Flying (or Sailing) Down to Rio (Part I)
We sailed into Guanabera Bay at Rio de Janeiro at sunrise on Tuesday, February 14. This is a huge but really beautiful city, with mountains, rainforests & beaches everywhere. There doesn’t seem to be an accurate account of its population because there are almost a thousand Favelas in Rio (Favela is the name for the squatter communities like we saw in Lima) and the government has no way to accurately count their occupants, particularly since officially most of them don’t exist. Because Rio is to host the World Cup in 2014 & the Olympics in 2016 they are working hard right now to clean up the Favelas. They have successfully driven the drug dealers (who dominate many of the Favelas) from a few of them & somewhat regularize their use of services like water gas & electricity. But even for those few that have been cleaned up the head count is doubtful. We were told about one in which the govt. says about 75,000 people live but the electric company has 140,000 meters there, so the government clearly hasn’t yet gotten a handle on the population. The best guess we heard for the total population of greater Rio was 14 to 16 million. The people here call themselves Cariocas (I don’t know why, but I’m sure there is a reason).
Anyway, this is a city of breathtaking vistas so you will see a lot of them here. The landscape is dominated by two mountains, Sugarloaf & Corcovado (which means “hunchback”), the latter of which is topped by the Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer), the huge statue of Christ that has been named one of the 7 wonders of the modern world (we have wondered who is authorized to make such a designation, and we don’t know what the other six are, although the Taj Mahal is probably on the list). We passed both of these on the sunrise sail into the harbor; and the Cristo Redentor was lit up. In the first picture Sugarloaf is on the right & Corcovado is just to the left of center in the background, with the lighted statue atop it. The second picture is Sugarloaf & the third is Corcovado.
Rio has an airport right on the water that is used just for shuttle trips to Sao Paulo every 15 minutes. The planes fly in low & look like they will land in the water. Nearby is the old customs house on an island in the bay, and there was a Favela on a hill behind the dock. Note in the upper right corner of the Favela picture a formation of birds flying by. We saw birds flying in formation over the bay & the city all the time here.
On February 14 we went on an excursion to the top of Sugarloaf mountain. To get to the top you have to ride two cable cars – not the kind you see in San Francisco but cars hanging from a cable way high in the air. First you ride up to an intermediate level mountain, then switch to another car for the trip to the top.
They have been running cable cars here for about 100 years without incident so it’s really safe. Inside it’s like being in a subway car (only with a better view). However, the car does sway a bit when you step off. The views even from the middle level of Sugarloaf are pretty spectacular; as you can imagine, pictures do not really convey the full effect of a 360 degree vista.
From the top of the mountain, the views were even better.
From Sugarloaf we could see the most famous beaches of Rio: Flamingo, Copacabana & Ipanema.
We drove along the beaches on both days. They are very long (Copacabana 1 mile, Ipanema 2 miles) with beautiful blue water & white sand. In addition to Copacabana (pictures 1 & 2) & Ipanema (pictures 3 & 4), we drove past Leblond beach (which is contiguous to Ipanema – named for a blond Frenchman who once frequented this beach) (pictures 5 & 6) & stopped at Sao Conrado beach, where hang gliders landed from the top of a mountain overlooking the beach, for a taste of Coconut. We were told that coconut water will keep you healthy & cure everything from arthritis to alzheimer’s. But I only had one, so it will probably only stave off alzheimer’s for a couple of weeks.
Brazil has no private beaches so access to these is open to all. However there are sections recognized as areas where particular groups congregate: Copacabana is primarily for families we were told & there are sections of Ipanema for gays & lesbians, for young people, for children, for topless bathing. We passed the Copacabana Palace, the best known hotel on the beaches. Sound like a nice place to retire? Forget it; we were told that the condos in the high-rises on the street bordering Ipanema start at $20 million. And to shatter yet another illusion, contrary to popular understanding not everyone on these beaches is “tall and tan and young and lovely,” although that doesn’t stop them from wearing bikinis.
One thing we found interesting is the sidewalk mosaics in Rio, and really throughout Brazil so far (we have seen them in two other cities visited since). In addition to the famous undulating sidewalk design at Copacabana beach, there was a different pattern at Ipanema & Leblond, and several others around town. All of them are made from white & black (& sometimes red) stones about 2 to 3 inches in diameter; it must have been a lot of work. Below are a clos-up showing how the individual tiles fit together & then the sidewalks of Copacabana, then Ipanema, then a few others with mouse-over labels (you can also see these in the beach pictures above).
