South America Cruise and Visit to Machu Picchu – just pre-COVID19 February to March, 2020

2/15 – 16/2020: Fly from Miami to Puerto Iguazu, Argentina

2/16 – 18/2020: Hotel Saint George, Puerto Iguazu. Visit Iguazu Falls.

2/18/2020: Fly from Puerto Iguazu to Buenos Aires, Argentina

2/18 – 20/2020: Sileo Hotel, Buenos Aires

2/20 – 3/5/2020: Coral Princess Cruise, Stateroom A618

2/20 – 21/2020: On Coral Princess in Buenos Aires

2/22/2020: Montevideo, Uruguay

2/23/2020: At Sea

2/24/2020: Puerto Madryn, Argentina

2/25/2020: At Sea

2/26/2020: Port Stanley, Falkland Islands

2/27/2020: Cruising Cape Horn

2/28/2020: Ushuaia, Argentina

3/1/2020: Cruising Amalia Glacier, Chile

3/2/2020: At Sea

3/3/2020: Puerto Montt, Chile

3/4/2020: At Sea

3/5/2020: San Antonio, Chile – disembark and travel to Santiago, Chile. Hotel Loreto.

3/5/2020: San Antonio, Chile – disembark and travel to Santiago, Chile. Hotel Loreto.

3/5/2020 Disembark Coral Princess, tour Valparaiso, drive to Santiago to Hotel Loreto

3/6/2020 Fly from Santiago to Cusco, Peru. Hotel Royal Inkatha Pisaq

3/7/2020 Tour Pisaq & Ollantaymbo, travel by train to Aguas Calientes, Hotel Hatun Inti Classic

3/8/2020 Tour Machu Picchu, travel by train from Aguas Calientes to Ollantaytambo, Hotel Pakaritampu

3/9/2020 Tour Maras Moray & Chinchero, travel to Cusco, Peru, Hotel Rumi Punku

3/10/2020 Tour Cusco, Peruvian Cooking Class, Hotel Rumi Punku

3/11 -14/2020 Fly from Cusco, Peru to Santiago, Chile, Hotel Loreto

3/14 – 15/2020 Santiago to Miami!

3/15 – 30/2020 Celebrity Eclipse – Santiago to San Diego – Cancelled due to COVID 19 Pandemic

February 15 – 16, 2020

We left Englewood about 9:00am on Saturday. We had to return the rental car before 1:30PM as it was a 1 day rental. We got to Miami, turned in the car, and made it to the airport by about 2:00pm. We had lunch, checked in and boarded our 9 hour flight to Buenos Aires. It was an overnight flight, in economy with tight seats and a baby that screamed. Not much fun. We had breakfast on the plane about 3:30am, which was 1:30am in Englewood. Argentina is 2 hours ahead of Florida time wise. We arrived about 4:30. Our ongoing flight to Iguazu Falls had been changed many times over the last year. Finally we got it changed to an 8:50am flight out of the same airport in Buenos Aires where we arrived, which was not the original situation. We arrived in Buenos Aires, made it through immigration, collected our bags, found our new terminal 1/4 mile away with no transport other than our feet, and checked into our next flight from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazu, by about 6:00am. We were dead tired because we got next to no sleep on the flight to Buenos Aires. We managed to make our flight, and the good news/bad news was that it was a very old plane. However, the leather seats were much more comfortable, more room between the seats, and no screaming babies.

We arrived on time in Puerto Iguazu. We are booked at Hotel Saint George and one of the amenities is free transport from the airport to the hotel (remember this amenity). We are dog tired as it is over 24 hours with no good sleep. The plan is to check in, rest for the afternoon, check out the town and where we need to catch transportation to the falls in the morning. I have researched some trails I want to do, so have a general plan in place.

Plan B: so the reason our hotel gives free transport from the airport to the hotel is to give the transport company an opportunity to pitch their tours. Remember, we are dog tired. They have two tours that work really well for us – the first is a half day tour to the Brazialian side which we can do this afternoon, and a full day tour tomorrow. After some discussion, we think, what the heck. Much easier to go with a guide, and didn’t think we could see the Brazialian side without an expensive visa.


So, this afternoon, we visited the Brazialian side of Iguazu Falls, and we are so glad we did. The views are phenomenal. Most of the falls are on the Argentinian side, but better viewed from Brazil. We hiked a little trail, and the falls and the views just kept getting better and better. Our last viewpoint was “Devil’s Throat” or Diablo, the longest, continuous waterfall, which is unbelievable. There are many, many waterfalls in this National Park which is located in both Brazil and Argentina.

Taking pictures of falls over and over is like taking pictures of long views of anything. So while Dave and I took over 40 pictures today, I’m just going to share two. The first is a picture of us at the falls! By the way, it is a really crappy day. It is rainy and we have our ponchos on. Tomorrow the weather is suppose to be better. The second may be a video of the falls – seems to show up as a video on my pad but only as a photo on Dave’s laptop.

Our hotel has a restaurant, so we went there for dinner. As we walk in, they are seating a bus load of Asian tourists….could not help but think of the Coronavirus. We ordered a seafood for two grilled dinner. There were 3 fillets of an unknown to us fish, a huge fillet of salmon, 2 large shrimp prawns, chunks of grilled tomato, eggplant, potato and 4 coblets of corn.

Finally time for a much needed sleep. Tomorrow we will visit the Argentine side of Iguazu Falls. I asked our guide how to pronounce Iguazu and it sounded to me like “E goo Sue”, but I have heard multiple pronunciations.

February 17, 2020 – Argentina side of Iguazu Falls

Plastic seems to be king in Argentina. When we arrived, we wanted to get some Argentinian pesos, so we sought out an ATM. Unfortunately we packed our conversion info, so it was not readily available. We took out the max on the screen, which was 2000 pesos, and were charged a service fee of 379 pesos. That was a bit of a shock to see approximately 19% fee! As it turns out, 2000 pesos is about $32. But, we have been able to use our credit card for everything, even bottles of water. And, the US dollar is also widely accepted. Our seafood dinner for two last night was 2400 pesos, less 20% for our hotel discount =1920 pesos, or about $31 (for dinner for 2!). We are finding food to be inexpensive. Each time we buy something, the big price number in pesos always freaks me out.


We were up early Monday morning for our tour – 6:00am – so we could eat breakfast and meet our guide at 7:50am. It looks like a beautiful day with plenty of sunshine, but hot. Our guide shows up in a big bus, and several people from our hotel are going on the same tour….no wonder with that free transportation from the airport. Lots of other people, from other hotels, are already on the bus.


It is a short drive to the Argentina side of the national park. Today we see lots of wildlife, and up close. Some were more up close than we wanted. There are raccoon type animals – they have a different name in Spanish, but the guide calls them raccoons when he is speaking English to us. They are aggressive if you have food. We had a few problems mid-morning when we grabbed a snack. We were literally kicking at them, which didn’t phase them a bit, to get away from them. We were able to get away by going inside the snack shop, which really doesn’t have a place to eat. An interesting experience. We saw them going after coffee that someone had momentarily set on a table. Obviously, they have been fed by humans and now are aggressive to get the food. But I digress…

Today we are going to walk 3 different trails in the park.


The first trail is the best one, as we go to see the Devils Throat waterfall from an Argentinian perspective. We walked to a train, and then rode an open train about 1.5 miles. Then we walk through a jungle, on paved pathways. We saw lots of raccoons, monkeys, and a caiman. A caiman is like an alligator, only smaller. He was right next to the path, laying on some lily pads in the water. All the people walking by did not phase him a bit. The monkeys were in the jungle, but moving too quick for any pictures. We get to the end of the path and have a beautiful view of “Devils Throat” which is the biggest waterfall.

The second trail is called the upper circuit and you view the falls from the top. As we walked, we definitely had some beautiful views of the falls.Walking above the falls let’s you view the slowly moving water which will soon go tumbling over the falls. As we walked along, we saw many huge spiders in their webs just off the path. Our guide said these are called golden spiders because when the sun shines on their web, it looks like gold.

After our second trail, it is about 1:00 and our guide directs us to a restaurant, supposedly with air conditioning. We were very hot and sweaty, and air conditioning sounded real good about now. Well, the air conditioning units were fighting a losing battle with people going in and out the doors almost continuously, and some people leaving the doors wide open. It was cooler inside, but barely. Because of the heat and activity, we did not feel like eating much. We did have a snack, and drank lots of fluids.


Most of the people in our tour group had elected to do a boat trip on the river, like Maid of the Mist at Niagra, which includes getting very wet. Dave did not want to get wet, so we went on our third hike. The third hike is the lower circuit and you were able to see the falls from below and watch the water falling. This trail had more ups and downs where the first two trails were very flat. Again, some beautiful views of the falls.

The first photo is to illustrate how there are many waterfalls.

Beautiful view of Devils Throat from our third hike on lower circuit.

Various pictures of some of the wildlife we saw.

Look close for the caiman in and on the lily pads.

I was just amazed at how close we could get and the wildlife did not seem to be afraid of humans. We were warned many, many times to not try and touch the raccoons, with pictures of people who had been bit or scratched. So maybe the wildlife is not afraid of humans because humans are afraid of them!

February 18 – 19. 2020 – Iguazu to Buenos Aires

Tuesday was pretty much a travel day. We flew from Iguazu to Buenos Aires. So, some notes about Iguazu….there are lots of speed bumps! Taxis are pretty reasonable…from hotel to airport was 800 pesos, or about $13usd. We were very satisfied with our hotel in Puerto Iguazu. The staff was very helpful and spoke English very well. We have noticed lots of children and families traveling with children. The school year in Argentina runs March to December, so the kids are on their summer break…it is summer in this part of the world.


Arriving in a Buenos Aires, we land at a different airport – probably their original airport. We had to climb down stairs and take a bus to the terminal. This was true of our flights from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazu, too. We hired a private car to take us to our hotel and the taxi fare was the equivalent of $13. We are staying at the Hotel Sileo which is across the street from the Recoleta Cemetary, where Eva Peron is buried. We have a view of the cemetery from our room 😀. After checking in and asking the desk person a thousand questions, we set out to find a few essentials….wine, soda, snacks and a SIM card. We are successful!


We did not have much for lunch, and by 6:00pm we were pretty hungry. Dave had identified a few steak houses, but Argentinians are a late night crowd, and most of the restaurants don’t open until 7:00pm or 7:30pm. Our hotel knew of one that was open all the time and close by. We are in a touristy area, by the Recoleta Cemetary. We had a great dinner, and very reasonable: two appetizers, we shared an 800gram steak served with bacon, some veggies and French fries. We had a bottle of water, a bottle of wine, and two more glasses of wine (!)….all for about $42.


