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Buenos Aires Part II – and heading home

March 9, 2026 //
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And we continue with our January adventures…. As they rolled to a close! It’s time to catch up as now there have been more adventures.

So, Holland America has as an excursion option on disembarkation day the choice of having a private car and tour guide for eight hours – ending at the airport.  For a solo person the car for two would be great.  It’s likely a car the size of a Toyota Corolla I suspect.  As we have six pieces of luggage with us (two checked each plus carry on) we realized we needed something bigger so we booked a “private minivan” which is supposedly large enough for three or four couples.  I tell you, the van that picked us up this morning was big enough for about 12 people with 22 days of baggage but there was only ourselves in it.

Ours was listed as “Buenos Aires Private Touring – Full Day (Minivan) Ending at the Airport.”  I suspect you’d want “Buenos Aires Private Touring – Full Day (Car) Ending at the Airport.”  I’ll describe now how it worked for us.  We think it was worth it and I’ll explain way, but also use this as an excuse to describe the experience.

The cruise port in Buenos Aires is pretty chaotic.  So, from beginning to end.

As is the case for all disembarking passengers luggage goes out the night before by midnight.  They haul your “checked bags” down, you bring down your carry-on.  You have to carry your carry-on down in the morning to the cruise terminal shuttle and then carry it to the terminal.  For these private touring transfers you are in the last group to disembark – at 8:30 for us.  They give you enough tags for your bag and they call you when it’s time.

Upon arrival from the terminal you get off of the bus and go into the terminal and find your other luggage, which if like us would be Blue group C, a fairly small section towards the near end of the baggage claim area.  Then you take your baggage (there are no carts) out through customs.  At customs you must put everything through an X-ray machine (they will put it up for you but really didn’t help taking it down).  In general there were not luggage trolleys available.  

For us, this was a matter of maneuvering, between The Boss, myself, and my mother, one 76 pound rolling bag, one 65 pound rolling bag, one 40 pound rolling bag, a couple of fairly heavy duffel bags, a rolling carry on, a few shoulder bags and one backpack out through a fairly good sized building.

Then you spill out onto a wide covered apron near the street where a HAL person will direct you through a crowd to a corner of the building where there were numerous people carying signs with your name on them.

Pro tip – pack less than we did.  Take advantage of the unlimited laundry offer.

So, we found our guide and he directed us across a dip in the concrete to a van that was luckily waiting on the best patch of curb available.  The driver loaded our luggage and we were on our way.

Logistically, the way it works is on embarkation day the HAL excursion desk leaves you an envelope with a form for you to fill out regarding anything you may want to see on your private tour.  In reality, our guide had a list of eight main areas he shows to everyone but if we had anything special we wanted to see it should go on the list.  I was looking at something that wasn’t steak for lunch so I researched, and we wanted to see the Evita Peron Museum, so I researched that as well.  Otherwise, he covered the five main areas we wanted to see including the cemetery and Plaza Mayo along with Recoleta and Palermo neighborhoods,  We also added Ateneo Grand Splendid Bookstore which was also among our favorites.

So as I was saying, they picked us up and we were on our way.  We spent the morning heading towards the central and then the more southern part of the close-in city and then after lunch we headed towards the northern part of the city.  Finally, we went to the airport.

We stopped by Teatro Colon which unfortunately was closed except for the main hallway due to some electrical work being done.  We could have done a tour here for forty five minutes in English but it would not have happened anyway.

One note – our guide, and most of the guides, are fully licensed and many of them have college degrees for being tour guides.  With his badge our guide was able to visit most attractions without paying a fee, although we had to pay the international rate.  he also seemed to know somebody on every single block.  Martin was approached many times for the typical Argentinian kiss on the cheek greeting.  Oh, but one other thing – even though he has free admission everywhere at attractions where they sell an electronic guide or otherwise he is often forbidden from providing his own commentary.  More on this later.

We spent a bit of time in the square behind the theater talking about the buildings in the neighborhood including the palace of justice.  Then, back into the van.

