March 19, 2009 Los Angeles, CA

California is as busy as ever. We rented a car here and headed for the Petersen Car Museum. It took us about 2.5 hours and the four of us really enjoyed it. Cars that made you question what they were thinking, cars of the stars, cars of alternative fuels, on and on.

We then headed for an In-n-Out burger for Bobby and LuAnn and a El Pollo Loco for Bob and me. Our last stop of the day was Grauman's Chinese Theater.

From Los Angeles, California

March 16, 2009 Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

March 16, 2009

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

This morning when we went to breakfast and first saw the city we were extremely impressed by its beauty. The mountains were in the background and a clean city on the beach stretched in front of us. The funniest part was Wal-Mart and Sam’s were right across the street. We disembarked at 9 am with Bob and LuAnn and started looking for a cab to go to the old town. The first one wanted $10 p/p after walking a block to the main street we got one for a total of $5 for all of us. He dropped us off on the beach front and we walked a block to the church then the market. After a short time, the guys said they were going to the Internet so LuAnn and I had plenty of time to explore what we realized was one of the largest markets we had been to.

We met up with the guys and walked toward the ship along the Malacon, which is a concrete boardwalk along the beach with beautiful statues. We walked to the end; about a mile and caught another taxi back to the Wal-Mart where we all went in for drugs! There are three stains of a virus on the ship (we call it the Carnival Crud) and everyone has had it at least once and some are working on two and three times. I finally caught it in Lima and the cough just keeps hanging on. Terry had to be different. Last night after dinner he felt really bad so he skipped the show. Heidi went to check on him and he was extremely ill. She finally talked him into going to the doctor and they said he had passed a kidney stone or as they said kidney sand since it was so small. No matter what the size was, it was extremely painful! This morning he was doing so well he went to the gym!

We all went back on the ship for lunch then Bobby went back to an Internet and LuAnn and I went to a craft market right off the ship until 5 pm. Time flies when you are having a good time! We all agreed we could come here and spend a winter – what a beautiful place with so much to do in the area.

From Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

March 14, 2009 Acapulco, Mexico

I can’t believe it – we only have 7 days left on this cruise – we don’t want it to end!!! We were told we shouldn’t look at it as only 7 days left but as a 7 day cruise. The last time we were in Acapulco was 1991 – it certainly has grown!

From Acapulo, Mexico

March 8th

March 8, 2009

Lima, Peru

We heard a lot of negative things about Lima….it is overcrowded, polluted, noisy, extremely dangerous and it even has wretched weather. Well, we were pleasantly surprised to have found it the total opposite. I’m sure a lot of it had to do with the day being a Sunday and the weather perfect. We walked out of the port and found a taxi driver who would take the four of us around for $15 an hour in a large Volvo. We docked in Callao and had a 40 minute drive to downtown Lima, the capital and largest city in Peru. We drove to Plaza Mayor, the district that houses the educational and historical sights. We were extremely impressed with the architecture, it was some of the most beautiful we have seen in South America! We toured the San Francisco Convent and Museum, which was incredible but the most fascinating part was our descent into the catacombs, which were dug beginning in 1546 as a burial ground for priests and others. This was a huge maze that you could easily get lost in. As many as 75,000 bodies were interred here. Several years ago archeologist and scientist wanted to make it more orderly so they separated all the body parts, legs, arms, heads, etc. and put them in separate pits. In one large circular pit about 10 feet they really got carried away and made a spiral design with heads and leg bones – very grotesque!

After this we needed something a little more cheerful, so we went to a local park where teenagers dressed in local costumes were dancing for the tourist. We continued walking around the area looking at the beautiful sites.

Our driver then took us to the town of Miraflores to their Indian Handicraft Market. This was the best market we have been to on the entire trip! This is one of the times I’m lucky I live in and RV because I have no room to really buy anything!

Four hours later we went back to the ship after a wonderful day.

From Lima, Peru

March 10, 2009

Manta, Ecuador

Ecuador straddles the equator and is the smallest of the Andean countries; it’s about the size of Nevada. Again, we found a taxi drive to take the four of us around for $15 an hour – such a deal! We gave him the itinerary of what the ship tours were doing. Our first stop was an overlook of the city of Montecristi, we then went to Montecristi, which is the birthplace of the Panama hat. The reason it is called this is Teddy Roosevelt was given one as a gift when he was visiting the Panama Canal and when he returned to the US and was asked where he got it he said “Panama.” The name stuck and Panama has received all the credit for making these beautiful hats even though they are made here in Ecuador.

There was a wonderful market at the base of the cathedral so we spent an hour visiting everything. I even bought myself a hat. These hats can cost up to $200 for the best quality. They are handmade and take a month or more to make. My hat is a step down from the best and an excellent deal at $22! The hats can be rolled up, washed and ironed! They keep you head cool on the hottest of days.