The table behind us was a family and the man had ordered a beer. It came in a tall container, holding 2 liters, with an ice cylinder in the center. I hadn’t seen anything like this before. Dave asked the man if we could take a photo, and he was very accommodating, moving chairs and anything that would block the photo.

Obviously, he drank most of the beer!

The people we have met have been very kind, helpful, and informative. The guy who checked us in at our hotel would have been the exception – Dave said he needed a personality adjustment.


Wednesday – Our plan is to visit the sites in the area called “Centro”. We decided to take the metro/subway. The ticket window lady called someone who spoke English to help us. We had to buy a card, and then “fill it” with enough fare to complete our journey. That done, we had to figure out which direction to go. Dave speaks a very little Spanish, and I speak none. But, we asked passers by and they always pointed us in the right direction and which stop where we wanted to get off. We even had to change lines! But all went well and we found our first destination, Teatro Colon.

Teatro Colon is the Buenos Aires opera house. It is among the worlds top five opera houses, and claims to be number one in acoustics. We were able to get a tour in English, along with about 30 other people! Our guide spoke very good English and was pretty easy to understand. The opera house was built over a 20 year period and contains materials like Italian marble, Parisian stained glass windows, and Venetian mosaics. One reason it took so long to build was that the first architect died, and he was only 44 years old. They found another architect who died under mysterious circumstances – also at age 44. So there was some difficulty to find another architect because of the fear of a curse of dying at 44 years of age. Eventually they found a Belgium architect who was in his 50’s, and they were able to complete the building in 1908. One reason all the different materials is because of the different architects. In the entryway are Venetian mosaics, which are about 1/2 inch square. These were all set by hand. There are several stained glass windows in the entryway and areas surrounding the outside of the theatre, with musical themes of course. One long, large lounge room was only for those with the most expensive tickets. This room had beautiful chandeliers. Dave got so enthralled with taking pictures here that he, and 4 others, got separated from our group and had to ask someone where the group went. We entered the theater, which is 7 stories tall. The stage area is as big as the seating area. The opera season runs from March through December. It was important to be seen. The wealthy ladies of the time were taken with France and wore all the French gowns of the day. However, our guide noted that French seasons were opposite Argentinian seasons. So these fashionistas would wear French winter gowns during Argentinian summers, and French summer gowns during Argentinian winters because they had to be seen wearing the current fashions.


The acoustics are so good that Luciano Pavarotti said, “the Colon has only one flaw: the acoustics are so good that every mistake can be heard”.

For some reason, I had trouble posting the pictures of the lounge, and inside the theater. As I work with this website, hopefully I will get better.

After leaving the opera house, we walked to the “Plaza de Mayo”. It was constructed in 1589 and has been the setting for Argentina’s most politically turbulent moments, including the uprising against Spanish colonial rule on May 25, 1810 – hence its name. In the center is a statue, and around the statue are painted white headscarves representing the Mothers of May Square who have marched here every Thursday at 3:30pm for nearly four decades. These are housewives and mothers, turned militant activists, who demand justice for the people who “disappeared” during Argentina’s dictatorial military government, 1976 – 1983.


At the East end of Plaza de Mayo is the Casa Rosado, better known as the Pink House. The building houses the government’s executive branch and was built in the late 19th century. The president of Argentina works here but lives elsewhere. The nation’s flag flys above the Pink House and a small banner beneath the nation’s flag indicates the president is in. The Pink House was painted pink as a symbol of the unification between two warring political factions: the federales, whose color was red, and the unitarios, whose color was white. Legend has it that the original paint was made by mixing whitewash with bull’s blood.

The balcony of the Pink House faces Plaza de Mayo and is a presidential podium. This is the balcony where Evita rallied the “descamisados”, meaning the working class, who were in Plaza de Mayo, and where Madonna sang “Don’t cry for me Argentina”.

Just off the north west end of the plaza, on top of one of the museums, are two figures who ring a bell at the top of each hour.

We visited a free museum in back of the Pink House, but unfortunately, all the descriptions were in Spanish, so it was a quick visit. Inside the museum were mementos of all the presidents. The displays includes clothing, china, etc. There was a large painting of Juan and Evita Peron, and their 1956 (?) Cadillac was on display. There were a few other, much older, presidential carriages on display, too. This museum was build on the foundations of a fort that had originally sat here, and we could see parts of the original walls.

After a lunch break of a shared pizza and 2 glasses of beer (for about $8), we walked to El Zanjon de Granados. This house is now a museum, and we had a tour in English. The street it is on was once a small river, the Zanjon, where the first, unsuccessful attempt to found Buenos Aires took place in 1536. At that time, the house was very close to the bay. When the current owner bought and decided to develop it, he discovered all sorts of things below: pottery, cutlery, foundations of past constructions and a 500 foot network of tunnels that took over 25 years to excavate. The house was originally built by a wealthy Spanish family, and had 2 cisterns, 3 lounges, besides bedrooms, bathrooms and a kitchen. Records have shown this Spanish family had servants and a slave. In the 1800’s, Buenos Aires was devastated by disease, especially yellow fever. All the wealthy people in this area moved, trying to escape the disease. The house was subsequently turned into a tenement house, housing over 20 families, with 2 bathrooms and one kitchen. The tunnel network had been built before the Spanish family built their house, by people living along the Zanjon River. Each owner built the structure over the river to try to prevent flooding. It was very interesting because by visiting this house, we heard about the history of Buenos Aires from the residents perspective.

February 20, 2020 – Buenos Aires

We had an exciting adventure today…..but not until early afternoon.

We were very happy with both of our hotels so far. We do not stay in expensive hotels, and amenities are not that important to us. First and foremost we are looking for a clean bed and bathroom. Hotel Saint George in Puerto Iguazu had several amenities including a pool, hot tub, spa services, an exercise room, a bar and a restaurant. We only used the last two ☹️. Our hotel in Buenos Aires was Sileo Hotel, and it promotes itself as a boutique hotel. The big draw for us was the proximity to Recoleta Cemetary and the cruise ship terminal. It had a bar, but we did not see anybody at the bar. We did have a balcony with a view of the Cemetary, which is a bit of a sore point for me. We reserved a deluxe room with a view of the cemetery. It is a small hotel, I think 8 floors and only 3 rooms to a floor. When we checked in, I noticed the clerk had a paper with our information, and 702 was crossed out and 202 entered. The next paper with someone else’s information had 202 crossed out and 702 entered. We got downgraded from the 7th floor, which would have had a much better view, down to the 2nd floor. I asked for a higher room, but he claimed none were available. Hmmmm…. We did have a view over the Cemetary wall, just not as good as it could have been. Both hotels served breakfasts with scrambled eggs, meat and lots of other goodies.


This morning we check out of our hotel. We are going to visit the Cemetary and the Eva Peron Museum. The hotel will store our luggage, and after our sightseeing, we’ll go back to the hotel, get our luggage and a taxi to the ship.

The big draw to the Cemetary is Eva Peron’s grave. The Recoleta Cemetary is the most expensive real estate in Buenos Aires. The mausoleum monuments are practically on top of each other, they are packed in. There are more than 6,400 elaborate vaulted tombs and majestic mausoleums, 70 of which have been declared historic monuments. Some are in very good shape while others are crumbling. Some have doors with windows and you can look inside. Sometimes you can see caskets, usually on shelves. Some have little chapels. Many have a narrow stairway going down to a lower level. I imagine big families needed more space for family members. While writing about it seems morbid, it is interesting and some of the monuments are quite beautiful. Some had stained glass windows. There are lots of graves of generals and Presidents. Our Fodor’s book on Buenos Aires had a map of the Cemetary and some of the graves were highlighted. I think one of the most interesting is Eva Duerte Peron’s, of course. She died very young, 33 years old, of Uterine cancer. Because of the political environment, her body was stolen and not returned for 18 years. She is buried in her family’s monument, and not with Juan Peron.


We saw the tomb of Rufina Cambaceres, a girl who died twice. Entombed on her 19th birthday in 1902, she awoke inside her casket and clawed the top open. Unfortunately she then died of a heart attack before she could be rescued.



One last monument is said to be the most monumental sepulcher:

After the Cemetary, we walked to the Eva Peron museum. We did not take any pictures here. As we walked through, there were descriptions in English. While Eva was really a young woman when married to the president, Juan Peron, she championed women’s right to vote, labor rights, and ran a charitable foundation. Women in Argentina did not get the right to vote until 1961. Previous First Ladies of Argentina did not speak out, but stayed in the background. Dave and I thought her popularity was similar to that of a Princess Diana or Jackie Kennedy. Eva toured Europe and South America promoting Argentina and even signing trade agreements on behalf of Argentina. She was born in poverty, and lost her father at a young age, leaving her mother as the sole breadwinner with 5 children. While her political base was the blue collar worker, Eva seemed to enjoy the good life. Many of her dresses were displayed, and it was documented that she liked the high priced designers. No pictures here, but Dave and I plan to read up more on Argentina politics of the day. It is curious why her body was stolen, and why she was not buried with Juan Peron. Juan had 3 wives – Eva was #2.


Here is our adventure of the day…..After visiting the museum, we walked back to the hotel, collected our bags, and the hotel staff called a cab for us. This was about 1:15pm. The cab arrives, and does not speak English. He keeps babbling to us in Spanish and we keep telling him we don’t speak Spanish. I had the address of the port, and showed it to him. He seemed to understand where we were going, but Dave and I were kinda eyeballing each other. We drive for awhile, and we see some large ships in the distance, so we figure we’re going the right way. Then he starts slowing down, and gradually pulls over to the curb. He is babbling in Spanish and we have no clue what is going on. Dave says to me, “this is not good”. The driver gets out of the cab, and so do we. Finally we figure out that he has run out of gas!!!!!!! He’s gesturing that the entrance is not too far away, but we’re not seeing it. He is pointing to the left and we see our ship to the right. The driver takes my bags and starts pulling them down the street and Dave and I are following….I’m sure our little parade looked comical. We go about a block, and I happen to see another taxi, so I yelled at our first driver to stop, and the second guy figures out what is going on and said he’d take us. So we get everything into the second cab, who drives about another block or two, turns and enters the port. So, yes, we could have walked from where he ran out of gas, but we didn’t know. We were just glad it all worked out. Even though it was a short ride, Dave gave the 2nd driver a nice tip.