I snapped this photo of The Obelisk on our way to our next stop, Plaza Mayo.  Santiago and Punta Arenas both had Plaza de Armas; Buenos Aires has the same thing, Plaza Mayo.  Most Spanish colonial cities have something similar.

This heavily-touched-up photo I took of the pink house – their presidential mansion.  It sits on Plaza Mayo along with the national bank and the cathedral and a number of other buildings.

This is the inside of the cathedral on the square.  As it was Pope Francis’ seat when he was in Buenos Aires there is now a small Pope Francis museum attached apparently but we did not visit it. There is actually a bit to see here including The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the Independence.  If anybody is curious I’ll look it up when I get around to reviewing my notes.

Back in the van.  Let me tell you, it’s nice to only wait for two others climbing into a van.  Martin wanted to take us to the San Telmo neighborhood but as we visited it yesterday we suggested moving on.  Instead, he took us straight to the La Boca neighborhoodwhere we drove past the very famous soccer (futbol) stadium.  Every building in La Boca seems to be painted in its colors.  Here we got out of the van and went for a coffee in what I would call a “coffee speakeasy.”

This was my cafe cortado.  Mmmm.  Anyway, the entrance to the coffee shop was through a souvenir shop behind a painted door and up some stairs in the back.  You would not know it was there.

La Boca is a neighborhood that was settled first by Spanish immigrants and later by Italian immigrants in the late 1800s.  Along the port there there is a walking street, Caminito, leading to the small port where today many artists sell their wares.

Caminito is actually a combination between an outdoor market, walking street, and outdoor gallery.

Our guide Martin highlighting one of the artworks.

The back of a meat-selling restaurant.

After this part of the tour it was time to say goodbye to the South and head north.  Along the way we passed the new port district along the eastern side of the district, much better than the cruise port neighborhood.  It reminded me of the newer parts of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor district or some of the developments along the Chicago River in Chicago. 

Martin insisted we stop at this – it was not on our radar at all.  Two years ago, long time Cruise Critic readers will remember, around the time of one of the January Antarctic sailings there was a tornado that hit this part of Buenos Aires collapsing part of the roof in the cruise terminal.  In addition to collapsing the cruise terminal it did some damage to this, Floralis Genérica.  This has only been reopened for the past two weeks.  Prior to 2023, it opened in the daytime and closed at night; now it is just… open, but hopefully it will soon return to its opening and closing status.

After the flower we visited Recoleta Cemetary where Evita and her family are entombed.  Of course, our guide told us the story about this as well.  She was not actually entombed there until years after her death of course and there are many many mausoleums that are more grand than hers.  If anybody is interested, please let me know and I will share more photos.

And then finally we visited Ateneo Grand Splendid bookstore.

This bookstore is great, obviously.  It’s like a large Barnes and Noble if you speak Spanish.  If not, then it’s just pretty.  The English language section is on the ground floor on the left.  There is a gift and merchandise section in the lobby.  On the third (top) tier for a fee you can see an exhibit regarding the history of the museum and they will serve you snacks.  Or you can pay for a coffee and sit on the stage.

I bought a dual-language cookbook here, it was on sale in the lobby.  We also somewhere along here stopped for lunch.

I’m not going to say lunch was a mistake, but it certainly was an adventure. I think our guide’s intention was to take us to one of the market restaurants or somewhere similar, but prior to the day of the tour when we provided our list I gave him the name of Niño Gordo – “Fat Baby” in English. This had the potential to be a legendary lunch except for two factors – one, we had eaten ourselves to death on the few days prior and two, halfway through the meal the power went out!

Our guide was actually a young guy – in his mid-twenties, and perhaps when I assessed him as an adventurous recent college graduate in a cosmopolitan city I was wrong :-). We took him to an Asian – Argentine fusion spot. As you can see above, we were seated in a section that had low seats, near the floor, with light spilling in from the tabled area and from the bar area. We ordered several dishes to share including kimchi, an Argentine-Asian beef dish, and a fish dish. It was going great, but around the second course the power in the kitchen goes out and half the restaurant goes dark. Not long after that, the air conditioning above us starts dripping on us – because it was off and no longer blowing the condensation elsewhere. So, surprise.