On our way back to Manta we stopped at a tagua nut button factory. Tagua nuts, also known as the “vegetable ivory nut”, becomes solid like ivory and artisans use special tools to transform it into beautiful buttons, figurines or jewelry. This unique tropical palm takes 24 years to reach maturity and grows deep in the rain forest. The pod that holds the nuts weighs about 25 lbs and holds about 200 nuts!

When we arrived back in Manta, LuAnn and I went to the Archaeological Museum while Bob and Bobby went to the Internet. From there we walked back to the ship to go for a swim to cool off!

Tonight we crossed the equator for a second time!

From Manta, Equador

March 7th

March 3, 2009

Valparaiso, Chile

Valparaiso is the second largest city in Chile. It is also home to the Chilean navy. This blue collar city is a jumble of colorful clapboard houses and Victorian mansions balancing precariously on a circle of steep hills. We wandered around the lower part of the city, our favorite place being the fruit and vegetable market. We have never seen produce as beautiful as we saw here – it looked fake it was so perfect! There are about ten funiculars or ascensors as they call them that take people between the lower parts of the city to the upper part. These are all extremely old, many built in the late 1800s and they looked and felt it! Unfortunately for us it was a cloudy day so the views from the top were not as spectacular as they would be on a sunny day.

LuAnn and I wanted to visit Vina del Mar their sister city on the Pacific which was only five miles away. Vina del Mar was founded as a weekend beach retreat and garden residence for the wealthy of Valparaiso and Santiago. We took a bus and the bus driver took us under his wing making sure we got off at the correct stop for the center of town and told us what bus to get back. Vina del Mar wasn’t quite what we expected which was a beach town, it was more like a city so after an hour we caught another bus back to Valparaiso and headed back to the ship.

From Valparaiso, Chile

March 5, 2009

Man Overboard

This morning we went to breakfast at 9 with Bob & LuAnn. A shot time after we arrived they asked Dennis Lowe (I think that is the spelling of his name) to call the purser. A little later Bob said, “It looks like we’re making a U turn.” We all joked it was to get someone who fell overboard. They then made the announcement that it was URGENT that Dennis Lowe call the purser. About 10 they said a man had gone overboard around 4:30 am and we had to go back to the place he was last seen. So, yes we were making a U turn and heading back to where we had come. Of course, the rumors began. On a ship this size with about 3,000 people you can just imagine all the stories we heard! We found out the truth the evening of March 6 when they gave us all a letter saying….A 63-year-old make guest traveling on board the Carnival Splendor was reported missing by is wife while the ship was off the coast of Chile. The guest’s wife notified shipboard personnel at 9:30 am after she found a note that suggested a planned suicide.

The ship’s command immediately began a vessel-wide search for the missing guest and returned the vessel back to the area where the guest was last seen. All appropriate authorities have been notified of the situation.

At 3 pm we arrived at the location they thought he had jumped from and the ship began its search under the direction of the Chilean Navy Coast Guard. They had a lot of help from guest out on deck with their binoculars. We sailed in a grid pattern until 8:30 pm when they called off the search.

It’s very sad you know his wife and friends have to be grieving yet life goes on the same as usual all around the ship.

March 6, 2009

Arica, Chile

I think we made a wrong turn and are in Morocco! When I walked outside this morning, I was shocked to see this small town tucked into the sand! Arica is known at as “The City of Eternal Spring,” the temperature is always perfect! If you don’t like rain, this is the place to live because it rains only 2 to 3 times in every 100 years! The port is located just below the El Morro Hill (a huge sand hill!). It is located in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on earth. They get their water from underground lakes in a nearby valley or from a river flowing down from the Andes. They are only about 10 miles from the border with Peru.

We arrived at 12:30 instead of 8 am so several of the all day tours had to be cancelled. We had planned on just wandering around the city so we had plenty of time. The main site we wanted to see was the Cathedral of San Marcos. This was designed by Gustave Eiffel and built in iron and made the 3rd iron church of his that we have seen. The others were in Costa Rica and Baja.

There were several handicraft markets selling knitted garments, hand-made jewelry, alpaca sweaters and musical instruments that are popular items here. There is one street, 21 de Mayo, that is basically closed to traffic that is just lined with shops, Internet locations, pharmacies and restaurants. Of course, we had to check them all out!

The guys went to the Internet and LuAnn and I decided to hike up El Morro after saying “NO WAY” because it was so steep and we both had coughs! Well, when we ran into three women who just raved about the views we knew we had to do it. Yes, it was well worth it, even tough it felt like it was straight up at times! There was a statue of Christ the Redeemer on top similar to the one in Rio.