We boarded the ship, and spent most of the afternoon relaxing. We have signed up to go to a tango show in the evening with 6 other people I met on Cruise Critic message boards. Buenos Aires is a late night town, and our driver is going to pick us up between 8:00pm and 8:30pm. The driver arrives in a mini van, and proceeds to stop at 3 other hotels picking up more people for the tango show. The tango show is at a restaurant, Cafe de Las Angelos. It is a fairly large theater, and we are seated to the far right of the stage, but could see pretty well. First we are served dinner (it is probably 10:00pm by this time). We have a choice of appetizer, main, and a dessert. Dave had empanadas, trout and chocolate mousse. I had empanadas, steak and a dessert with berries and cream. Most at our table were drinking red wine, and they just left us bottles, so pretty free flowing. Dave and one other person drank white wine, and did not get as frequent refills. The dinner was very good. After dinner, the show began, and while we could not understand the singing, because it was in Spanish, the dancing was really good. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the show. The show ended about 12:15am, so we got back to the ship pretty late.

The tango can be very sultry, but also elegant and beautiful. We all commented that the dancers were very flexible and learning the tango is not possible for us mature people!

February 21 – 22, 2020 – Buenos Aires to Montevideo, Uruguay

Friday: After getting in late from our tango show last night, we were not moving fast this morning. The ship is spending the day in port, and leaving Buenos Aires at 5:30pm.

We have done a lot of sightseeing already in Buenos Aires, and today we are getting off the ship to get a little exercise, and do some shopping. Dave likes the little packages of Kleenex, so we will look for those. I am a bit frustrated because we have the beverage package but it does not include canned soda, only fountain soda, and the only diet and caffeine free sodas are in cans 😢. We will look for some Sprite Zero or diet 7-up. Our last item is a strap for my sunglasses because the one I brought from home, broke. We walk off the ship and towards the city and we quickly found all the items on our shopping list! We decided to walk a little more and found some parks. The first thing we see is a tall monument, and we check it out.

This monument was given to Buenos Aires by its British citizens. Construction started in 1910 and the opening ceremony was in 1916. We paid $100 pesos (~$1.62) each to ride the elevator to the top. There is a walkway just under the clock and you can walk all the way around. There was a guide, but he was speaking Spanish. There are nice views from the top and the east view looks down on another park that holds the grave of an Argentinian unknown soldier. There were 2 military people guarding the grave, but unlike the US unknown soldier, the Argentian guards stood watch. We wandered around the park a little more, and then headed back to the ship. We passed a wine store, and of course we stopped in and bought a bottle. I guess we smuggled it onboard because security is done by the port and not the ship.

We went to our elite happy hour, then dinner. We spent the evening listening to Sammy in Crooner’s, the martini bar. He was playing the piano and singing songs from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. We’ll probably go back, as he was very entertaining.

Saturday: we are in Montevideo, Uruguay. Uruguay seems to be a liberal country when compared to its neighbors of Brazil and Argentina. We went on a “free” walking tour….the guide is paid in whatever tip you want to give him. It was a bit difficult to understand some of his commentary, and many of the people he mentioned, we were unfamiliar with, besides having long Spanish names. So I did not learn much about the history of Uruguay. Some of the tidbits I gleaned were that unlike Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay’s national religion is not catholic, and probably 50% of the population is atheist or agnostic. Part of the reason for this is they did not limit immigration. There were immigrants from Africa, and those that were not sold off to slavery stayed in Uruguay. According to our guide, many of the people of Uruguay have African blood. However, we observed very, very few black people. Uruguay was the first country in South America to sever relations between church and state, the first South American country to give women the right to vote, to permit same sex marriage, to legalize marijuana, and to enact a generous social welfare program. Polls consistently rate Montevideo as having the highest quality of life of any city in South America. According to our guide, Uruguay consumes more beef per capita than any other country, and is also #1 in “mate” consumption. Mate is a caffeinated hot drink that of course I had to try. I saw it being consumed in Iguazu, Buenos Aires and Montevideo, but did not know how to get some. Basically is is a cup filled with special herbs with hot water poured over the herbs to seep like tea. Then you drink it through a special straw that filters out the herbs. Our walking guide referred me to a coffee house where I could finally try it. Mate is very common among residents of the South American countries we have visited, but rare to find on a menu.


We did not find Montevideo as nice as Buenos Aires, but we had a short visit, and were mostly in the old part of town. We wanted to eat lunch here because they supposedly have great beef. There is an old building near the harbor that has 14 restaurants under one roof, where beef is cooked over large fires. It looks like an old train station. It is smoky inside, because of the beef being cooked over open wood fires. We picked one and ordered lunch. We ordered rib eye and told the waitress we would share. The rib eye was so huge, it could have fed at least 4 people. Unfortunately, we found the beef very tough and chewy. Another couple from the ship sat next to us (they had a different waiter), supposedly ordered the same dish, and said their beef was very tender and delicious. To add insult to injury, we ordered a bottle of wine, but Dave liked the Argentine wines much better.

After dinner tonight we’ll probably go see Sammy in Crooners again. He is going to do a couple of music trivia games tonight. Dave will be good at that – not me. Tomorrow is a sea day, so we will rest. We have been walking a lot, getting between 15,000 and 20,000 steps a day. It will be nice to relax.

February 23 – 24, 2020 – Sea Day and Puerto Madryn

Sunday -A sea day! We did not do too much…mostly read, walked the ship and basically rested. Late morning we attended a lecture on Port Madryn. Our cruise critic meet & greet was held in the late afternoon. Several of the ships officers attended and introduced themselves. It is a formal night so after the meet & greet we changed into our dressier attire, not formal by any means. People wear everything from formal tuxedos and gowns, suits and dresses, t-shirts with a tuxedo design, jeans, pants and ladies pantsuits…..just about anything goes. We ran into the people we met on the Montevideo walking tour, Gail & Gary, that ate steak next to us ….they had the good steak. We sat down and chatted with them for awhile. They’re from Wisconsin, but spend several months a year in the Villages, in Florida. He plays softball so they schedule their vacations around his softball season. He is missing 6 games this trip – made me think of our Stillwater friend, Mikey. We have changed our dining from anytime to fixed. When we went to anytime dinner, there was a huge line and a long wait. After awhile, a couple of waiters came and got us and took us to the set time dining room, where there were several open tables. The late fixed dining time is 7:30pm which works well for us because we can go to the Elite happy hour which is from 4:30 to 6:30pm. We can get a drink and a little snack to hold us over until dinner time. We went to the show which was a production show. Generally we like the production shows, but we did not like this one. The name of the show was Silk, and it was about a man who saved a bird from hunters. The bird later shows up at his house in human form, so he doesn’t realize it is the bird. The bird uses its feathers to weave fabric, but the man doesn’t know the bird is using its feathers. There is music, and snippets of songs we knew. The acoustics were bad, so it took us awhile to recognize the songs. Anyway, we were glad when the show was over.

Monday – Puerto Madryn is in Patagonia. We looked very hard to find something interesting in this port. There was one full day shore excursion, but it included 1.5 hours each way riding on a bus, which just doesn’t appeal to us. So we decide to just get off the boat and see what we could find. It is not very nice in the morning…temps in the 50’s, strong winds, and rain threatening. There are huge tides, so the ship is docked at the end of a long pier, 2 km per our port lecturer yesterday.


There are shuttle buses to take us from the ship to the shore. Dave has a map, showing a mall, so we head there first. A couple is doing a free tango show which we stop and watch.


The mall is pretty small, but has maybe 20 stores on 2 floors. The 3rd floor is a restaurant, and a large play area for kids and teens. I saw a historical museum shown on the map, so we walk there – but it is closed. The port lecturer had mentioned a city tour bus, so we set off to to find it. It was on a train – bus vehicle and did a 1.25 hour tour for $15USD per person. It actually was pretty good. A guide gave descriptions in English and Spanish. English was her second language, so she was a bit hard to understand.

Puerto Madryn was settled by Welsh people who arrived in 1865. Knowing this, I wonder why there is not more English spoken here. The indigenous people, Tehuelche Indians were already in the area and helped the Welsh survive. The Welsh people were very hardworking. In 1972, a factory producing aluminum was built outside the city. This plant, which covers a very large area, operates 24 hours a day. The city has grown out ward all the way to the plant, and developed since the plant opened. The four things that contribute to Puerto Madryn economy are Aluminum, tourism, fishing and rock (which is cut and used in buildings).


From March to December, Puerto Madryn is a great place for whale watching. There is a 2 mile long wide pedestrian walkway along the bay where in whale watching season, you can actually see the whales cavorting in the water. There are also sea lions and dolphins. We are not visiting during the wildlife viewing season, so we do not get to see the whales, sea lions or dolphins. During the wildlife viewing season, you can snorkel with the sea lions. Puerto Madryn is also well known for diving. There are several structures out in the bay that our guide said were diving platforms. Our guide pointed out trees along the walkway that had been carved. After our city tour, we walked back and took photos of some of the carved trees.


Besides the historical museum being closed, we noticed a lot of the stores were closed. Our city tour guide mentioned that today was a holiday. We never found out what holiday, but it did explain why we were not finding much to do. The city tour saved our day.


Gasoline – in Buenos Aires we saw stations advertising gas for 53.79 pesos per liter. I calculated that to be about $3.00 per gallon. Not much different that what we pay in the US. In Puerto Madryn I saw a station adverting it’s gas prices. I don’t know what Infinia is as compared to super, but took this photo of their prices.

By the time we finished our city tour, about 2:00PM, the weather had changed for the better. We were stripping off our jackets and sweatshirts. The sun came out!

February 25 – 26, 2020 – Sea Day and Falkland Islands

Tuesday – Another sea day, but a good thing. Dave has a bad cold, so we are not mixing socially, much. We did go to the port lecture of The Falkland Islands. Penguins are the highlight. I am a little amazed at how crazy people are over penguins!


Wednesday – Falkland Islands consist of over 700 islands, but only a few, less than 10, are occupied. While Argentina claims Falkland Islands, they are actually a British possession. In 1982, there was a war between Argentina and the British. Argentina invaded the capital, Stanley. Britain defended its possession. These are approximate numbers, but 3 civilians, 300 British and 800 Argentinian’s died in the war. The civilians were 3 ladies who were in close proximity to a British ordinance that unexpectedly exploded…so, friendly fire. There is still animosity between Argentina and Falkland residents. Falkland is pretty isolated, with few flights, like less than 1 per day. However, they do not fly through any airport in Argentina. They connect through Santiago, Chile or Cape Verde Islands. Our shipboard newspaper asked us to not wear any Argentinian logo wear while in port.


Fortunately, no rain in the forecast, but it is windy with 12 – 22 mph winds forecast throughout the day. The temperature ranges from 48 to 52 degrees. We are fortunate that we are going to make this port. Supposedly it is only a 50:50 chance. The Falklands rarely receive snow anymore. We take tenders to get from the ship to Stanley. It is about a 15 minute ride, and I notice a dolphin riding the wave right next to the tender. As we exit the tender, there is a sea lion sunning itself at the end of the dock. All the activity does not seem to bother him in the least. Another one is swimming just off the dock.