We finished our lunch and then made our way to the airport. The airport is a bit crazy though. The key here that worked out well for us is with the private car or van our guide snagged us a luggage trolley, walked into the airport with us and showed us where our check-in counters are, and showed us where the security desk is.

One thing I’m going to note now –

EVEN WITH PRIORITY STATUS EZE IS A FOUR HOUR AIRPORT IN THE LATE AFTERNOON AND EVENING.  UGH.

Delta’s check-in opens at five. American opens at six as does United (I think).  Delta has fewer people staffing check-in but the same number of planes as American.  American opened early.  We arrived at 5pm and my mother got in line for check in right away whereas the two of us sat and had coffee for ninety minutes as we had several hours to wait. With priority our check-in was 20 minutes; my mother’s was 90 minutes.  The security line was I think 50 minutes, passport control was 20 or 30 minutes.  Okay, so maybe with priority it’s a three hour airport. However, as we arrived so early we had time to kill. We enjoyed a light meal at Le Pain Quiotidien along with some wine and beer prior to running the security and passport gauntlet. And then? The best thing ever. We visited the Admiral’s Club lounge where, after spending a hot summer day touring Buenos Aires, I was able to take a shower! We finally boarded for our 11:59pm flight and were happily able to sleep on the plane as well.

And all of the bags on the right (the four) made it on the plane to Miami. When we landed in Miami it was barely above freezing and there were gusty winds which slammed our plane to the ground twice.  I figured we’d be in for the same at home but it was a more typical landing.  Even so, brrrrr.

On approach the Potomac was full of ice. And then we spent the next week clearing snowcrete from our driveway and walks…. Back to normal.

By contrast? Today?

Off for another adventure…

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Categories South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel, Travel Logistics

Buenos Aires!

March 7, 2026 //
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Okay. Buenos Aires. We were in Buenos Aires on January 30 and 31. So, buckle up.

Before we left for South America Buenos Aires seemed as if it would take some logistics to handle. Instead, we learned it was similar to visiting New York City, London, Paris, Washington, Atlanta, or Montreal. Yes, there is traffic, but it is not crazy traffic. We thought it would not be easy to find places where it would be safe to walk around. We were wrong – much of the city, much of the center city, seems safe, safer than Santiago – and before we arrived in Santiago it seemed more approachable. So, arriving in Buenos Aires. Let me describe it to you.

When we planned our South America and Antarctica journey we had realized that one of us would be marathon training and mostly on a treadmill. As we planned to be out the evening we were in Buenos Aires (Friday the 30th), and as we had to fly home on Saturday night arriving on Sunday to be back at work on Monday, we decided Saturday would be a relatively easy day. It was. We slept in a bit, one of us spent the morning on the treadmill while the other got organized to fly home and walked some laps on deck, and we enjoyed some of the solitude of a ship in port for a while. Let me describe to you what this was like.

The view from the ship in Buenos Aires is lovely – not. It’s a view of a port and parking lots. At least unlike some other ports you don’t drive through huge stacks of containers to get to the cruise port. Instead, you come off the ship, you board a bus and drive past containers, and then you drive across parking lots for trucks and containers to get to the cruise port. It’s not a scenic cruise terminal. Two years ago the cruise terminal itself was struck by a storm during cruise season and nearly demolished – it has now been rebuilt which is pretty amazing.

Is it a nice terminal? I guess so? But it’s chaos outside. There is not much space for pickup; we attempted to get an Uber across the street but the terminal area has 3G signal rather than 4G or LTE so it’s hard to catch an Uber, and beyond about three blocks from the terminal it really is not a good part of town to walk as there is a tightly packed South American neighborhood-that-was-built-without-authority where as a tourist you do not want to pass. But beyond there, get about a mile or a mile and a half from the terminal, you are in a beautiful cosmopolitan city. Ignore the news about Buenos Aires’ currency catastrophe. Ignore the threats you hear; it’s like being in a Spanish-speaking Brooklyn in my opinion.