In the afternoon we walked down the Rio Branco, the main street of the central section of Rio. Much of it consisted of boxy modern office buildings but the sidewalks were mosaic and there were some interesting older buildings. This was a very modern, busy thoroughfare with heavy traffic on foot & in cars. Yet on the afternoon of the second day, our tablemate Bing was attacked there in broad daylight by a couple of guys who tried to tear a gold chain from his neck & run off. Bing is an older guy (early 70’s), but fortunately our other tablemate Steve, a retired fireman, was with him. He chased off one of the attackers & got the other in a headlock; Bing had grabbed his chain & managed to hold on. The second attacker then ran off & Bing still has his gold chain, though it is broken. The lesson here is that in foreign cities (really any big city) you should never wear jewelry or carry a camera or purse that looks worth stealing. We have been warned about this several times; Mary & I (of course) always look like we don’t have anything worth stealing & my camera fits in my pocket (a surprising number of the passengers on this cruise carry big cameras with very long lenses that look like they must weigh about 30 pounds).
Anyway, we didn’t run into any trouble on Rio Branco. We saw a nice old church, built a few hundred years ago by a fellow who survived a shipwreck, with a nautical theme. I only got a partial picture of the outside while driving by in a bus and it is not one of the important churches in Rio, but looking at the interior would make you think it was a major cathedral.
Further down the street is a square with several of the main buildings in Rio. With the World Cup & the Olympics coming up, it seemed like every building in town was surrounded by fences and scaffolding as they work to restore & beautify the city for the world stage. But we saw their beautiful opera house with its eye catching gold roof decorations.
And of course we saw (or rather sought out) the Biblioteca Nacional, which is a little less spectacular.
OK, I was planning to do all of Rio in one posting but this is already quite long and there is quite a bit yet to go. So I am going to stop now, even though we aren’t really through day 1, and finish up in a second posting.
Montevideo, Uruguay
On Saturday, February 11, we arrived at Montevideo, Uruguay. It is much smaller than Buenos Aires, but still a big city at about 1.8 million people (including suburbs). It had a much more relaxed and friendly ambiance than Buenos Aires (of course, it was a weekend, but still . . .), and we liked it very much.
We were supposed to arrive at 8:00 AM. Since Montevideo is just about 150 miles down the Rio Plata from Buenos Aires you would think we would have no trouble arriving on time. But you would be wrong. Because of the problems with the river traffic I explained yesterday we didn’t arrive until noon. But we still had plenty of time to explore this city on foot before the ship left that evening.
Montevideo is a very walkable city (at least the old town & the main part of the new town, where we went). Leaving the ship, we passed the anchor from the Graf Spee, a German warship sunk in the harbor here in 1939 in an incident that was famous at the time. It seems the ship was chased into this harbor by several British ships. Uruguay was neutral, and the rules were that ships of belligerents could only stay 3 days, so the British ships just waited outside the harbor for the Graf Spee to come out. Instead the captain scuttled the ship in the harbor, where it still resides (they say you can see the top if its conning tower above the water if you go close enough), and the captain committed suicide rather than being sent back to face Hitler’s wrath. It’s still a big deal around here. Just outside the harbor area is the Mercado de Puerto, an open air craft & souvenir market next to a very large warehouse type building housing a plethora of open restaurants. Even on Saturday it was bustling.
We walked through several streets & plazas up the hill from the harbor (Montevideo means something like Mountain View, although you would hardly call this gentle hill a mountain). The streets of Montevideo are interesting, with old & new buildings interspersed. The streets were pretty quiet on Saturday, presumably they are more crowded on business days but nothing like Buenos Aires I am sure.
At Plaza Constitucion there was a Saturday flea market being held. It is a very pleasant tree covered square, with an elaborate marble fountain in the middle (commemorating the establishment of the city’s water system) and a number of interesting buildings and the Catedral Matriz around the perimeter. At the flea market they were selling everything from antique cameras & cameos to old victrolas & glassware.
We walked on to the much larger & more impressive Plaza Independencia, which is essentially the center of the city. To get there we walked along a pedestrian-only street with vendor stalls and through a gate which is a restoration of one of the original gates to the city.