We had reserved a full day tour to Volunteer Point to see …. Penguins! We reserved with a Patrick Watts. Not only was he apparently a war hero during the Falklands war, he runs tours in 4×4’s to Volunteer Point. This trip is something that I’m glad we did, but would never do it again.

Patrick Watts has four 4×4 vehicles, and there is a driver and 6 passengers. Our driver was Toni, and she was great. She is a 6th generation Falklander (I’m assuming that’s the correct term), her and her husband own 16000 acres with 5000 sheep, which is considered small. She and her husband drive for Patrick. She is very knowledgeable about the Falklands and answers all our questions. They use generators and solar panels for power. Children are schooled at home by traveling teachers and computers until age 9. Then they are boarded in Stanley through high school. If their grades are good enough, the Falklands pays their tuition, room and board, and a small stipend to attend university in London, England. Currently Toni’s son, who married an English girl and they’re expecting their first child, lives in England. Toni’s daughter, who is single, also lives in England. Toni’s daughter would like to get married and come back to Falkland to run the farm, but she’s in her early 30’s and it will be unlikely for her to find a husband in England who would be willing to move to the Falklands.

As we drive, we are first on a paved road. We see the frame of a crashed helicopter left over from the 1982 war.

Then we turn onto a gravel road, and drive until we reach a gate. It is about 1 hour and 15 minutes since we left the port city of Stanley. This stop is a rest stop. The person that owns this land likes to bake, and has a “honor” bakery cabinet. You can take one of the baked goods and leave a payment in whatever amount you feel the bakery item is worth. There were brownies, muffins, scones and various bars. They all looked good and I took 4 different ones (The chocolate brownie was for Dave). They also had bathrooms here. The person that owns this land, the Johnson farm, has 26,000 acres if I remember right, and is paid for people to cross the farm. From here on, it there is no road. In some places we can see a path, but it is basically off the road, over rocky, hilly land. It takes us another hour and 15 minutes to get to the penguins.

It is hard to describe how bumpy this path was. Toni says she is not a religious person, but note the cross hanging from her mirror…. We literally bumped and rocked for 1.25 hours. She did drive very slow to make the best of it.

When we finally are approaching Volunteer Point, the location of all the penguins, Toni points to a house and indicates her brother and sister in law are rangers for the penguins. They are allowed to live in this house, but they do not own it. We have to dip our feet in disinfectant. The penguins are in the process of hatching their eggs, or caring for their newly hatched babies. The eggs or infants are balanced on their feet, and covered by their stomach. Both male and female tend to the eggs and young. There is a large area sectioned off by white stones and we are told we cannot go into that area. There are penguins all over, and a large group inside the stones that are tending to their eggs and/or young. These are the King Penguins.


We also see Magellanic and Gentoo Penguins. The Gentoo penguins look similar to the Kings, but are smaller and not as colorful. The King Penguins have a beautiful yellow marking on their face. We saw some Gentoo penguins laying on their tummy and I asked one of the rangers about them. She said they were young, waiting for their parents to return with food. They lay on their tummy, exposing their black backside to the sun for warmth.

The Magellanic Penguins look a little different and have a white marking around their eye. They dig burrows in the sand where they hatch and raise their young.


We get to do that wonderful 2.5 hour drive back to town. It was such a relief when we got back to the gate at the entrance to the Johnson farm because it was now a gravel road. Toni is a very good driver, so she is usually the lead, and the other 11 4×4’s follow her. On the way back, one of the drivers, Shawn, likes a different path, so Shawn and 4 other vehicles take a slightly different path. All the drivers were yucking it up on the radio when Shawn got stuck. It wasn’t serious, but he was hung up for a few minutes. Toni said they purposely drive in convoys in case one of the drivers has a problem.

Toni gives us a little driving tour of Stanley. It takes like 5 minutes, because it is a small town. The entire population of all the Falkland Islands is less than 3000 people. One person collects Whale skeletons, one of which Toni says came from their farm. I think it was the Killer Whale.

She also drove by the Governors house.

She drove by the whalebone arch, but did not stop. She takes us back to the port and our tour is finished. It is about 4:30pm, and the last tender back to the ship was 5:00, but there is a very long line awaiting the tenders, which strings back near the whalebone arch. So we walked back and got our picture.

We got in line, and it started to rain. Fortunately the rain held off until the very end of the day. Our coats were waterproof, so the rain wasn’t too bad. We had to wait about 1/2 hour in the rain before we finally got our tender back to the ship.


We hurried and went to our elite happy hour, and had some shrimp and drinks. I tried a new drink that was like a Margarita, but with muddled jalapeños peppers. It was very good, but very filling.


Tomorrow is a sea day, with a couple of port lectures, but mostly R&R, especially with Dave recovering from his cold.

February 27 – 28, 2020 – Sea Day and Ushuaia

Thursday – Sea Day – Dave is feeling better, so we are more active today. He says he has a chest cold, but whatever he has must not be contagious because I haven’t gotten sick….yet!

We went to 2 port lectures today. The weather is very rough. According to the captain, the waves are 12 to 15 feet high, and winds are 30 mph. Unfortunately, we were unable to sail around Cape Horn. We got within 25 miles and the weather kept deteriorating, so the captain decided it was not safe. Apparently there is a ranger on Cape Horn and he said the winds were 100 knots! When we look out the windows, the waves are huge. Most of the decks are restricted and we can’t go outside. We can get outside on the top deck, but it’s too cold to venture out there. What is really strange, is the ship is not rocking and rolling that much. As the captains makes the turn toward Beaver Channel, he says the ship will list 5 degrees. We felt it when he made the turn, but it was not dramatic. I believe there are only 3 passages from the Atlantic to the Pacific around South America, other than the Panama Canal of course! The Beaver Channel, Drakes Passage and the Strait of Magellan. Our ship is taking the Beaver Channel towards Ushuaia which will be our last Argentinian port.


After dinner we went to the theater to hear a pianist, Reuel. He had a good show, but not as good as a Brooks Aerhen, who we’ e heard on previous cruises.

Friday – Ushuaia – We have a ship excursion today, Drive to the End of the World. It is very cold, about 40 degrees, and 30mph winds….and its summer here! Our excursion is a bus ride to the Argentinian National Park, “Parque National Tierra Del Fuego”. The land of fires refers to the bon fires the indigenous people burned. The scenery is beautiful. We stopped at the end of the Pan-American Highway. We look cold, don’t we? Actually I am very happy with my new coat. It shed rain when we got rained on, and has kept me warm so far this trip.

We made several stops at different lakes, and the scenery was just beautiful.

We spotted some black neck swans.

Our guide told us they do not have any reptiles, and few mammals. One native mammal, guanaco, looks like a llama with short hair and is in the camel family. They also have fox, rabbits and beaver. The beaver and rabbits are not native. The beaver were brought here in an attempt to raise beaver for their fur. When the endeavor was unsuccessful, they released the beaver into the forest and with no natural predators, the beaver have multiplied unchecked. Unfortunately, we did not see any of the mammals. But we did see horses outside the visitor center!

February 29, 2020 – Punta Arenas

We have an all day ships excursion for the Punta Arenas port. It is a tender port, so we have to take a tender to get to the mainland. Once we are on land, it is warmer, (not warm, just warmer) but very, very windy. our tour bus arrived about 15 minutes late. Our guide for the day, Diego, keeps saying a few more minutes, but it seems like we are waiting a very long time. As is typical, English is Diego’s second language, so it is sometimes hard to understand him.


Our first stop is the Salesian’s Museum. I am a little disappointed in Diego because he just says, “you have 40 minutes here” with no direction. There is some English explanations, but most in Spanish, so his explanations would have been very helpful. The museum is ran by Italian missionaries, the Salesian’s. They traveled through the region and collected artifacts made by indigenous tribes, which is what is displayed. Much of the displays are flora and fauna of the region. Many stuffed animals and birds. There is a little description about taxidermy. One of the animals I was hoping to see was a guanaco, which I finally saw, but he was stuffed.

The indigenous people were hardy people. They did not wear clothes, and it is very cold here. They lived and traveled in their canoes and sometimes huts. They actually built fires in their canoes to keep warm. Apparently they build the fires on a clay and stone platform to keep from burning up the canoe. I was fascinated by the canoe history.

The Italian missionaries relocated many of the indigenous people to an island where many subsequently died, many from disease. I imagine the missionaries were trying to help them, and save them from the hard life they were living, but the change in lifestyle and exposure to disease killed them.

The museum also had displays showing the original settlers were looking for gold, then mined coal, and then oil.


Our next stop was a Cemetery, which is suppose to be the most beautiful Cemetery in the world, which is probably contested where there are other beautiful cemeteries. There are rows and rows of cypress trees, which according to Diego, are planted in all cemeteries because the smell of the cypress keeps rats away. Diego takes us to the grave of an aboriginal who died about 1910. His body was found next to a dead Spanish soldier, and it is presumed they killed one another. This may have been one of the last, if not the last, of the aborigines. The government decided to bury him in this Cemetary. People come to his grave and rub his hand, asking his intercession with God, for miracles. There are many plaques, indicating gratitude for his intercession.

The next important grave that we visit is José Menendez, a Spanish businessman. He started many businesses and industries in Punta Arenas, many of which are still in existence today. However, it is claimed that he killed off many of the native people. He is said to have offered a reward when the hands of the natives were brought to him. Thus, his monument is covered in red paint and red hand prints, symbolic of protesting his actions.

Then it is time for lunch (😳), but our lunch break is a very good experience. We are given a choice of a pisco sour (regional beverage), red wine or orange juice as a welcome drink, and an empanada. Lunch is a buffet where we are offered lamb and/or chicken, and a buffet of side dishes. The meat is cooked over an open fire.

Beverages, including red and white wine were pretty free flowing. We had coffee and a rhubarb compote for dessert. Lunch was very good!


After lunch, the owner took us for a walk where he had llamas and sheep in a pasture behind the lunch building. They animals knew him very well and would come up to the fence for treats he would give them.


This acreage was in a beautiful setting overlooking the Straight of Magellan. We continued walking to a shed, where there were some old cars, a few sheep, and a stage area. We were given a demonstration on shearing a sheep.

Obviously, I enjoyed our lunch break. The owner has a huge farm elsewhere with several thousand sheep. He had a small museum, and this farm goes back generations. His ancestor was originally from Scotland with experience raising sheep.

Our next stop was Fort Bulnes, which is a reconstruction. Originally founded in 1843, it was the first Chilean settlement of the territory since the country’s independence only a couple of decades earlier and it became the origin of the city of Punta Arenas. The Chilean President at the time wanted to build the fort to discourage claims from other nations. The structures were built using sod bricks, and some log buildings. Dave had a strong allergic reaction when he entered the building made of logs! While the intent was to establish a town here, the harsh weather kept them from attracting a stable population, and as a result, after 6 years, the fort was abandoned and destroyed. Instead, the government founded the city of Punta Arenas.