Similar to Montevideo we aimed to have a market lunch in Buenos Aires. This was another grill open to the bar in the middle of a market – this time it was Mercado de San Telmo and forgive me I do not have the name of the restaurant within the market. We actually brought my mother along for this. Afterwards we explored the neighborhood. Two blocks away there is an outdoor art market which we explored.

As was the case with a lot of other places we visited we saw street dancing in the park.

And then we enjoyed a wine tasting in a wine shop! This was another thing I specifically sought out and one of the reasons we visited San Telmo as there were another of wine merchants. We actually brought a couple of bottles home from here (no surprise really), one of which can be purchased locally here. Interestingly the shopkeeper used Google Translate to speak out his descriptions of the wines and play them back. Honestly I could have done without that.

We saw interesting sights on the streets in San Telmo. And then we moved on back to the ship for a short siesta before heading out for the evening.

As is the case with a lot of tourists we ended up at a tango show. Our destination, courtesy of a Holland America excursion, was the theater stage at Cafe de Los Angelitos.

At the theater we were offered a cafe or dessert. Still working off lunch we focused on the pavlova which seems to be the national dessert of Buenos Aires (yes, I know Buenos Aires is not a country, but with many places it seems like there’s Buenos Aires and then there is the rest of the country). This was followed by an hour tango show with a mix of modern and traditional tango dancing.

The dancing was spectacular.

As was the singing.

This was well worth it. I think I’d see tango once a week if I were spending a summer in Buenos Aires.

And then we were done. Back on the bus for a ride to a closed door restaurant.

Apparently Buenos Aires has a number of closed door restaurants – relatively small restaurants focused on serving privately. Basically they are the speakeasy of restaurants. Ours seated I think about 30 people, so two thirds of a tour bus. I didn’t take any pictures at the restaurant. I think I would have enjoyed it more if we had not had a large lunch. As it was, the wine was great, the appetizer was good, but the steak dinner was the same as the others we had in South America – and I don’t remember what my partner had (she does not eat beef). It made for a long day. I think if I were to plan it again I would have planned my own tango stop followed by a more avant garde dinner somewhere, maybe even modern sushi.

We were back on the ship around 11:00 in the evening, so very early by local standards, ready to sleep for eight hours before waking up to be off the ship at 9am. And more on that tomorrow.

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Categories South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel

Montevideo on a pleasant summer day

February 21, 2026 //
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Normally I would want to blog about my travels as they happened, but as I fell off the wagon a week prior to the end of our January journeys I’ve been occasionally playing catch up instead. I find that this has actually been an enjoyable pursuit. I was writing a lot on Cruise Critic about our journey much of which I was transferring here, but revisiting it later instead gives me a different perspective. I also find that, with the aid of modern photography, I still am able to remember details effectively. So we will see how this goes today.

Montevideo appears as a city on the sea, rising above the flatlands just a tiny bit.

Montevideo of course is the capital of Uruguay, a surprisingly impressive country on the eastern coast of South America. Uruguay feels to me a bit like Argentina with similar culture and similar gaucho lifestyle but a little more laid back. It is also a little cheaper than Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires, which I will review later, seems to charge American or New York prices for anything that remotely resembles a luxury good. In other words, date night there is still a $200 proposition.

Our ship, the Oosterdam, chooses Montevideo to provision rather than Buenos Aires. My initial guess was Buenos Aires is avoided for this purpose because the Uruguayan currency is stable and HAL buys enough that transacting in U.S. dollars becomes unwieldy. The Argentine Peso is not a stable currency so individuals carry on a lot of transactions in dollars. In theory Argentines are to report larger dollar transactions and then be taxed on them in pesos, but in reality they do not and wait for a tax amnesty before depositing larger amounts of money in banks and using them in the official economy. Instead, they participate in an unofficial economy. Now, a cruise line cannot choose that approach, can they? They buy from local wholesalers and it is taxed and the government chooses what currency to use (always the peso, which is not stable).