From Arica, Chile

March 2 Puerto Montt, Chile

February 28, 2009

Puerto Montt, Chile

Puerto Montt was founded in 1853 by German immigrants and named after the then President Manuel Montt. It is the capital of Chile’s southern Lake District and is the fastest growing city because of the explosive growth of salmon fishing.

At 9:30 we took a tender into the port. The sun was out, it was in the 50s and the water was calm. Immediately we were surrounded by taxi and van drivers all bidding for our business. We choose Irving because he had a new car, charged us $100 for 5 hours (for all of us) vs $60 p/p and he spoke perfect Spanish.

We drove through the city to the outskirts then finally we were in the country! We have spent so much time in cities we all were missing the country life. As we drove along the shore of Lake Llanquihue, the largest lake in Chile, we stopped at the upscale resort town of Puerto Varas. We felt as though we were in Germany, right down to the homes and farms. We walked around the center of town for a half hour stopping at an authentic German bakery to pick up lunch for later.

We continued around the lake stopping at two farms. One raised llamas and had a two day old male. The other had your regular farm animals along with an emu that kept putting it’s head in the kitchen window and the owners kept shooing him away and a female llama, obviously in heat, tied up in a fenced in area and a male on the outside of the fence keeping guard. Whenever anyone or anything came near, he would scream at the top of his lungs and run towards her – it was the funniest thing. I will try to put this in the blog later.

30 miles from port we arrived at Vicente Perez Rosales National Park. We hiked through the forest along a well marked path to the Petrohue River where the turquoise waters plunge over hard volcanic rocks to form wild, gushing cascades. Mount Osorno, the perfectly shaped, snowcapped volcano towers over the park. Unfortunately, it only peaked in and out today. We are incredibly lucky to have such beautiful weather because this area has rain 300 days a year!

Heading back to town we stopped at a bee keeper’s place for our picnic lunch then an overlook of Puerto Montt. We had Irving drop us all off at the handicraft market. Again, the guys ditched us and headed back to the ship. LuAnn and I had to check out all the little shops with their alpaca or wool sweaters and shawls all hand-spun and hand-dyed, jewelry, llama rugs, penguins in all shapes and forms, leather goods and carved wood figures.

We decided to walk to the center of town, got half way there and stopped to take a photo of the ship when we noticed a big, black rain cloud heading our way. We got about 50’ and it poured! We each had our waterproof jackets, hers had a hood but mine didn’t. We ran about two blocks and came upon a huge tent with about 30 craft stands – perfect! LuAnn found a unique scarf on the third time around. We decided to bite the bullet and run back to the pier to catch our tender. When we arrived, I looked like a drowned rat – both of our jackets failed the waterproof test! Several hundred other people decided to come back at the same time so it ended up taking about 45 minutes to catch a tender and then we had an exciting ride back through the choppy waves. We got back at 7:15, missed dinner with the group so we went to the buffet and then joined them at the show. We were quite surprised when we left on time at 8 pm; in fact, we took bets that morning as to when the ship would leave knowing it wouldn’t leave on time.

From Puerto Montt, Chile

March 1st

February 23, 2009

Cruising Cape Horn

Today we rounded the southernmost tip of the Americas! The scenery was spectacular and the weather was cloudy and in the upper 40s. We thought it would be a lot rougher than it was. The ship sent one of the tenders to a post office on the shore to have their manifest stamped. Quite an exciting day!

From Cape Horn

February 24, 2009

Ushuaia, Argentina

Ushuaia is the world’s southernmost city, and is known as the Port at the End of the World. It is the capital of Tierra del Fuego, a large triangular island beyond the Magellan Straits. It was originally colonized as an Argentinean penal colony in 1902 and remained a prison outpost until 1947. It is now a major S.A. tourist destination rivaled only by Buenos Aires for ship traffic. Ushuaia is one of the few cities on earth that offer the sea, mountains, and forests all in one place. When we arrived, we felt as though we were in Switzerland; complete with chalets! In fact, it was breathtakingly beautiful; and we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day. One of our friends took a cab and the driver said he had lived there for 21 years and this was the prettiest day he could ever remember! It was a little cool in the morning but you could wear short sleeves by the afternoon.

LuAnn and I disembarked at 8 am to visit the tourist office to come up with a plan. We had so many choices but settled on doing everything by cab. When the guys arrived at 8:30, we negotiated and finally found a driver who would take us to Tierra del Fuego National Park and back for $100 for all of us (better than $60 per person charged by the ship). The park is about 10 miles outside the city spanning almost 30,000 square miles. I thought this area received its name due to volcanoes in the area – wrong, there aren’t any. When Ferdinand Magellan first traveled here in 1520, he saw the light from all the Yamana Indian’s campfires along the shore, hence the name land of fire. Within the park is the end of the Pan-American Highway, which begins in Alaska and literally brings you to the end of the world 17,848 km away! Our driver, Mario (he’s 44 with 7 children and 2 grandchildren!) wanted to make sure we experienced everything. He would take us to an area, drop us off and then we hiked to where he would pick us up. We walked along the shores of lakes, down a mountain and through a forest – all beautiful walks (Bobby even enjoyed them!).

