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 [View Full Entry]

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Oct 5 Ushuaia, Argentina We disembarked from our cruise on Saturday morning were met by our local guide for a visit to Ushuaia. Ushuaia is a small city of about 65,000 people that is the farthest south major city in the world. ( the farthest south smaller settlements are in Chile ) We visited a small national park close to the city but the weather was not very pleasant and not a great day to be sight seeing. It’s too bad as there are some beautiful lakes and scenery in the park and a lot of the local birds in some [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Sept 22 - 26, 2008 This has been a very enjoyable adventure. Getting to my computer to note the days activities was impossible. We were up every morning at 05:30 for a canoe trip into the wilderness before breakfast. After breakfast we followed that with various long walks ( 1 ½ - 2 hours ) through the woods with our expert guides ( at 35 + C ) to learn more about the flora and fauna of the region. Back to the ship for cruising the beautiful river, some very interesting local village visits and very good night canoe trips into [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Sept 20, 2008 AMAZONIA, Brazil We are not too sure what to expect with this part of our adventure, but maybe that’s the best part !!! This morning we flew 3 hours to Manaus, a city in the heart of the rain forest on the Rio Negro River about 35 KM from the junction of the Solimoes River that then becomes the Amazon River and dumps into the Atlantic ocean. Or flight took us to Belem for a short stop and we got some great views of the mouth and delta of the Amazon where it dumps into the ocean. WOW [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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BUZIOS, Brazil Sept. 12 -15 Our trip to Buzios started out badly with a 7 hour bus trip from Rio that should have been 2.5 hours. This bus stopped at the airport and waited for several, late as usual, international flights. Not what we planned on as we should have had ½ a day at the beach and not in a bus. We should have been there for lunch and made it in time for dinner. Buzios is a very busy beach area on the far eastern coast of Brazil about a 2 ½ - 3 hour hour drive from Rio [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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French Riviera August 30 - Sept 8 Our adventures took us from Cinque Terre, Italy to Cannes, France and to a very nice apartment where we will spend the next week with the family including another son who will join us here. On our way to the French Riviera we stopped in Genoa, Italy for a visit to the very nice aquarium there. This is a great place that is said to be the biggest and best in Europe. Worth a visit for sure. The next week was a very relaxing time with late mornings, lots of cards, a few drinks [View Full Entry]

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