So sailing into Ushuaia, we were in the Beagle channel (named after the HMS Beagle ship), and today we are in the Stait of Magellan.

After visiting the fort, we drove back to Punta Arenas to visit the main square, Plaza Munoz Gamerez. Munoz was a Chilean naval officer killed during an uprising. You are suppose to rub the aborigine’s big toe, also part of the statue, which means you’ll return to Punta Arenas. There were lots of young people hanging around the square. Diego did talk about the protests a little. The protests are for free education, better health care and pensions. Many windows are boarded up, or have bars on them. Rocks were thrown threw the windows of the bank. There is a lot of graffiti.


Sara Braun was a famous citizen of Punta Arenas. She was born in Latvia, but her family migrated because of persecution of the Jews, eventually ending up in Punta Arenas. As a young woman of 24, she married José Nogueira, 42, a Portuguese shipping magnate. The two worked together to build a business empire. He died 6 years later and she took over the business, becoming the first woman to run a business in the area. With the help of her brother, through family ties and astute trading, they controlled the sheep production in the region and influenced the development of Southern Chile. She was involved in many charitable endeavors and is remembered for her charitable works.

While Diego was not our best guide, I liked this port because I felt like I learned more about the history of this region.

March 1 – 3, 2020 – (2) Sea Days and Puerto Montt

Update: I got an email from my cousin Sandie that the unusual tree we saw at Fort Bulnes was a “Monkey Puzzle Tree”, so named because monkeys couldn’t climb it. Here is the link she sent me: https://owlcation.com/stem/The-Monkey-Puzzle-Tree-An-Ancient-and-Endangered-Plant

Sunday and Monday were sea days, and we went to port lectures, entertainment in the theaters, and a sing-a-long in the martini bar. We just got the last few minutes of a presentation on navigation. One person asked why we didn’t go around Cape Horn. The answer was that there is a person who lives on Cape Horn and communicates with ships. That person indicated the winds were 100 knots, which converts to 115mph. It sounded like that person also has the authority to tell ships not to sail around the Horn. However, with winds that strong, the Captain of our boat, the Coral Princess, was not going to risk the lives of the passengers, or damage to the ship with winds that strong.

We had scenic cruising Monday afternoon as we sailed to see the Amalia Glacier, which is a tidewater glacier. According to Wikipedia, “The tidewater glacier cycle is the typically centuries-long behavior of tidewater glaciers that consists of recurring periods of advance alternating with rapid retreat and punctuated by periods of stability. During portions of its cycle, a tidewater glacier is relatively insensitive to climate change.” To get to this glacier, the ship had to sail into a “dead end” channel, and the glacier was at the end. We were told the captain would do a 360 degree turn so everyone would get a good look, but he only did a 180 degree turn, and we were on the wrong side (port) of the ship. We ran out the back door, and got some good pictures…well, considering it was foggy and raining ☹️. It was interesting because as we got closer to the glacier, there were more and more chunks of ice in the water, and the water actually looked “slushy” on top. I use my google maps frequently when I’m on a cruise to get a better look at where I’m at. It was weird, because google maps showed we were on the middle of land!

Tuesday – Dave is still coughing, a lot, so he is going to stay onboard the ship and I’m going to go on the Puerto Montt tour by myself. We had booked a tour with an independent company, GV Tours. We also booked a transfer from the ship to our hotel in Santiago (with a vineyard tour) with the same company. They have been frustrating because in booking, they say they’ll get back to you with meet up details 30 days before, but they didn’t. I finally heard from them after multiple emails, Facebook messages and WhatsApp. So, I want to see how this first tour with them goes. We have 13 people on a mini bus, and our guide is Val. She is young and nice, but really doesn’t do much “guiding”. As she is talking while we are riding in the bus, I can’t hear her as I’m in the back of the bus. I hear other people around me saying they can’t hear her either, so it’s not just me. But I did learn a few things about this area, mostly from our port lecturer.

Puerto Montt was settled in 1853 , mostly by Germans. However, today, there are very few Germans in Puerto Montt. It is a city of about 250,000 people, and according to our guide, it is the capital of the region. This region of Chile has active volcanos, which is the big draw. Puerto Montt sits on the second largest lake in Chile, Lago Llanquihue, with an area of 330 square miles. In 1960, a 9.6 or 9.8 earthquake destroyed most of the city. Per Val, after the earthquake, many countries came and introduced their industries. Eventually the city recovered and was rebuilt.


Apparently there is not much to see in Puerto Montt, as we head to another city, Puerto Vargas. Puerto Vargas also sits on Lago Llanquihue. we are suppose to have a view of one of the volcanos, but it is overcast and we can’t see much of anything. Val gives us 30 minutes to wander this town, but doesn’t tell us where to go. I asked her if there was a pharmacy, as I thought maybe I could get some medicine for Dave. She offered to walk with me and was very helpful with the pharmacist, translating for me. I got some cough medicine for Dave.


Val walked with me back to the lake area and I asked her about the protests. Her eyes got wide and she said it was very bad on Sunday. Women are protesting for equal rights and men were told to stay away. Our port lecturer had said protests were planned until March 11, and are worst on Sundays. I think because of our itinerary, we will be missing Chile on Sundays which will be a good thing. Sunday the 8th, we’ll be in Peru, and the following Sunday, the 15th, we’ll be boarding Celebrity Eclipse for the last leg of our trip.

Puerto Vargas is known as the rose city, and there are roses planted everywhere. I also saw blue hydrangeas and other flowers, but roses and rose bushes were prominent.


On our way to Petrohue Waterfalls, we made a quick roadside stop. The sun had lifted some of the fog, and we had a beautiful view of Osorno Volcano.

We also had an opportunity to feed and pet llamas….which I did not do.


Then it was on to Petrohue Waterfalls. After seeing Iguazu Falls, this was not impressive. But, we saw remains of lava flow and views of the Osorno Volcano. The Osorno volcano last erupted in 1869. We walked a path to see the waterfalls and listen to the rushing water.


After visiting Petrohue Waterfalls, we went back to Puerto Varas. We had better views as the fog had somewhat lifted, although there were still low hanging clouds. We went to a small park along the lake and had a snack of red wine (or white wine or water) and an empanada. There was a statue of a woman in this park, and Val told us her legend.

The legend is that she and the mayor fell in love, but another man was jealous and started causing trouble. So they took the man and put him in the Osorno Volcano, but then the volcano started erupting. The city forefathers contacted a witch who told them the girl had to die, so they killed the girl and a bird took her heart to the Osorno Volcano. Then snow appeared on the volcano and it stopped erupting.

After our snack, we headed to Frutillar, another city, on the bus. This town was also settled with German immigrants, and they have a museum here to recognize that heritage. We did not go in the museum but had an opportunity to take pictures (?). We drove a little further to the “Theatre of the Lake”, where we were given an hour to explore on our own. Again, it would have been nice to have some guidance. I walked along the lake and the views of the volcano were phenomenal. Since I’m not a photographer, and my photographer was not with me, I could not capture the beauty, but I tried. It looked like the volcano was rising up out of the lake through a layer of clouds.

This was our last port on the Coral Princess. I would say we were a bit disappointed. It just was not as interesting as we thought it would be. Part of this is because we love history, and many of the things we visited were not very historical. I think our lack of knowledge of the Spanish language hurt, too. I felt I just could not get into my blogs very much on this trip as compared to other trips.

We are looking forward to visiting Machu Picchu, the second leg of our tip.

March 4 – 5, 2020 – Sea Day and San Antonio, Chile to Santiago, Chile

Wednesday – spent most of the day packing and trying to decide what clothes we would be taking to Machu Picchu and what clothes we would be storing at the hotel.

Thursday – We have a tour with GV Tours that will pick us up at the ship, and give us a tour on the way to Santiago. I don’t have good things to say about this company. It was hard to get information out of them once we booked. It is the same company that we toured Puerto Montt with on March 3. Eventually I got them to respond via WhatsApp and they said they would be at the port 1 hour after the ship started disembarking. Disembarking started at 7:00AM, we got off the ship by 7:30, went through customs very quickly and exited the port by 7:45AM. GV is suppose to have signs, but we didn’t see anyone. About 8:15AM we found another couple waiting, and she got an email that they would be there at 8:30. That didn’t happen. Part of the problem was that it was cold, and we really didn’t expect it to be as cold as it was. Carolina, the GV guide showed up about 8:50AM, and said her boss told her to be at the port at 9:00. I told her it would have been nice if her boss told us it was going to be 9:00. Carolina was very nice, however. We got in a little mini bus with the other couple and headed to Valparaíso, which was probably over an hour away. She took us to the home of Pablo Neruda, or one of his homes, that is a museum. Pablo Neruda was a a Nobel prize winning poet, diplomat and politician. His house looked like a ship, and had a beautiful view of the harbor.

Carolina told us how there were many murals all over the city of Valparaiso, and art in general has been promoted. She also said that neighborhoods are not segregated socio-economically, but are very mixed.

We did a walking tour and she pointed out many beautiful, big, old homes that were built by the rich, but over the years had been divided up into apartments or hotels. While walking, we happened on a free exhibition of photographs by Marcelo Montecino. As we walked through, a guide explained the meaning of each photo and Carolina translated for us. The main theme was showing how poor people lived during the dictatorship.

Valparaíso is built on 7 hills and each hill has its own name. There are funiculars to help people go up or down, but they call them elevators. We rode one, but not the tallest.

She took us to the main square. There were big buildings all around, including the Chilean Navy. One building caught my eye because the bottom part was the old stone building, but it had been totally hollowed out, saving the facade, and a new modern building made of glass was inside the old building shell.

Water from the ocean originally covered this area, but it has all been filled it. Carolina told us that every Chilean city has an O’Higgins Park, and this main square was named O’Higgins.

After visiting Valparaíso, we were driven to Viña Del Mar, which looks like a more upscale city. They have a flower clock that used to tell time, but now it’s just flowers. She said everyone has to get their picture by the flower clock.

Everyone was getting hungry by this time, and we were driven to a restaurant that was on the beach. The problem is that the water is so cold that no one swims in it, or hardly anyone. It is summer in Chile, and we did see a few brave souls in the water, but most people were just enjoying the view, sitting in the sand. The food was very good. Carolina recommended fish and fries, so that is what we all had.

We saw an Easter Island Moai, in Viña Del Mar sitting outside a museum, “Museo de Argueologia e Historical Francisco Fonck”. Carolina said that Chile has offered to return the Moai, but it hasn’t happened yet. It is a human figure in the fetal position. It’s head is bird-like shaped. It is related to a ritual competition designed to define power on Easter Island. After a series of tests, the winner made the leader of his clan a Tangata Manu, who would be the political leader, along with his clan, until the next spring.