But my secondary guess is because it’s more practical. The Port of Buenos Aires is a monster and they can get everything they need, or more, in Montevideo.

Also, about ten percent of the ship’s staff turned over that day. Our waiters from the Main Dining Room went home as a number of housekeeping staff, but not ours (we asked). The last port with a large crew turnover was Ushuaia I believe. They also provision in Ushuaia. What do these two ports have in common? It’s easy for trucks and buses to drive straight to the ship. In Buenos Aires everything is offloaded and switched to shuttles and the dock workers have their own thing going on of course.

Anyway, enough about that. Montevideo is nice because you can walk right off the ship and you’re in town. I wasn’t too sure about Montevideo before we joined the cruise. I wasn’t certain how well developed it would be as I have ended up in a number of places where there’s a nice downtown core but then there’s a vacant no-man’s-land or an unsafe-to-walk-area outside of the downtown core, but Montevideo wasn’t like this. You walk off the ship and you’re in town. The only challenge was there were two other ships in port that day so there were a total of six or seven thousand tourists flooding the streets. Fortunately we had a longer stay than either so the impact on us was spread out. I feel bad for the folks on the MSC cruise who had perhaps a six hour stop in Montevideo – in my mind barely long enough for a massive ship to empty out and then reload again (our ship, for the record, carried perhaps 35% the number of passengers, and it really does make a difference).

Our first stop was the Mercado del Puerto mainly for two reasons – to walk through and browse shops and find a hat but also to scope out to see if it works as a lunch stop. As you can see above there was at least one place that fit the bill. There were actually several, and this is where we began the practice of dining at the bar at a wood fired grill. Why didn’t we do this sooner in our voyage?

Our journey from this point took us through pedestrian streets lined with shops and cafes to multiple squares, some tree lined and some not.

Along the way we passed the Plaza De La Diversidad Sexual. The Plaza was dedicated more than two decades ago now with a monolith. The monolith features the following inscription: “Honrar la diversidad es honrar la vida: Montevideo por el respeto a todo género, identidad y orientación sexual” (Honoring diversity is honoring life: Montevideo for the respect of every gender, identity, and sexual orientation). On a random weekday afternoon it was a quiet and peaceful place just a block off busy streets where there were only a handful of people hanging around – mostly some boys riding their bicycles up and down the ramp.

We had vague plans to visit the leather factory off of Plaza Independcia (shown above), but the leather factory was a floor above ground level and more oriented towards tailoring to fit with 24 hour turn around than tourist browsing, so instead we took a wander back to the ship. I wasn’t permitted to wander the ocean front around the peninsula as this had resulted in a five mile walk for us in Punta del Este…

Like many South American cities there was a large classic theater, the above perhaps skewed a bit by me using the iPhone on fisheye mode.

This residence or business had some delightful sculptures climbing on the railings. And by the way the street scene was interesting to watch. We would not have happened upon this on an official tour.

We did actually make our way back to the market for lunch. As I said it was bar seating with food prep going on in front of us. Wine and beer here was the usual situation – nearly always they sell you the whole bottle of wine and they encourage you to order two beers at once by only providing liter beer bottles.

You can see the jamon serrano I ordered as well as tortilla de patata set for wait staff to slice off a quarter for anybody who requests. Reminds me that I should cook some up at home sometime soon; the challenge is it’s designed to be served room temperature at your leisure and I’m the only one who will have it that way so I make a plate full and serve off two slices and then it’s just me. But it’s oh so good.

This was the best beef I had enjoyed in two weeks at this point. There are about half a dozen of these places within the market as well as the fresh food stalls, tourist shops, and other artisanal shops. Also it didn’t seem to be air conditioned. I imagine it isn’t heated in the cooler months either. We were there around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. With Uruguay being the same longitude as us roughly as well as being two hours ahead of us this tells me the summer time hottest part of the day comes around 4 or 5pm in the afternoon, and the locals have lunch between 2 and 5, so I am thinking we timed things fairly well. It was warm to hot but not what I would say is Virginia hot, and it was fine inside in the shade.

