http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Dick-and-Mary/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Dick and Mary en-us Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:18:37 +0000 Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:18:37 +0000 We left the tip of South America early in February and cruised through the Straits of Magellan toward Antarctica a trip of about 400 miles. We tried to remedy our total ignorance a little on the way and found that the Antarctic is really a large continent unlike the Arctic which is all ice and water. On the map Antarctica shaped like a round blob with a little pigtail of http://www.travelblog.org/Antarctica/blog-130785.html Hi folks Dick and I are finally getting around to sending out some pictures and descriptions from our 3rd World Cruise aboard the Crystal Serenity which left Miami January 12 2007 for Southampton near London. This will take three and a half months. This leg of the trip took us from Miami to the tip of South America where there is a little Argentine town named Ushuaia ooshwhyya that clai http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/blog-126112.html After several days at sea our ship docked at Wellington in New Zealand in the Land Down Under. When the Polynesian Maoris from the South Pacific discovered New Zealand they called it ldquoAntearoardquo or the Land of the Long White Cloud. The name may have come from the heavy clouds that gathered around mountain peaks and spread for many miles along the horizon. This was one of the signs http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/blog-44248.html EASTER ISLANDFive days of cruising the South Pacific from the coast of South America brought us to Easter Island. This is a tiny volcanic island 2000 miles from any population center about halfway between South America to the east and Tahiti to the west. The closest other inhabited island is over a thousand miles away tiny Pitcairn Island where the mutineers of the H.M.S. Bounty settled in 1 http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Easter-Island/blog-40031.html PITCAIRN ISLANDIrsquom sure most people have read or seen ldquoMutiny on the Bountyrdquo the story of the mutinous crew of the Bounty headed by Fletcher Christian and the infamous Capt. Bligh. After setting Capt. Bligh and his few faithful crew adrift in a small boat the mutineers headed for the tiny uninhabited island of Pitcairn a twosquare mile speck of rock in the middle of the So http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Pitcairn-Islands/Pitcairn/blog-40667.html GALAPAGOS BACK TO ECUADORAfter our visit to Galapagos we were to meet the Crystal Serenity at Lima in Peru the next country south of Ecuador. But first we had to detour back through Ecuador to get there. This was a long trip beginning with the obligatory boat and plane trips from Galapagos to the Ecuador mainland. The scoop among our group was that Ecuador is willing to donate the Galapagos http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Lima/blog-40408.html HelloDick and I are preparing for our World Cruise starting Jan. 14. We'll try to keep in touch through this Travelblog where we can post notes and pictures and you can reply if you wish. This is a trial run to see if our Travelblog is working right. Many thanks to daughter Judy for putting us onto this http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/South-Carolina/Greenville/blog-2859.html ACUPULCO Dick and I left Greenville SC a few days ago for our second world cruise aboard the Crystal ship Serenity. This is a large beautiful ship that holds about 1000 passengers with about 800 aboard at present. I think about 280 of us are doing the entire cruise which left from Los Angeles Jan. 17 and will dock near London on May 5. This year we will go to South America Easter Islands T http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/blog-36838.html Today we are cruising the Tasman Sea between the southern tip of New Zealand and the southern tip of Tasmania a large island just off the south coast of Australia. And since everything is upside down in this hemisphere this is the point closest to the South Pole in our trip and therefore the coldest. Not really freezing but very chilly and windy out on the deck and the seas are a bit rough. http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Fiordland-National-Park/Milford-Sound/blog-4088.html Next stop on our cruise down the west coast of South America was Ecuador which lies south of the Panama Canal from Guatemala. Dick and I are learning a lot about geography on this trip. My hazy guess as to how to get to Ecuador from the US was to go to Los Angeles and turn left. But it turns out to our surprise that Ecuador is in the same time zone as South Carolina and the shortest route b http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Ecuador/Galapagos/blog-38856.html Last night we got back from our 4night overland trip through Thailand traveling from Bangkok on the coast north to the other end of Thailand old Siam. The border is several hundred miles away in the mountains where Thailand Laos and Myanmar Burma meet in the ldquoGolden Triangle.rdquo This takes its name from the lucrative opium farming and trade that used to go on in the decades befo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-5626.html Four days after leaving Australia we came to the little Muslim country of Brunei where we spent the day as our tour literature said admiring the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Brunei rhymes with sooneye is a tiny oilrich Islamic sultanate its sultan is head of state on the large island of Borneo. It has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. Less than the US but much http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Brunei/Bandar-Seri-Begawan/blog-4902.html After leaving Spain we spent one more full day at sea frantically packing for debarkation at Dover on the coast of England. Many passengers left the ship there so the terminal was busy as a beehive for few hours. Each of the world cruise passengers or couples had a limosine for their personal destination and ours was crammed with our luggage full of clothing and additional treasures from t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Kent/Dover/blog-9377.html After leaving Venice we cruised across the top of Italyrsquos boot to what used to be Yugoslavia which is now split into several small countries Croatia Serbia Bosnia Macedonia etc. ldquothe Balkansrdquo. Croatia is a little country of five million that grabbed most of the lovely coastline on the Adriatic Sea away from the other Balkan countries. Its majority ethnic group is Ro http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Dalmatia/Split/blog-7605.html After a long delay we're baaack Sorry to be so long dropping the other shoe and finishing up but things just had to be prioritized after our return to the US. One of the last places we visited on our world cruise was the coast of northern Italy where the boot of Italy joins the European body. Venice was on the eastern side of the boot top and our new destination Porto Venere was on th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Liguria/Cinque-Terre/blog-8785.html After leaving Porto Venere and the Five Villages we spent three days cruising through the Mediterranean until we popped out into the Atlantic Ocean through the Straits of Gibraltar. It's a strange experience to stand on the deck of a ship and look at Europe on the right and Africa on the left. They are only 15 miles apart at the Straits. What a way to learn geography The Rock of Gibraltar is http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Lisbon-and-Tagus-Valley/Lisbon/blog-9376.html We docked at Naples which is about halfway between the ankle and the knee on Italy's boot. Cruising into the Bay of Naples we were greeted by the sight of a beautiful harbor city with the mighty Vesuvius dominating the view to the south. We were in Naples for only one day. We chose to spend our time ashore seeing the ruins of Pompeii the town between Naples and Vesuvius that was buried under http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Campania/Pompei/blog-9369.html Venice was a blast. We cruised into its beautiful harbor early one morning and were greeted by a strange sight a large beautiful city busy with foot traffic and boats along its waterfront but not a vehicle in sight anywhere Mile after mile of beautiful old buildings seemly perched directly atop the water interspersed with canals alive with poledriven gondolas taxis motorboats and buses http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-7139.html From Istanbul we left on a threenight excursion into central Turkey which lies on the Asian side of the Dardanelles. This was foreign territory indeed as neither Dick nor I knew anything at all about it. I was vaguely aware that it had some interesting archaeological sites and some biblical cities were in it but that was about it. We were blessed with an expert Turkish guide named Ahmet w http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/blog-7103.html HI ALLWe're on our way We left Greenville early yesterday Friday morning for Atlanta expecting to make a 1030 flight to LA. Delta canceled that flight without warning par for the course for poor ol' Delta so after much squeaking of the wheel by Dick we got another flight that put us in LA about 500 PST. Along with our luggage thank goodness Then the guardian angels from Crystal Crui http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Los-Angeles/blog-3192.html