Leaving Viña Del Mar, we drove to the Indomita winery. We sampled a red and a white wine, and tasted some Merlot grapes. The building was impressive sitting on top of a hill overlooking the vineyards.

After the winery, we drove to Santiago. We do not like Santiago! The traffic was awful, lots of graffiti, tent cities of homeless, men laying on the sidewalk drunk or drugged up, windows boarded up, gas pumps surrounded by metal barriers….I know the current situation is because of the protests, but we are not impressed. Dave is freaked out about the location of our hotel, and we had moved further away from the protests once. We successfully walked about a mile to get some dinner and find an ATM and Dave commented that he saw some normal looking people. Our hotel room is clean, and the staff has been very nice. We are not disappointed that we are flying to Cusco, Peru tomorrow. Not sure what we will do for 4 days when we get back to Santiago. I think if we had not prepaid for the hotel, we would move to Valparaíso…. a much prettier city.

March 6 – 7, 2020 – Santiago to Cusco to Pisac

Friday – the lady who checked us in at the hotel in Satiago ordered a car to take us to the airport …at the wrong time. We finished up breakfast at 9:00AM and the receptionist said that’s your car, but he locked his keys in his car! We said, we asked for a car for 10:30AM! So he ordered another car for 10:30AM. When we were leaving at 10:30, the 9:00 car was still sitting there – he couldn’t get his keys out. I think our driver was actually an Uber, which is suppose to be illegal in Chile. He wanted us to pay before we got to the airport, which was no big deal. This guy actually spoke a little English, which is highly unusual.


We had left most of our luggage at our hotel in Santiago, so check in at the airport was very quick. We were early because we had been told with the protests, it may take an hour to get to the airport. Our flight wasn’t until 2:30, it was an international flight and we wanted extra time to figure out where we were suppose to go. We got to the airport and were checked in probably by 11:00. When we checked in, what they didn’t tell us was that we had preferred tickets, and so a special lounge. Instead we waited in a food court area where WiFi was very spotty and I kept losing my connection. Then we discovered our flight had been delayed 2 hours. So we had quite a long wait. Finally, we boarded our 2:30 flight about 4:30. The pilot taxied a long way, probably 15 minutes worth, and turned onto the runway. But he didn’t take off. He went back to the terminal. There were a few announcements in Spanish, but nothing in English. Dave overheard our steward telling someone that it was a safety issue. Finally that gets resolved and we are finally on our way to Cusco, 3 hours late. Our preferred tickets were nice – almost like an attempt at business class. Only the first 3 rows, and we got served some food which Dave would not call a meal, but it was something. It was still 3 seats across, but no one in the middle seat.

We got to Cusco late, even though there is a time change so we gained 2 hours. The good news is the tour agency owner, Bryan, and a driver, Edgar, in a mini bus, were there to meet us. We are on a private tour, so it will just be us, the guides, and a driver. Bryan went over our schedule for the next few days, and gave us a packet with tickets and maps. Then Edgar dropped off Bryan in Cusco, and we headed to Pisaq, which is over an hour away. The roads are awful, like really awful. Cusco is at a higher elevation than Pisaq, and the roads were very windy with lots of switchbacks. We could not see because it was dark out. By the time we arrived and checked in, it was 9:00 PM Peru time (11:00 PM Chile time), so we were tired. Unfortunately, they gave us a room on the second story, so in our oxygen deprived state, we had to climb 2 flights of stairs, carrying our luggage – which isn’t much, but still fun to carry up two flights. We had some coca tea which is suppose to help your lungs absorb oxygen. Then to bed.

Saturday – Our guide Rina is suppose to meet us at 8:30AM with our driver Edgar. We got up about 6:30AM, and I looked out the window….cows! Then I went into the bathroom take a shower….NO HOT WATER! We got dressed and went to breakfast, and while I told them there was no hot water, there wouldn’t have been time to shower at that point anyway. The hotel is different….it was built as a hacienda. Every hacienda also had a chapel, so there is a chapel in the courtyard. The chapel was built in the mid 16th century. In 1864 it survived a severe earthquake. This was considered a miracle and people from around the world come to worship here.

Rina and Edgar were there on time, and our first stop was the Pisaq Archeological Park. It is an important sight for the terraces and stone structures built by the Incas. At this point, I have to say I wish I knew more about the Incas. Also, while Rina is sharing lots of information with us, some of it seems to be conflicting. I’m not sure if it because English is her second language, or something else. Rini got us there early before the crowds. The Incas built terraces on the mountains to grow potatoes and corn. Rini said there are 3000 different potatoes in this area, and 280 different types of corn….which I found hard to believe. Later, we saw and ate some corn, and it was the biggest kernels I have ever seen. Each kernel was about the size of a marble. Corn was a very important crop for the Incas. The Incas build barns to store their corn. We saw where their sacred area was, and there was a doorway, made of stone, you had to pass thru to get to the sacred area. Before going into the sacred area, there were ceremonial baths, some still with running water. We could not go into the sacred area as there was a red flag signifying the paths had been washed out. The mountain was supposedly in the shape of a condor. There are 3 species that are important to the Incas: the condor which represents the future, the puma which represents the present, and the snake which represents the past. Llamas were also important.

There are many structures built out of stone. Many stone structures were built with no type of mortar, and they are still standing. One of Rina’s conflicting comments was that the stone without mortar was pre-Inca. Then she showed us some stone structures that had mortar, and she said this was Inca. Later in the tour she said there is no pre-Inka.

Anyway, Rina pointed out residential areas which seemed to be formed around a central courtyard. They had windows. At Pisac, they built a cemetery in caves the mountainside. Grave robbers have stolen all the gold, silver and ceramic artifacts, but there are still bones in the caves. It is a wonder how they got the bodies into the caves on the mountainside. This cemetery is the largest Inca cemetery and the oldest in South America.

Rina pointed out other ceremonial areas with large niches around the perimeter. She said they would mummify important people and put them in these niches, and then have ceremonies in the center part.

We left Pisac Archeological Park and drove to the main square in Pisac. There is a large market selling all sorts of souvenirs. Dave and I wanted to get some Peruvian Sols, which is the money they use in a Peru, and more cough medicine ☹️. We accomplished both of those tasks.

Our next stop was lunch, and we had a very nice buffet which was included in our tour. There were lots of Peruvian dishes that Rina explained. It was all very good. The corn has the largest kernels I’ve ever seen….like the size of a marble. This picture probably doesn’t really show how big the kernels were.

After lunch we were heading to Ollantaytambo. Rina asked if we had heard of the capsules hanging over the side of a mountain, which people rent and sleep in like a hotel. I had heard of them, but had never seen one. Since we were passing them, Edgar stopped so I could get a picture. While we were stopped, some children ran up to the car. They were all very cute and in native dress. Of course one asked for money, and Dave gave them a coin. Unfortunately, I was so caught up in how cute they were in their native dress that I didn’t take a picture. Rina said many people still wear the native dress. We have seen children dressed in native clothing at markets that charge for pictures, but these children were living near the road and just saw an opportunity to ask for money. We were in the middle of nowhere.

Peru seems to be a very poor country and I don’t think I’ve seen many nice homes. Most are run down shacks. It may be different in Cusco which is a bigger city.

We reached Ollantaytambo, and there is another huge Inka Archealogical park. Rina says we can walk to the top, it’s easy. Ha! It was not easy, but we did it.


The mountains are supposedly in the shape of a llama, but this took a lot more imagination to see. The mountainside is also terraced for raising crops.


At the top is a chair for an astronomer and his wife. This chair looks at another mountain that has what looks like two faces. On the solstice, the sun hits one of the faces. Rina said lots of people come to watch this happen. The second face is suppose to look more like the astronomer as there are 4 columns on his head as if it were part of a hat. Inca astronomers wore a hat with 4 “columns” on top.

There were also the ceremonial baths, rooms with niches for mummies, and a lot of similar structures as the Pisac sight. There are several large stones used in the construction, and because it is so high on the mountain, you have to wonder how the Incas got the stones up on top of this mountain.

When we finish visiting Ollantaytambo’s archeological a Park, it is time for us to check in for our train to Aguas Calientes. We have to wait about an hour and the train station really fills up. Our seats are assigned, which looks like it is a good thing. It is suppose to be 1.5 hours….but of course for some reason the train stopped several times and we sat and waited. One time I saw a guy walking around outside the train with a screwdriver….that was interesting. As we ride, we can see the Urubamba River next to the train. This river eventually flows into the Amazon River. It is very dirty looking, as it is reddish, probably with mud or some minerals. Finally we get to Aguas Calientes about 30 minutes late, it is raining, and we can’t find our contact that is suppose to take us to our hotel. We walk all over the place…can’t even figure out where the train station is…finally find the train station, but our contact isn’t there. We wonder what we should do when another tour guide takes pity on us and calls our company for us. They say our contact will be there in 5 minutes, which he was. Of course I’m pissed and the guy just says, “Well, the train was late”. As it turned out, he was an employee of the hotel. Fortunately, our Machu Picchu guide that we were suppose to meet in the hotel lobby knew the train was late and waited for us. His name is Alex, and he went over the whole plan for tomorrow, our trip to Machu Picchu. Our original itinerary said to walk to the bus station at 5:00AM, but Alex is going to meet us in the lobby of our hotel at 6:00AM and walk with us. We are looking forward to visiting Machu Picchu.

March 8, 2020 – Machu Picchu

We made it!

While our itinerary said we should walk to the bus at 5:00AM, our guide, Alex, said he would meet us in the lobby of our hotel at 6:00AM. We like Alex already! We were up at 4:30, had breakfast, checked our small bag with the hotel and at 6:00AM Alex shows up and we walk to the Machu Bus.

Visits to Machu Picchu are very controlled. We had 6:00AM tickets, which is the first group let into Machu Picchu. Only a few hundred are let in each hour, according to the time on their ticket, and I believe they are only suppose to stay 4 hours. When we get to the bus, there is a big line, but Alex leads us to the front explaining those people have 7:00AM entry tickets. At the entrance to the bus, they check our bus ticket, our Machu Picchu ticket and our passport. Then we are let on the bus. It is a 25 minute ride UPHILL. The Urubamba River flows along the road on the lower levels. There are some scary places where we are very close to the edge of the road. We use the restrooms (cost =2sol per person), and then go to the entrance. Here they check your Machu Picchu ticket and your passport. We had purchased tickets to climb a mountain, Huaynu Picchu (Waynapicchu), but decided several days ago that we would not climb the mountain because of Dave’s cough. When we met with our guide last night, he said Huaynu Picchu is 2 hours up and 2 hours down. We told him we did not think we would climb the mountain. This morning, he said he thought that was a good decision. Then he pointed to the mountain, and Dave and I knew our mountain climbing days were over!