Since our visit to Montevideo I have read additional travel reports regarding the city and the country and it all sounds fascinating – a great place to visit and base yourself for a week or two if not longer and travel around the Uruguayan countryside. Also, based on our experiences as well as these travel reports it almost sounds as if it is a better place to end a long haul flight than Buenos Aires. The airport is smaller and better run than the airports across the estuary in Buenos Aires. Between the two of us I think we both want to re-visit Montevideo and Punta del Esta as well as Buenos Aires. I know I would add on Argentine wine growing regions, the Argentina side of Patagonia and the Andes, and some hiking in the rain in Chilean Patagonia, but more on this when I write up Buenos Aires.

Eventually we made our way back to the ship. The night prior had been our final night in the main dining room. As our wait staff departed in Montevideo and we had a large lunch we opted to “stay in” and prepare for our travels home even though it was still two nights out. Also, it was our final night at sea.

Lovely skies. We packed up and prepared for two days in Buenos Aires.

Meanwhile at home a few days prior a thick layer of snowcrete had fallen which would plague us for half the month of February before it was no longer a nuisance…

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Categories South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel, Travel Logistics

Punte del Este – self-guided wanderings and suggestions

February 7, 2026 //
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Our first visit to Uruguay, and our second to last port stop before arriving in Buenos Aires, was Punte del Este.

Punte del Este appeared over the bow as we were both on the treadmill. Overcast skies with a marine layer which promised to burn off. Puerto Madryn was warm and Puerto Madryn was a beach town, but Punte del Este was more of a modern beach town in the style of a mini Miami Beach. This was also a port where we arrived relatively late – at 10am.

There are even cars from Miami here.

The way Punta del Este is set up is such that there is nowhere close to the walkable city for a full pier large enough to take even a small cruise ship and it does not look as if this will change. But once you navigate a 25 minute tender ride it is a great port for a walking tour. Both Lonely Planet and the ship had maps that included a decent map towards walking the peninsula. In theory you could walk the whole thing in about 90 minutes; we took three hours. It looked shorter on paper. Towards the end we learned we walked close to five miles – something which came back to haunt me the next day as a five mile walk impacts marathon training if that’s what you’re doing (I am not).

This tour took in sights such as:

La Mano de Punta del Este, the local answer to Washington’s “The Awakening” which is sadly now out in Maryland.

A funky modern art sculpture in a median. In the photo above it looks larger than it really is. Honestly, not necessarily worth the walk.

Our Lady of the Mercedes Benz church, or at least that’s what I call it. This is a nice looking church, a century old so I suppose it is old as far as Punte del Este is concerned, but otherwise not immensely notable, although it is across from the lighthouse in a very tony single family home residential neighborhood.

The first true tourist site we saw after leaving the port was this lighthouse, in the center of the peninsula rather than on the edge.

But the first interesting site we saw leaving the port were these smashed up cars. At first we thought there had been a rather significant accident right there and the city had merely pushed the vehicles aside, but in Uruguay and later Buenos Aires we realized that the local practice is to tow and deposit smashed cars next to the police station. There were probably a dozen or so here and we saw even more in Buenos Aires.

Punta del Este has a great shopping street with upscale brands as well as more common brands. Montevideo, the next day, turned out to be similar as well. Prices for every day, non-name-brand goods are reasonable, but prices for items sold on the global market for most of us were less expensive at home. I think, for instance, we saw Hoka shoes here on sale for about $250 USD whereas at home we would pay half that.

As it is a supposedly laid back beach town with some money we also saw a number of classic cars and jeeps.

This was merely parked on the street.

Another one, for example. This isn’t Santiago, or even Buenos Aires, where something such as this would get stolen pretty quickly.

We saw this beautiful early 1970s Ford pickup truck walking the promenade along the Atlantic from the point up to the hand.

But the upscale vehicle of choice seemed to be the Range Rover Velar. This example, and several others, had made the journey either via road (nine hours) or road and ferry (six hours) from Buenos Aires and were likely here for the summer.