Plaza Independencia was surrounded by interesting buildings. The Palacio Salvo, with its bizarre tower section, is the tallest building in Uruguay and was the tallest in South America when it was built in the 1920’s (you can see it on the right in the city skyline at the top of this blog entry). The Palacio Estavez was the center of government until 1985. And the lovely Teatro Solis, the opera house, is on a corner of the Plaza called (at least on our map; we couldn’t find any sign at the site) “Plaza Golda Meir.” I’m not sure what Golda Meir might have had to do with Uruguay, but there it is.
One of the biggest pleasures of exploring Montevideo is the beautiful old architecture you find all over, often mixed in with more modern or even pedestrian buildings. Below is a selection of some of the architectural details on the buildings, which includes a variety of sculpture, balconies, mosaic decorations and old ornate buildings reflected in a modern glass building (a photographic cliche, I know, but still pretty).
And so, as the sun sinks slowly in the west, we bid a fond farewell to beautiful Montevideo. Last night was the Valentine’s Day Ball aboard Prinsendam (even though it was February 12, which ought to have involved Lincoln’s birthday instead). I have no pictures of the Ball (Cinderella didn’t make it this time) but below I have included the latest towel animals. As I write this, we will be arriving in Rio de Janeiro early (6:30 AM) tomorrow morning for a two day stay, then two days in small resort towns with little to do but look at the sand & sky & sun (assuming the sun is actually out) so it may be a few more days before there is another posting. And happy birthday to Linda, if you are still following this.
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is a huge, crowded, loud city, which reminded us in many ways of New York. There are about 3.5 million living in the city & about 14 million (!) if you include the suburbs. It is sometimes called the “Paris of South America” & many seasoned travelers say it is their favorite city, but we couldn’t see why. Of course, we didn’t eat in its restaurants, which are supposed to be outstanding if you like steak (and lots of it), and we didn’t stay in any of its hotels, some of which looked pretty fancy. But still: big, loud, crowded; not our cup of tea.
We arrived on Thursday, February 9 for an overnight stay. We were supposed to be able to go ashore about 8:30 AM, which would have given 2 full days (& 1 night) there, but we actually didn’t arrive until after 2:00 in the afternoon. Buenos Aires is not on the ocean, but a 9 hour cruise up the La Plata river. It seems that the La Plata river is pretty shallow so you have to take ocean going ships through a channel, and to make matters worse there was a disabled ship halfway up the channel. As a result, river navigation was only one way at a time so they were scheduling ships for convoys each way, kind of like when one direction on a two-way road is under construction so that one line of cars travels in one direction while the other direction is stopped. Well we were two hours late leaving the Falkland Islands so we missed our place in a convoy going up the river, resulting in our arriving about 6 or 7 hours late.
We had booked a private tour that would have taken all day and involved walking around in a number of areas of the city & lunch in a restaurant. However, that tour was cancelled because of our late arrival so we scrambled to get on a “Buenos Aires Highlights” bus tour (it was too late to do any worthwhile exploring on our own since it took about half an hour to get downtown from the port, involving two shuttle bus rides). This was a 4 hour trip around town by bus with a guide, including two stops, at the Recoleta cemetery (where Evita Peron is buried) & at the La Boca neighborhood.
The Recoleta neighborhood is an old, wealthy part of town. The cemetery there is old & is for the wealthy aristocracy of Buenos Aires. Apparently Buenos Aires has historically had a very haughty aristocracy. Anyway, this cemetery is a creepy city of above-ground mausoleums, many with grand statues & architecture (and thus very expensive). Seventy of the mausoleums are national monuments!
But today this cemetery is famous, and a mandatory stop on all tours, because Evita Peron is buried there. Our guide told us that before the musical Evita! came out (and it has never been performed in Argentina), none of the tourists were interested in Evita & most had never heard of her. But now, she says, she would be killed by the tourists if she skipped this spot. Evita was an illegitimate child in a poor family but her mother claimed (I don’t know if its true) that a wealthy aristocrat named Duarte was actually her father. When Evita died of cancer in 1952 she was buried in the Duarte family mausoleum in Recoleta, over their objections (since they didn’t recognize her as part of their family) because her husband was President (and she was really the power behind the throne because of her extraordinary popularity). But when Juan Peron died in the 1990’s, no longer holding that power, he was buried elsewhere (for a while outside the country) because the aristocrats wouldn’t have him in their cemetery. At least this is the story we were told. Anyway, here is the Duarte mausoleum (it’s one of the less conspicuous ones, on a small side street in the cemetery) with one of several plaques outside honoring Evita. We were told that there are fresh flowers placed on the door every day.