After going thru the entrance, our guide took us to the left, up many, many, many stairs. He said we climb first, and then come down. Along the way up, we came to a nice, level, paved walkway. This was part of the old Inca trail.

Then we walked up some more. We finally get to the top of our climb, and we can see Manchu Picchu in the distance, but it is pretty early so as the sun gets a little higher, it burns off much of the fog and we get a beautiful view of Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is about 8,000 feet above sea level, and I think we climbed about 1000 feet above Machu Pichu to be able to look down on what is called the Citadel. Machu Picchu is actually the name of a mountain.

Machu Picchu Citadel is made up of two parts – the sacred part where the important people lived, on the left, and the industrial part where workers worked, making ceramics, weaving, etc. on the right. The Sacred part had “beautiful” stonework walls, and the industrial part had stone walls with mortar.


I have to say, having a guide for just Dave and I was great. He would talk to us and answer all our questions. In a group of 10 or 20 people, you just wouldn’t get that attention. I am very pleased with our decision here. I am also pleased that our travel agency got us the early tickets. When we first got to the high spot that overlooks the citadel part of Machu Picchu, there are very few people. This high, overlook spot is the agricultural area of Machu Picchu. It is terraced, like the other Inca complexes we visited, and this is where they grew their crops. But by the end of our 2+ hour tour of Machu Picchu with Alex, we see people in continuous lines, one after the other, heading up to the top of the overlook. However, the total number of people allowed to enter Machu Picchu is controlled. I think it is limited to 5000 people per day, spread out over 8 hours.

Hiram Bingham III is given credit for making public the existence of Machu Picchu with the help of indigenous farmers in 1911. He was looking for the last capital of the Incas, Vilcabamba, and when he found a Machu Picchu, he thought he had found the last capital of the Incas. Others apparently found it before him, but Bingham made Machu Picchu’s existence public. Bingham returned with the support of Yale University and his expeditions collected many specimens of exotic animals, antiquities and human skeletons. Peru would like these specimens back, and the US agreed, but only a few specimens have been returned since 2011. I think Peruvians resent the US retaining the artifacts, based on Alex’s discussion.

Alex talks about the Incas and one of the Inca kings, Pachacuti, who was responsible for building Machu Pichu and also expanding the Inca kingdom. Pachacuti lived in a Cusco, because Cusco was the capital of the Inca nation. But Machu Picchu was built for important people, so Pachacuti would visit. The Inca kingdom was made up of 4 groups which Pachacuti consolidated, making it the largest kingdom in all of the Americas at the time.

Only 600 people lived in Machu Picchu, but it took many more to build it. These important people were important because they had “knowledge”. The Inca worshipped the sun, and Machu Picchu had astronomers who knew when to plant and when to harvest and what to plant. A special building, “Temple of the Sun”, had windows which pointed to where the sun would be at the equinox’s. To one side of this building is where the chief astronomer lived and on the other side is where Pachacuti would stay when he visited.

At the top of the photo, the building behind the thatched roof with the roof peak, is the building it is believed king used when he visited, because it is divided into two rooms, and no other structure is built the same way. The rectangular building right under the window is where the astronomer would have lived.

The Inca’s watched the constellations. Alex showed us the Southern Cross and a stone which was carved to mimic the Southern Cross. The top point of the cross points East, and I used my compass to verify it.

Contrary to what we heard from Rina yesterday, important buildings were build with no mortar. The stones were fit together perfectly. Sometimes they were cut to show a stair step pattern, which was a symbol very important to the Incas. Alex called it beautiful as compared to the structures built with mortar.

One of the structures Alex showed us is the temple of 3 windows. The windows face the East, and when it is the equinox, the sun shines onto a rock, which has the step carvings.

Alex showed us an area that was used for religious rites. There is a huge stone next to it, carved to mimic the shape of the mountain in the background. Alex said the Incas thought the mountains were very important.

At this point, Alex left us, but we could have stayed longer if we wanted to. Our ticket would allow us to leave, grab a bite to eat or whatever, and come back in. We decided to wander around a little bit and just absorb the beauty of the mountains.

We exited and relaxed for awhile at the Machu Picchu snack shop, then took the bus back to Aquas Calientes. While we waited for our train to Ollantaytambo to spend the night, we had lunch and walked around this over-touristy town.

March 9, 2020 – Cusco

Last night on the train from Machu Picchu, we were served a “box dinner” with a sandwich, brownie, fruit and chocolate. It was perfect for our dinner. We walked about a block to our hotel, which was very nice. Dave wanted to stay there for the rest of our trip. We went to the bar, and then early to bed after a very long day.

We get up and have breakfast at the hotel, and they have a cute little display of some different types of corn.

Dave was wandering around after breakfast admiring the landscaping. He really liked this hotel. I agree, it was very nice.

Rina meets us at 9:00am, but we have a new driver, Luis. Rina tells us that Luis used to be a policeman. I like that idea! Again, the roads are awful. Our first stop is the Salineras Salt mine. We are at 3080 meters of elevation, which converts to over 10,000 feet. Our whole trip has been in the Andes Mountains, so these altitudes shouldn’t surprise me. Dave is still sick ☹️ and the altitude is bothering him today.


The salt beds were originally built by the Incas, but now this salt process is ran by the local families. The salt separates out into 3 layers: the top layer is used for bath salts, the second layer is used for table salt, and the bottom layer is used for animals. The water that flows into the beds is warm, not hot, mineral spring water. Local people that have eaten a lot of the salt have big thyroids, because iodine has not been added to this salt. The salt beds produce 180 tons of salt a year. Rina said that different colors of salt are produced during the wet season, but it is mostly white now because the rainy season is ending.

We see native women wearing their native hats. The wealthier or higher class women wear white hats. The hats have a colored band, and I believe a blue band means she is married, a pink band means she is available. I can’t remember the color for divorced women or widows. Rina said these women are called Mestiza. Lower class women wear brown hats and are called shepherds.


Our next stop is Moray, which is another Inca site. This site had 5 different terrace settings, and lots of walking downhill and then….uphill…ugh! The most important one that we see is made up of terraces in a circular pattern with semi circular terraces at one end. In the middle is a rectangular box, with two sections. Rina says this represents marriage. The circle represents the sun and man, the semi circles represent woman and the moon. The barn in the center represents sharing in a marriage. The Incas treated men and women as equals, but the women took care of the home and the men took care of the terraces. The Incas thought the land was Mother Earth and she would be jealous of women. The terraces in this location were used to grow medicinal herbs and plants. Each terrace is a different microclimate, with variations in temperature, and received a different amount of water and sunlight. This picture does not really portray how far we had to walk and how difficult it is for us to walk uphill at these altitudes. Hopefully you can see the path in the very back with a couple of people on it.


Each August they celebrate New Year and make a sacrifice back to Mother Earth, something that has come from the ground like fruit it a baked good. The sacrifice is buried in Mother Earth.

Dave had a hard time with the altitude here, and climbing up the stairs and inclines from these terraces. But it is lunchtime, so we drive over these horrible road to Chinchero. Dave had some coca tea, and feels better, but we discuss our afternoon agenda with Rina and decide not to climb more stairs to visit a cathedral here in Chinchero. Instead we go to our last stop, which is a textile demonstration. Two young girls meet us and dress us in Inca hats and shawls and sing to us. One girl shows us how they make soap out of a tuber plant, and wash the wool. Then she shows us how they get the different colors with different plants, flowers and insects. She spun some thread, and the other girl was weaving. Of course they showed us their products. They had alpaca capes that were so soft, I couldn’t resist. It was $30. My second souvenir from this trip.


Rina and Luis drove us to our hotel which is very close to the main square in a Cusco. I think Dave has altitude sickness. Cusco is over 11,000 ft in altitude, compared to 8 or 12 feet in Florida. Today he has been drinking coca tea, and it seems to help. We are chilling in our hotel and we’ll see how he feels tomorrow. The most important part of this whole trip was Machu Picchu, so if we miss some other sights in Cusco, we are OK with that.

March 10, 2020 – Cusco

Dave is going to try to do today’s tour. The altitude is very difficult for both of us to adjust to, despite drinking a lot of coca tea. I’m sure part of this is our maturity (☹️), but Dave is fighting something – maybe bronchitis.

This morning when we went to eat breakfast at our hotel, Dave started coughing, and the breakfast room cleared out. So we had the room to ourselves (😁). I am still convinced that whatever is bothering him is not contagious, because I haven’t caught it.

Rina and Luis picked us up at 9:00AM this morning, and we headed to the mountains above the city of Cusco. Great views looking down on the city of a Cusco. It looks very large, but I think the population is about 500,000 (even though Rina told me 1 million, which is why I question some of the things she told us).

We visited Saqsayhauman which is the spiritual center of the Incas. If you envision the city in the shape of a puma, Saqsayhauman is its head.


This temple had been started by a previous culture, but the Incas took over in the 13th Century. The boulders, which are HUGE, are fit together without mortar. It is built in a zigzag shape and extends a long distance, my guess is about 1/4 mile long and in places would be about 88 feet high. Rina says the zig zag shape represents lightening.

In the stonework are various shapes.


There is a huge open area next to the temple, and it was used for celebrations. All the Incas from the empire would come here to celebrate the equinox, June 21. They would sacrifice a black llama and offer its heart to the sun.

It is interesting to me that Switzerland gave Cusco a huge statue of Jesus, which they installed just above this Inca sight. Also, Rina did not take us to see this statue although it was very close to where we were.

The next Inca site we went to was De q’enqu. This site was for rain. At the entrance is a huge stone which is supposed to resemble a frog. Water would gather around the bottom of this statue and was ideal for tadpoles, which would become frogs. The frogs were a sign of a good rainy season. At the equinox, the frog statue would leave its shadow on the mountain behind the statue. I didn’t question it, but I would think the shadow would be there other days, too. This site also was a place where people who had passed away would be mummified, and black llamas were sacrificed.

Before heading back to Cusco, we stopped at two textile businesses. The first one gave us the sales spiel, and then we went out back and they had all sorts of animals. This was to show that different color yarn can be made without having to dye it from different color fur on the animals. Then we went to the second place, and we were given a spiel on how different rugs or blankets are made. They had one example which the girl said was over 1000 years old.


They had other woven objects that were beautiful, including one that caught our eye because it looked like it was 3 dimensional. We did not buy it, but the price was $800US, which they would discount to $700. Somehow it just wouldn’t fit in our decor, but it was beautiful.

