. 

 

Well, that is two more pins that I have! Both Mom and I are platinum and we never got any pins 🤔

Other that for the Seven Seas society party, does anyone actually wear their pin?

 

That's ok - still have my pins from Brownies and Girl Scouts that just sit on my jewelry box.

 

gnomie

 

 

[gnomie1]

12 hours ago, Hambagahle said:

When we were on the Mariner Regent had those "Circles of Interest" which were excellent.  We signed up for the Falklands one.   A Royal Navy officer who had been shipwrecked TWICE in one day in the Falklands war was the group leader/lecturer.  Another passenger happened to be a British General who led the "mopping up" operations after the Argentinian surrender.   Both of course had a lot to tell us before we got there.  (We were a group of 12 I think...).   Then the day we were in Port Stanley we were taken in vans across the island to Goose Green, site of a major battle during the war.  We saw an argentine view post and a British dug out (It was II Para brigade who led the attack and it was in this battle that Col H Jones was killed, leading his men.   We then had lunch at a farm nearby where the farmer and his family told us all about the occupation.  (I should also say that our guide for the day had run the local radio station in Port Stanley, under the occupation forces and under some duress as you can imagine since he was British).  After that we were taken to San Carlos water, and our RN leader told us about his shipwrecks!   And we visited the little cemetery there where quite a few soldiers and Col. Jones are buried.  It is very tranquil now...

Then we drove back to Port Stanley and had a brief sightseeing tour there.   Our British General had lived in Government House so he told us all about that.

The Falklands are desolate islands.  But when you are being told about II Para force marching for 36 hours to get to Goose Green AND the stories of the Argentinian soldiers who were terrified the Gurkhas (part of the British forces) would slit their throats the Falklands suddenly took on a LOT of colour.   It was a memorable day and we enjoyed every minute (with the exception of being bumped about on the corrigated dirt roads which reminded me of Africa in the 1950s!!   I feel it is  a real shame that Regent no longer offers these Circles of Interest.  We did three on three different cruises and we enjoyed each one.  Well worth the $350 or so we paid...

When I visited the Falklands, I was not on Regent and made arrangements for a all day private tour - much of the Island is unpaved dirt roads and not suitable for tour buses. The tour was arranged by one of my friends and the price was dependent on what we could bring - the more requested items we brought, the lower the price. Because it is such a desolate island where  almost everything must be imported, many items are quite expensive.  I visited right after Xmas and they make a huge deal about New Year and one of the requested items was jaffa cakes and we had plenty of them. It was an amazing and memorable day and I hope to do it again sometime.

 

gnomie

[Hambagahle]

Right.  We were in 8 passenger vans, but only 6 per van.   Roads were terrible.  Bumps and dust.  Worse than central Africa in the 50’s.

[Travelcat2]

Rachel - belated congratulations on George becoming Platinum.  I'm curious how it worked when you were Platinum and he was Gold.  I love the celebration that they do now on Regent.  When we received our Titanium pins, we were with two other couples that were reaching Platinum.  We all had a great dinner together.

 

Based on your photos and Gerry's comments, I'm thrilled that we saw your photos and I can knock it off of my list.  Actually, even though we are going to South America soon, it is not my favorite part of the world.  While there are some amazing things to see, what stands out in my mind is Rio (know that you're not going there but we seem to end up there - even when we try to avoid it) and Lima (the city where too many passengers return from Machu Picchu - board the ship and spread norovirus).  

 

Continue enjoying your cruise.  We definitely are enjoying your photos and commentary. 

[Boatmans Lady]

Thank you for taking the time to share your cruise and for the fab photos. 

 

My brother was stationed in the Falklands as part of the peace keeping force straight after the war. 

He spent most of his time on South Georgia and has some great photos of the glaciers calving (he was an army helicopter pilot) and of the many penguins. 

One of the soldiers made models of penguins with army berets on, using local stones and to this day, they sit in my unit in our hallway. 

 

[RachelG]

Boatmans lady, gnomie, hambagahle, interesting stories regarding the Falklands.

 

travelcat, when i was platinum and George was gold, we got all the platinum benefits in our suite as far as laundry and phone time.  His card was gold and mine was platinum, and I got the discount for paid extra excursions while he did not.

[RachelG]

February 9, 2019–Ushuaia Argentina 

 

One of the things I love about cruising is that you can be in a new location overnight with no effort on your own part.  And sometimes that new location almost seems to be a different world.  We are certainly experiencing that on this cruise.

 

We awoke to a bright sunny day.  It was cold outside, in the 40s, but little wind.  We were just docking at a town backed by high mountains which were snow covered at their peaks.  The mountains were covered with dense green forest to about 2/3 way up, which ended fairly abruptly making a distinct tree line.

 

Our excursion for the day was trekking Tierra Major, described as a difficult hiking tour, just the thing for George.  Our bus took us outside of town and into the countryside.  We arrived at a cabin,where we were given the option of changing into their provided rubber boots.  I took them upon the offer, if for no reason than it meant  I wouldn’t have to clean my hiking shoes.

 

We took off, at a very slow speed.  The trail was pretty good at first, going along a low ridge, and was dry.  We then moved into some soft bog.  George had had it with the slow movement so took off on his own with one of the guides.

 

We hiked along on what was like peat, crossing little streams on very rough bridges.  We saw beaver dams.  Apparently beavers are a real nuisance here since they are not native and dam up the streams.

 

We started going up and up through some forest.  It was pretty steep.  At spots, they had ropes to grab hold of to help.  Eventually we reached the top of a ridge.  We walked to a big waterfall, then started down, but now through dense bog and mud.  One lady fell and got covered with mud.  It started raining and felt much colder.  Fortunately we were back in some cover from the trees.  We walked on down, and just as we cleared the forest, the rain stopped.  The sun came out, and it was 20 degrees warmer.  Eventually we made it back to the shelter.  11000 steps for me.

 

This would have been a really difficult hike had it been raining a lot previously.  As it was, I would say it was moderate, but the ironic thing is that, even though it was rated as very strenuous, there were a couple of people who were clearly out of shape and had a really difficult time with it.  The description of the tour clearly stated that participants should be in optimal physical condition and that the tour involved 2 1/2 hours of strenuous walking.  It makes it difficult for the guides when one person is going very slowly.

Back in Ushuaia, I had scoped out a restaurant for lunch.  Pasta Garibaldi RestoBar is amazing.  The proveleta which is basically just melted cheese was awesome.  They had great homemade bread.  The seafood pasta was perfection.  We had a really nice waiter, whose Spanish I could understand perfectly.  We will try to return next year on our way to Antarctica.

 

We walked back to the ship.  The weather here changes so dramatically and rapidly.  It was sunny, but the wind was blowing so hard I could barely stand up.  And it was really cold.  I am used to rapidly changing weather, but this is ridiculous.  You need to be prepared for everything.

 

Trivia was a bust.  Even though we got 11 right, we didn’t place as the questions were much easier than yesterday.

 

We sailed through the avenue of the glaciers at dinner time.  So people would rush to the windows in Compass Rose whenever a beautiful glacier or waterfall would come into view to get pictures.  It would have been a good evening to eat upstairs, but I guess we weren’t thinking ahead well.

  

The show was a tribute to Peggy Lee.  This is probably the 3rd time I have seen this show, and I think the current cast did the best ever.

 

[RachelG]

Pics from our hike.  Reminds me a lot of Alaska.