There is also a statue of Evita in the Recolleta district, erected (we think) in 2002 on the 50th anniversary of her death.
La Boca is the Italian neighborhood of Buenos Aires. It was also the location of the original port (the new one is much bigger). It has a mixture of bohemian, poor and tourist ambiance, but I think the last one probably predominates. But it is colorful and enjoyable and some of its features look like they would be at home in Disney World.
Buenos Aires is, of course, famous for the Tango. There are tango shows all over town & people even dance it on street corners in La Boca (although we missed one that was going on near where we were). It is an interesting & a sexy dance, but the cult is really a bit overblown. Still, here are a few tango paintings that were for sale in La Boca that I thought were interesting.
That night there was an Argentine folk dancing show on the ship. We thought it was quite good (except for the lame narrator, who kept injecting himself into the middle of the music). Notable was a tango (of course), performed by a couple who we were told were the tango champions of Argentina 5 years in a row. The pictures aren’t very good, since the light was low & they were moving fairly fast, but you get the idea.
Also there were some interesting gaucho dances, with guys in balloon pants & gaucho hats acting very macho. Particularly good was one in which a guy (the same one who did the tango) danced with bolas swinging in intersecting circles in each hand, and finally with him holding them between his teeth. I’m guessing there were some some nasty bumps raised on his head while he was learning how to do that!
On our second day in Buenos Aires, Friday, February 10, we walked around town by ourselves. As I said, it’s a loud & crowded city & we walked quite a way. There are many beautiful old buildings in the city, many with lovely wrought iron balconies, often right next to boring modern ones.
We walked by the Teatro Colon, a huge & ostentatious opera house, which appears to be made of marble. Nearby is the Obelisco (which looks like the Washington monument) in the Plaza de la Republica, erected in 1936 on the city’s 400th anniversary.
The Avenida 9 de Julio is one of the widest boulevards in the world. Not far from it we saw the impressive Ministry of Justice (we think), for you lawyers out there.
We walked up to see the Congresso Israel, which we think is the oldest synagogue in the city. Buenos Aires has a large Jewish community, the second largest religious community in the city (far behind Catholics, of course). There is a Jewish museum nearby.
Then we walked all the way back to the Recoleta area to find the Biblioteca National (national library) so that the librarians in the viewing audience won’t feel left out. It was quite a long walk and we had a lot of trouble finding it. In the end, it was impressive, but I sure wouldn’t say beautiful (particularly in a city full of beautiful public buildings). The sign in the second picture, which is probably too small for you to read, says that this is the library’s 200th anniversary.
Finally, we didn’t see any notable fauna here, but there were some interesting trees. In the first picture the slim attractive tree in the foreground with the pink blossoms is the male & the ones with the white blossoms and fat tummies are the females (this seems to be how nature works in all species but humans). I didn’t catch the names of these trees. Also in a park we saw these trees with massive root systems above ground that looked interesting. And last (and probably least) is another clock tower reputed to resemble Big Ben in London that really doesn’t. Maybe no Latin Americans have actually seen Big Ben.
So ends what was supposed to be 2 days in Buenos Aires but turned out to be only one day plus 2 hours. The full 2 days would have been plenty to see this city, huge as it is, but we thought we did pretty well given the time limit. Amazingly, this is not the biggest city we will have seen by the end of our trip.
Stanley, Falkland Islands
On Monday, February 6 we reached the Falkland Islands. This is a very windy area with lots of choppy water & we understand that less than half the cruise ships that come here are able to land. Two or three years ago the Prinsendam was able to tender its passengers ashore, but then the weather turned nasty & they couldn’t bring them back to the ship, so everyone had to stay overnight in Stanley. The townspeople (its a small town, around 4,000) turned out & took the passengers into their homes & put them up in churches & schools, then the next day the weather moderated enough to get them back to the ship. Fortunately for us the weather was nice and, although quite windy, we were able to tender into town & back (although tender service was suspended several times because of weather). The waves were pretty high for the small tender boats & water did get into the tenders & make a lot of people wet (including yours truly). But we were quite glad (& surprised, given our experience the last week or so) that we did actually get to shore here.
As I said, Stanley is a small town with a substantial whaling history. And, of course, there is the 1982 Falklands War between Britain & Argentina which has left its mark here in the form of war memorials, not to mention Thatcher Drive.
