Oct 5, 6, 2008 El Calafate, Argentina Following our short flight from Ushuaia we landed in El Calafate, a small city of 20,000 or so near the Andes Mountains and home to some important glaciers on the east slope of the mountains. The largest lake in Argentina is formed by glacial melt and it is interesting to see the icebergs floating around the lake. These are very interesting glaciers as they are at very low altitude and fed by the very large ice fields in the Andes. El Calafate has taken advantage of these tourist attractions and it would appear that the whole town is supported by the tourist business with lots of levels of accommodation and many of the usual tourist shops. This is a nice little city and easy to walk around. Several great ... read more

Sept 30 - Oct 4 Patagonia Cruise We flew from Manaus, Brazil for an overnight stay in Sao Paulo and then on to Punta Arenas, Chile via Santiago. ( long day on airplanes and in airports ) We enjoyed a relaxing day in Punta Arenas, Chile and visited some of the local attractions in this small city on the southern tip of Chile on the Straights of Magellan. On Tuesday we began a 5 day 4 night cruise on the M/V Via Australis. This ship and it’s sister ship Mare Australis are very nice cruise ships that takes about 130 passengers on cruises between Punta Arenas, and Cape Horn, Chile and to Ushuaia, Argentina. Our cruise took us through the Straights of Magellan past some beautiful mountains, glaciers and the hundreds of islands in the straights. ... read more

Sept 21 AMAZONA, Brazil We boarded the river cruiser at the pier at our hotel to start our 6 nights cruising the Rio Nergro River. As you might expect it is very hot here with a “little” humidity ( about 98 % ) Our trip will include 6 nights on the river on the Tucano, which has 18 passengers, two guides, two cooks and a crew of 4. We started in Manaus and will spend 5 days going up stream on the Rio Negro to the Rio Jauaperi River and then come back to and past Manaus to the meeting of the Rio Negro and the Solimoes rivers that become the main Amazon River. Alice and I will miss the actual meeting of the rivers as we will leave the ship one day early to make ... read more

Sept 17 -20, 2008 Fortaleza, Brazil We arrived in Fortaleza on a beautiful sunny and hot day and spent our first afternoon relaxing at the hotel and a brief short walk to the beach near the hotel. Fortaleza is a big city, about 2.5 million, on the north east coast of Brazil 3 degrees south of the equator. Almost everyday of the year is hot and sunny with early sunrise and early sunset. This looks like a very nice place with lots of infrastructure for visitors and many beautiful beaches. Our first full day here, Wednesday, included a half day city tour with a very good local guide and we saw most of the highlights of the city and visited the large local central market. The afternoon was spent lounging around one of the main beach ... read more

Sept 9 - 11 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Following our 10 hour flight from Madrid we arrived in the early evening in Rio de Janeiro to an early bedtime to try to catch up on the jet-lag. Tuesday morning we awoke to a cloudy, drizzly day in “Sunny Brazil”. Not a good day to visit the “ Christ The Redeemer” statue on a nearby mountain top and the top of the famous “ Sugarloaf Mountain” for the views of Rio and the beaches. Today all completely fogged in. Our local guide did his best to make our tour interesting despite the lousy weather. This evening we enjoyed dinner and the show at a very interesting place called “ Platforma” that features a Brazilian style BBQ and a Las Vegas type dance show. Nice place and a ... read more