We returned to town around 1 pm. Bobby still has his cold so he went back to the ship. We walked down the main shopping street to the grocery store (always a thrill to see what they have to offer!) where Bob got beer and LuAnn and I bought chocolate/coffee liquor ($4). Bob then went back to the ship and we wandered back going in and out of shops. Our last stop was a local craft market beside the pier. I don’t buy much (I have no room in the RV) but I did find a woman who dies and spins her own yarn and then makes beautiful wall hangings. I chose one with a tree that they call a flag because it is usually extremely windy here and most trees angle the same way like a flag blowing in the wind.

Unfortunately, we had to be on the ship by 3:30 pm. When we walked out of the market to the pier entrance we almost had heart failure because the line to get into the pier area was over a block long and we had allowed only 10 minutes! We started asking people what ship they were on and were relieved when we realized most of them were on our ship! We knew they wouldn’t leave all of us! We finally boarded at 4 pm, which was when we were supposed to depart. We didn’t leave until 8:30 pm! They kept telling us we couldn’t leave because of high winds in the channel. Well, the water where we were was just like glass and two ships came in and a smaller one left hours before us so no one believes the high winds story!

Tonight our entertainment was all people who had performed on their own on different evenings so we had a trio - Peter Fisher played the violin, then Tom Sutton, a comedian and we ended with Annette Wardell who has sung opera many times at Kensington Palace and with Sarah Brightman. Annette is a little bitty thing, about 5’3” with beautiful, powerful voice!

From Ushuaia, Argentina

February 25, 2009

Day at Sea

Today we were told that due to the high winds we would not be able to go into Punta Arenas, Chile, especially since we would have to tender in. I have to tell you, like the day before it was a perfect day with seas so calm you could water ski on them! They really aren’t telling us something! They said we would spend the day cruising the Strait of Magellan so we could see everything in the daylight. The Strait of Magellan separates S.A. from the Tierra del Fuego and other islands south of the continent and is one of the most scenic waterways in the world.

At noon LuAnn and I ran into the three entertainers from the previous evening and they told us they were supposed to leave the ship in Punta Arenas to get to their next engagement and weren’t sure what they were going to do. At 2 we had an announcement saying we were going to stop in front of Punta Arenas so we could take a photo and the Chilean Immigration Officials would be boarding for a short time. I told LuAnn the entertainers were leaving so I called Peter Fisher and he said they had to be in the lobby to depart immediately. He asked me to meet him in the lobby to give us and another friend a CD! The tender then swept them away!

From Strait of Magellan

February 26 & 27, 2009

Days at Sea

The 26th was spent cruising the Chilean Fjords along the Pacific coast of southern Chile. This area is similar to the fjords found in Northern Europe. It is a dissected region of islands, channels, inlets, straits and bays. The Chilean Fjords are sparsely populated with only a few small towns and cattle ranches seen along the shores.

After breakfast, Heidi, Terry, LuAnn and I jumped in the hot tubs to watch the incredible scenery! It was about 45 out and the water was around 100; a perfect way to spend the morning! I couldn’t believe it; I didn’t bring a towel since they give us all warm terrycloth robes….my robe fell off the railing into a small pool of water leaving me with a 12”dry square – I about froze trying to get in and to my room!

Today we saw two huge glaciers - one in the sunshine of the morning and the other in the rain at 5 pm. I have now used all my clothes – summer and winter!

At 10 pm Bobby went up to the Lido deck and watched The Godfather on the big screen. I stayed in the room and watched another movie. When he returned around 1 pm, I was asleep and woke up as he was taking off all his clothes, right down to his underwear because it was all wet. I asked him what happened and he said there were 90 mph winds with high waves so the ship was rocking and rolling. He said the next thing he knew a huge wave got him and several others soaking wet. It was warm, since they had the roof closed, so they all stayed till the end of the movie. I said “WOW, that’s unbelievable!” and went right back to sleep. The next morning in aerobics I was telling Heidi and she asked if it was from the pool….sure enough, it was!

The 27th we did laundry after breakfast. This takes a couple of hours since there are not many washers. But, this is where lots of the drama and gossip takes place – the stories from the laundry are unbelievable!

Tonight was another elegant evening where we all dressed up. After dinner, we had a harpist as entertainment. She was fantastic, playing lively, popular music!

From Chilean Fijords