Stanley is a very colorful town. Houses are made mostly of wood & corrugated metal (which we were told is either salvaged from wrecked ships or shipped from England) & are painted bright colors. Its a very British town, with British style telephone booths (where else do you see telephone booths in the age of cell phones?), pubs specializing in fish & chips (& a saxophone shaped beer tap), & all the souvenirs are actually made in Great Britain.
The most famous landmark is the Whalebone Arch, which is next to Christ Church Cathedral. The Whalebone Arch was erected in 1933 & is made from the jawbones of two blue whales. The Cathedral was built in 1892 & is the southernmost Anglican cathedral in the world.
Inside the cathedral was a pipe organ, which looks vintage, & some very nice stained glass windows, protected on the outside from flying debris during storms by a system of screens loosely enough constructed to let in light through the windows. Note that their picture of St Nicholas looks nothing like Santa Claus (another illusion shattered).
They also have a collection of kneeling stools needlepointed by the ladies of the church, beginning in 1992 when they had the centennial of the building.
Other landmarks in town include Government House, where the British Governor lives, Jubilee Villas, a housing unit built in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee, the Penguin News (presumably the local newspaper), and a memorial to the Battle of the Falklands in 1914.
There are many old shipwrecks in the area of Stanley’s inner & outer harbor (lots of bad weather hereabouts). I was able to get pictures of two: the Jhelum & the Lady Elizabeth.
The only wildlife we saw were birds: some kind of duck & I think a goose of some kind. Not much in the way of wildflowers but we did see some sea kelp (eaten, as you might imagine, by the Kelp Gull).
Finally, a couple of random things we liked. The SS Great Britain was, we were told, the first ship with a screw to push it through the water. This remnant is erected in Victory Park, commemorating the 1982 war. Then there were the streetlights, mounted on bases with boats through them.
So that’s Stanley, or at least what we saw of it. We left at 4:30 and the seas were extremely rocky again that evening, but it calmed down after midnight to moderately bumpy. We have two sea days, then Buenos Aires on Thursday & Friday. So, toodle-loo for now (this is the signature sign-off of our cruise director, who makes announcements a couple of times a day).
Antarctica, Day 3 (King George’s Island)
We were woken early on Saturday, February 4 ,by an announcement that we had reached King George’s Island (at least that is what most people call it; the Argentines call it Isla 25 de Mayo, which I think commemorates some battle). The weather was pretty bad again: foggy, cold & very windy. But up I got to go outside & see the sights (Mary wasn’t feeling well, so I let her sleep a little later).
There was a Polish station on the island; I know it was Polish because the name of the station (Arctowski) is printed on the side of one of the buildings.
At the end of King George’s Island was Penguin Island. It is a former volcano & you can see the crater in the middle where the top of the mountain blew off.
Well, we were supposed to continue cruising Antarctica the rest of the day, including sailing by Elephant Island where Shackleton’s crew spent half a year on the beach waiting for his return. But the Captain concluded that bad weather was headed our way so he decided to cut it off and head directly north toward the Falklands. We were, obviously, quite disappointed by that. But when the weather gets bad down here you can’t see much anyway. We passed within 35 miles of Elephant Island on our way north so I thought it shouldn’t have been that much of a problem to go by & see it, but what do I know about sailing? (answer: not much.) So this is all we saw this day. The irritating thing is that for the last 2 or 3 years at least the Antarctic portion of this cruise has been sunny & beautiful throughout. The Antarctic experts on board (there were several, & they were quite knowledgeable & impressive) told us that we had been able to experience the REAL Antarctica because this is what it is like most of the time, but I don’t think anybody was buying that line. Oh well, what we did see of Antarctica was pretty fabulous. Maybe we will get back here again one day.
The sail north to the Falklands was very rocky. Take everything I told you earlier about being on a ship in rough seas, then double it. We had to hold on to something pretty much all the time to avoid falling down (fun to take an adventure shower, holding on with one hand at all times) & waves hitting the ship were splashing well over our room window, which is the equivalent of about a 5 story building above the water level. Everything was tied down and no one was allowed to go out on deck.
On Sunday there was a Super Bowl party & it only cost $50 per person to attend (we passed). But the good news is that the towel animals were back. Several were repeats of things we have already seen but there have been a couple of new ones. You may not agree with my interpretations in the captions, but they don’t tell us what kind of animal they are supposed to be.
BADER JOURNAL 