We bought some wine here in Punta del Este. It didn’t turn out to be cheap, but we focused on upscale wines we could not get at home. It was more of a purchasing experience than a tasting experience though. And now it is sitting downstairs in the rack waiting out “Dry” February.

By this point in our travels, with Buenos Aires approaching, we neither wanted another plate of seafood nor did we want the culinary investment of a steak (spoiler alert – I ate three steaks over the following three days). Pizza seemed to be the meal of choice.

This time I was the one who enjoyed the very large local beer.

We visited our waiters Muis and Tri for the final time this evening and wished them well on their journeys home to Southeast Asia – a journey that involves four flights.

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Categories South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel

Philosophy towards sea days and the lady in the red dress

February 7, 2026 //
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Now that I have been home for six days it’s time to catch up a bit. I figured I would spend some time chatting a bit about our vacation and travel philosophy, or rather why we do certain things that most people do but ignore other things. It makes sense to chat about this now as the next day after Puerto Madryn was a sea day.

We woke up on January 27 to fair seas and warm air – warm enough to sit in the sun but maybe not quite lay there as if you are at a beach. As we had had a bit of sun in Puerto Madryn this was fine with us anyway. And one of the things I enjoy most about cruising is watching the sea change as the weather changes. The nice thing about this north to south and then south back north again cruise is the weather, temperature, and sea conditions changed noticeably day to day.

Our philosophy when on vacation is to start the day early, often with the sun, and not stay out too late. This is mostly because we both like to get some fitness or reading in early in the morning before we go out and do things. We happened upon this approach during the covid shutdowns and have essentially stuck with them. So, January 27 was typical of this, but to a degree we made an exception – we went to the ship’s show that evening.

Oosterdam’s main stage production was a show called Move. As one of my fellow cruise passengers described it the only thread holding the story together was dancing. Fortunately these productions on ship only last 45 minutes. By the time you’re no longer impressed by the dancing and looking for something more substantial it’s time to get up and go to bed – or go to the casino.

Early in the cruise it felt like we would frequently have dinner every evening and then sit through a band set for forty-five minutes. Later in the cruise it felt like instead we would have dinner and then play in the casino a bit. We do typically call it a night before the ship does, but we have dinner later than most on the ship do – starting at 7:30pm – so our evenings are short.

Wait, we made a second exception. I think this was the night we stayed late at the casino – past 11pm. Or that may have been the night before as we were leaving Puerto Madryn.

Sea days are important on a cruise. It’s the down time you take to take a nap, organize your baggage to go home several days later, figure out how port transfers are going to work, or spend a couple hours walking in circles on the Promenade Deck working off the steak you ate the night before. It’s also good down time for wandering around the ship taking photographs of all of the artwork, to decide if you’re ever going to do something with them.

We always found the lady in the red dress as a way to find our cabin door. Turn towards the lady, walk left, and then walk right to the end.

When we have a sea day we wake up early (6:30 or 7am), have a sit-down breakfast, read or go to the treadmill or otherwise exercise (this is where I chose the promenade rather than the treadmill), skip lunch, play a board game (we played Carcassonne with my mother and her friend four times during this cruise), get organized (laundry, throwing out the detritus of paperwork collecting on the desk in the cabin), and attend a fancy dinner if available.

January 27 was also our final dressy night. We dressed in our finest and even had pictures taken.

We also learned that night that our waiter and assistant waiter were going home and we only had one more dinner with them. We’ve gotten to know them fairly well over the course of three weeks; we actually found our waiter better at organizing different cuisine for dietary preferences elsewhere in the ship than the Neptune Lounge concierge was.

There really was not much else to this day. Our last sea day disappeared before we even knew it. The next four days – five actually – would be spent relatively flat out.

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Categories South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel

Puerto Madryn and the Cellar Master’s experience

January 27, 2026 //
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So, in a few different places I’ve asked after port safety in Montevideo, especially around the port / Mercado area and in general the advice is “we were there a few days ago and it was fine but as usual in a big city…” etc.