We drove to Cusco, to their main square. Rina said the main square is where the Incas cried. They would come here carrying the mummies on their back. The main Catholic cathedral here was originally an Inca palace. The Spaniards, invading Peru, destroyed much of the Inca temples, or at least all that they found. The Spaniards tried to convert the Incas to Catholicism. The Spaniards built their church inside the Inca walls, and sometimes using the Inca walls. We could not take photos inside the cathedral. The cross the Spaniards carried when invading Cusco was in a niche. Rina showed us the important paintings, most of which had been done by Indian painters, for the Spaniards. Because the Incas were resisting conversion to Catholicism, they would include Inca symbols in the paintings which are hanging in the church. Many of the paintings had snakes in them, which is interesting because snakes represent the past, or the afterlife to Incas. One painting showed Mary in a dress that resembled a mountain, because the mountains were part of Mother Earth which the Incas worshiped. So the Spaniards thought the Incas were worshipping Mary, but they were actually worshipping the mountain.

We went to another Catholic Cathedral, which had Inca temples inside the Cathedral grounds. These were the Sun Temple, the Moon Temple, the Rainbow Temple, the Rain Temple and the Lightening Temple. The Rainbow, Rain and Lightening temples were connected and had one window lined up where you could see through all three.


There was a beautiful garden, and the shapes of the condor, puma and snake were carved in the grass.

Our tour was over, and Rina took us to a restaurant for our cooking class. It was a private class for just Dave and me. It was hands on, but only one person could cook, so that was me. First I made a Pisco Sour. They use an egg white to get foam on top, but I could not shake it enough to get a good foam top. The bartender said you could also use a blender which always gives you the foam.

Next, I made trout ceviche. The trout here is red, and almost looks like salmon.

Last I made Lomo Saltado, which was beef tenderloin with onion and tomatoes.


The final dish was Carpaccio de Pina, a dessert, but we were stuffed, and tired, so they made it for us and we boxed it up to take to the hotel. The meal was delicious, but they did not give me the recipes…except for the Pisco Sour. I’m not sure I could find all the ingredients in the US that they used.

Not much planned for the next few days. We are leaving at 4:30AM for our flight back to Santiago. We have 4 days in Santiago before our cruise, if they let us onboard. We have received several messages that everyone has to undergo a health screening, and I’m not sure Dave will pass. So our plan is to be pretty inactive to try to let Dave rest and get better.

March 11 – 13, 2020 – Santiago, Chile

Wednesday- Dave was really puny looking as we left Cusco, but got much better once we were on the plane. I don’t think I heard him cough once on the 3.5 hour flight, which is amazing. We had pretty stringent health screening upon arrival in Santiago. I can’t say Dave was 100% honest on his health survey, but he did admit to a common cold. We were much relieved he passed the temperature screening. We do not think he is putting other people in danger, although he may be scaring them when he coughs. He has no temperature, and I have not gotten sick. So he’s not contagious. When we checked into our hotel where we are planning to spend 4 nights, we asked for a room with a bigger bathroom than we had when we spent one night here before our Machu Picchu trip. After a bit of back and forth discussion, the guy said he’d upgrade us, so we have a really nice room. It is large, and the bathroom has two sinks! We spent the rest of the day reorganizing our clothes, packing away our heavier clothes that we need for being so cold when we were near to Antartica. It felt so good to put on shorts and sandals. It is much warmer in Santiago – upper 80’s, which I hear is also a deterrent for Coronavirus. Unfortunately, there is a lot of upheaval in Santiago – all of Chile actually, but more so in Santiago. Lots of protesting, marching, tear gas, rock throwing, etc. We have been told the police are shooting out the protestors eyes. So there is much hatred of the police. Our hotel is close, but not in the worst section. Reading the roll call online, one potential cruiser was mugged, and cancelled the cruise. However, the mugging could have happened anywhere. We are taking it one day at a time.

Thursday – slow start this morning, but we still got in our 10,000 steps. We walked to the Centro area, Plaza de Armas, which is an area of a lot of the protests. From what I read, there were no protests scheduled today (yes, someone posted the schedule on a TripAdvisor forum), and the protests are usually late afternoon and on into the night. We went, watching for any signs of protest.

Plaza de Armas is the symbolic heart of Chile. It is a lively place with chess players at one corner, the Metropolitan Cathedral on the opposite corner, the Museo Historico Nacional along one side, and other Palacio’s. The requisite statue is of Don Pedro de Valdivia (1497-1553) , sitting on his horse. He was a Spanish conquistador and the first royal governor of Chile.

We visited the Metropolitan Cathedral, which is very large. Don Pedro declared in 1551 that a house of worship would be constructed on this site, but each structure was destroyed by fire or earthquake. The current cathedral was finished at the end of the 19th century.

There were 2 museums in the area, and we are not crazy about museums, but one of them, Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, has an “airy cafe”, so we went there for lunch. As we sat there and ate, we decided to go to the other museum, Museo Historico Nacional. As we entered, the museum guard told us it was free! Good thing, because I thought there were explanations in English, but they were all in Spanish. Again, no pictures ☹️. This museum is a colonial era palacio, and there are several beautiful chandeliers. This museum traces Chile’s history from the preconquest period to the 20th century. We did get an English brochure which briefly described each room, but not any of the artifacts. We did enjoy looking at some of the painting and artifacts. There was a military jacket worn by someone which looked like it would fit a boy … it was small! There was also a beautiful dress, white with netting and gold beading sprinkled throughout that I thought was beautiful. I believe it was from the 1920’s. We saw a picture of Bernardo O’Higgins. The guide we had from the port to Santiago told us there is an O’Higgins park in every city. O’Higgins (1778 – 1842) was a Chilean independence leader who freed Chile from Spanish rule in the Chilean War of Independence. He is considered one of Chile’s founding fathers. A museum worker approaceh us and asked if we wanted to climb the tower. We climbed 4 stories (and I thought our climbing days were over) to the tower on top of the museum building and got nice views of the Plaza de Armas and the Cathedral ( see above picture of Cathedral).

We set out to find Santiago’s oldest structure, Iglesias San Francisco. This is the last trace of colonial architecture in the city. Construction began in 1586. The church survived successive earthquakes, but was rebuilt several times. Out guide from San Antonio port to Santiago when we disembarked the Coral Princess told us the oldest buildings in Santiago are painted red, thus the red color. Unfortunately, the protesters have added their graffiti.

Walking back to our hotel, we walked into another park, Cerro Santa Lucia. We did not walk to the top lookout point, but up one level where there was a fountain. This park looked interesting, but we are passing up most of our climbing opportunities 😁.

We ventured out early evening looking for essentials (bottle of wine). As we were walking, there were 6 or 8 young men heading in the opposite direction. The guy in the lead had a can of spray paint in his hand.

We sat on our balcony last night which we share with a young German couple. I noticed fruit was growing on the tree, hanging over onto the balcony.

Friday the 13th..😳 – We have spent most of the day wondering whether our cruise will be cancelled or not. We are taking it easy, and got a late start this morning. We are heading to Cerro San Cristobal. It is a large hill, almost 1000 feet above Santiago with a 72 foot statue of Virgin Mary at the top. It is the second highest hill in Santiago. There is a little church at the top, and also an outdoor amphitheater. We were able to take a funicular most of the way up. Still had to climb several stairs to reach the statue.

Before heading up the stairs, I noticed another unusual tree. It looks like something is growing inside the tree.

There is a beautiful view of the city from the top, except because Santiago sits in a valley trapping pollutants, there is a lot of smog which reduces visibility.

After our visit to the hill, we walked to the museum of the home of Pablo Neruda. He was a Nobel Prize winner, and we saw another of his houses when we were in Valparaíso. The house is on several levels, and is split up among different buildings. None of the rooms are very big, but they are interesting. No photos allowed, again. Neruda was a collector, so the house is filled with eclectic objects and paintings. He called the house “La Chascona” or “Woman with the Tousled Hair” after his third wife. The house served as a romantic hideaway for many years before the couple married. I think Pablo was a communist as he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize, as well as the Nobel Prize. According to Wikipedia, the Lenin Peace Prize was mainly awarded to prominent communists who were not citizens of the Soviet Union.

We are going to grab a quick bite to eat, before dark. Someone on our board said they rented a car for the day, driving outside Santiago. When they returned about 10:00PM, they could not get to their hotel due to army tanks and police presence. The hotel they were staying in is on the other side of the park and river that runs through Santiago, than where we are staying, however less than a mile away.

I got an email from Celebrity stating that our cruise is NOT cancelled. So, as long as they let us onboard, we still plan to sail from Santiago to San Diego. Getting to dock in San Diego may be another problem – we’ll see!

March 14 – 15, 2020 – Santiago to Miami!

Saturday-Started as a normal day! We walked to the Costanera Mall which is a magnet for tourists. It is a good distance from our hotel, maybe 4.5 miles, but there wasn’t much more we wanted to see in Santiago, especially since we feel a little constrained with the protests. It is a big, beautiful mall with everything, and lots of people. Dave said it put US Malls to shame because there was so much activity. In Florida, the last few times we went to the mall, they had very few people, including the Port Charlotte mall at Christmastime. While at the mall we ate lunch at Chili’s….so we ate at Chili’s in Chile 😁. We walked back to the hotel, getting there late afternoon, and when I check my email, there is a message from the lady I hooked up with to share a van to the port. She writes that our cruise is cancelled! Despite getting an email that morning saying the cruise will depart as scheduled. I checked the Celebrity website, and sure enough, our cruise was listed as cancelled. Then I checked the cruise critic boards and people had posted the email they got from Celebrity. I did not receive an email! But, since it was showing on the website, we knew it was true. The rest of the evening we scrambled to find flights. We are booked on a United flight for March 30, so we tried to change it, but it was going to cost us more than booking a new flight independently. After literally spending hours, we found a flight that left Santiago about noon, with one stop in Panama, ending in Miami.


Sunday- we found out from the message boards that our ship, Celebrity Eclipse is not being allowed to dock in Chile. However, we get our flight to Panama, in the last row of the plane, in a row with 3 seats. Every time Dave coughed, the lady in the aisle seat cringed. In Panama, they took my scissors that used to belong to Dave’s mom. I was really bummed because they were tiny fold up scissors and I have traveled all over with them for years with no problem. They also took our temps in Panama, and we must have passed because they let us on the plane. Of course we were sitting behind 2 rows of kids, but on an almost full flight, our reward was an empty seat in our row. Miami customs was very quick and easy compared to our last trip through Miami. We rented a car and are spending the night in a Hampton. We’ll drive home to Englewood tomorrow.

This is my last journal for this trip. Our trip ends about 2 weeks early, but after seeing Machu Picchu, the cruise was just our ride home and time to relax. We are very happy with all we saw and all we were able to do. Now we get to fight with Celebrity, who never sent notification of the cancelled cruise, and United to see if we can get any money back from our San Diego to Tampa reservation that was planned for the end of our cruise.