Uruguay is a tiny county wedged between Argentina and Brazil, but a standout – particularly when it comes to South America. It is stable politically, economically, has strong education and is safe. They invented tango here. Also, for you trivia experts, they have the world’s longest national anthem. Over half the population live in Montevideo, […]
Allyn Shulman, Guest Blogger Today we visited the quaint capital of the Falkland Islands, Port Stanley. The population is only about 4500. Everybody knows everybody’s business here. After a ½ hour tender ride (a small boat that takes passengers from an anchored ship to shore) and a short van ride, we arrived at the stunning […]
Ushuaia is referred to as “The End of the World”, because, well, it is. It is the southernmost city in the world. Just viewing the port from our cabin is special. Since this is our third visit here, we decided to do something different and did the End of the World Train Journey. It was […]
Punta Arenas is the capital of The Magallanes Region, Chile’s southernmost region. We found a terrific steakhouse for lunch, Restaurant Estilo Magallanico. And steak lunch for five including tip was only $105. Here are some interesting Punta Arenas factoids: The city is the largest city south of the south 46th parallel. It is the most […]
Today (cruise day 33) we are in Chile’s Southern ice field in Patagonia viewing the Pious Glacier. It is the largest glacier (40 miles long) in the Southern Hemisphere except for Antarctica. Obviously, it’s COLD here! It is impossible to capture the magnitude given that there is no frame of reference.
We are spending two weeks and stopping in seven ports in Chile. It is a fascinating county. Its Pacific Coast is fully twice as long as that in the continental U.S., yet only averages about 150 miles wide (about the same as California). Chile is by no means third world. It has good infrastructure, a […]
Today we docked near Pisco on the southern coast of Peru. We toured the Paracas National Reserve, known as the Peruvian Galapagos, located in the Ballestas Islands. These islands are accessible by tour boats from nearby Paracas, a cute resort town. On the way there we passed our ship. It is the one in […]
I had no idea that Lima is the second largest city in all the Americas. With over 11MM people, it is only behind Sao Paulo and even more populated than either Mexico City or New York. I arranged a private tour with seven of our cruise pals. Like other large cities, it has ugly and […]
Guayaquil is Ecuador’s largest city, economic capital and main port. It is also the gateway to the Galapagos Islands which I highly recommend if you ever are in this part of the world. The Metropolitan Cathedral of Guayaquil was built to replace its original cathedral that was destroyed in a fire. Malecon 2000 is the […]
Manta, along with a couple other places, considers itself the World Capital of Tuna. They certainly are up there in that they have a huge quantity of tuna production, outstanding quality, and industry revolving around it. I never realized how gigantic the tuna nets are. Some go for a mile. Down the road a bit […]