Paris of the South

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Hola!

The first couple of days at sea have been busy. There is so much to do, one can never be bored. Between eating anytime you like, you can choose from a huge variety of activities including line dancing, lectures, trivia, shows, games, casino, you name it, it's here. I actually played Bingo Wednesday and won one of the four games.

Thursday we arrived into Buenos Aires, otherwise know as Paris of the South, at 6:30am this morning. The water near the port was not what I was expecting, it is a mucky brown and extremely shallow. As a matter of fact, so shallow that only one ship could come through the channel at one time so we were a little late getting to port. As for me seeing any whales yet, not a chance. I've been out on my balcony every morning and early evening scanning the ocean waters with my binoculars and still no luck however this morning I am happy to report a shark sighting, it was circling the water about 75 feet from the ship. It was hard to tell how big it was but I'm guessing about 8 feet. I took a picture but unfortunately my compact sony cybershot wasn't up to the task.

The shore excursion I chose for Buenos Aires was a Tango show and highlights of the city. One of the most impressive sites of the day was Recoleta Cemetary. This giant walled cemetery has many ornate crypts and is also the final resting place of Evita Peron. Each crypt costs approximately $60,000 US dollars and each crypt has an annual maintenance fee that the family is charged. If after 30 years, the crypt has been ignored, then the cemetery has the right to move the bodies and resell the crypt. I guess there is no resting in peace in this cemetery.

I did manage to get a few photos of the city before my battery died. I realized I left the backup in the safe when I was trying to capture the colorful art district of La Boca where the tango was born. I was able to use my cell phone but now I have to figure out how to transfer them to my laptop. I am so disappointed that I'm not able to share the Tango show with everyone because it was fantastic!

Today's port is Montevideo, the capitol city of Uruguay and home to more than 1,000,000 people. I took a city tour of the highlights. The most impressive was the Legislative Palace where 52 types of marble and 17 types of granite are used to build this incredible parliament house. It took 17 years to build and was completed in 1925. One interesting fact of Uruguay is that if you are 18 years of age you must vote or you will be fined and possibly jailed. It's too bad they don't implement that law in the United States.

The rest of the afternoon will be spent sipping slushing cocktails and soaking on the sun deck until we set sail to Stanley, Falkland Islands.

Adios.

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Photos

Legislative rugs
these rugs are made of granite and marble

kitty at cemetery
This kitty appeared to be waiting for it's master to come back to life and take it home. He was just crying and crying, I wanted to take him back to the ship but the tour director refused.

shark outside my balcony
you might have to grab a magnifying glass to see it but if you look really hard, you can see it's fin - about center page 3 o'clock.

my stateroom
Thank God for upgrades, I can't imagine being in anything smaller for 32 days.

butterfly
I just had to share this photo, this butterfly just kept flying around me and wanted me to follow it, that's exactly what I did. The colors were so vibrant and beautiful.

parakeet
Uruguay means river of colorful birds, parakeets were perched in the trees in the center of town making all sorts of noise.

Comments

[Atul Kumar Singh]

Realy awesome
Hi just wanted to let u that u did really excellent fun...!!!!!! have a nice time