In Buenos Aires of course the advice is different – do not walk from the port area.  The recommendations are to get a taxi or Uber to where we are going or at least as far as Plaza General San Martin, but much of Buenos Aires is still safe for people who look like better targets than Julia and I.  Generally, but not always, we’re not the first target, especially on a Holland America cruise.  Until recently neither of us wore jewelry or watches worth stealing either.

One of the things I end up doing every time we travel is I try to figure out if it’s safe for myself or a marathon runner to run outside.  There is a fun little assessment I do regarding local weather conditions, traffic assessment, and comfort level.  You’d be surprised where people aren’t comfortable running outside!  For instance, sometimes places like Avignon, France, are lousy places for runners even in the wee hours of the morning because everybody is calling out for you!

So far, Puerto Madryn was one of our favorite places anywhere we’ve traveled for running (with obvious exceptions like Boston and New York City). Puerto Madryn has La Rambla along the sea which continues in some form or another more than three miles out to the point and to the ecological center.

An obvious turn around point for most guests when they walk or run from the ship is Monumento Indio al Telhuelche on a point of land at the end of the main beach.

This is a monument to the labor movement of the indigenous peoples in Patagonia several decades ago. It also has a lovely view.

View from the ship from three miles away.

The view beyond. I would have loved to keep going, but there was plenty to do. We turned around and ran back the other direction where I stopped near the pier for a large beer while waiting for The Boss to double my mileage.

This was a prelude to some souvenir shopping followed by lunch at Náutico Bistró Del Mar.

This was officially Mariscos de Golfo Nuevo with Golfo Nuevo being the gulf around Puerto Madryn.  I’m not totally certain all of it was directly from the gulf itself but it certainly seemed fresh, cooked as appropriate, and seasoned with lemons, onions, and vinaigrette appropriately.  

Perfect as we were planning to attend the Cellar Master’s dinner yesterday evening, a lunch to share with papas fritas and more large beers.

Eventually after some shopping we returned to the ship.  Our original plan was to run, have a beer, return to the ship, and then head back out, but Puerto Madryn is the type of place where when it’s summer you walk around casually as you are.  We felt comfortable in our fitness wear in open-door souvenir shops as well as dining outside.  

We returned in time for the tango sail away!

Last night we attended the Cellar Master’s dinner.  This appears to be focused on wine but is also one of the best meals available on an Oosterdam cruise.  Food and beverage staff spoke at length and we were introduced to the entire Pinnacle Grill team – although we’ve met them all at some point.

The menu was great.  Somehow we had a mix-up and two of us had scallops instead ofthe foie gras but we were both fine with that especially after yesterday’s bonus lunch.

The Pumpkin Sage Cappuccino is a delightful cream of pumpkin soup paired with a flavor-forward Pinot noir to offset it’s sweet and spicy nature.

For us the warm lobster salad was the star of the show.  If it were twice the size of us then it would be perfect for a meal on a day like yesterday.  This was paired with a rosé which actually wasn’t the greatest in our opinion, but we do think we would have enjoyed it better as stand alone on a sunny summer day.

The filet with the beef tenderloin and grilled shrimp was the best beef I’ve had on the ship so far but the shrimp were even better.  This was nicely paired with the same MTC Syrah I had with dinner a few nights ago!

Dessert was decidedly not a tuille BUT it was the perfect size!  Not huge!  And Graham’s Six Grapes was a perfect accompaniment.

We both enjoyed this meal better than the Konigstafel but I actually think that’s the point.  Konigstafel is to display a variety of what the king wants, Cellar Masters is to share food to pair with wine in more of a best-of.  We also dined by ourselves.  We’re at the point on a 22 day voyage where we are happy to not socialize as much.

One complaint?

Often it seems as if HAL glasses have spots on them.  They need rinse aid of some sort.

So, a few other things to talk about:

We’ve spent a fair amount of time playing table card games, mostly blackjack, and a little bit of craps.  We haven’t lost a ton of money – essentially we are even aside from an hour where I played about twelve days ago where I lost several hundred dollars and stepped away from the casino for four days as a result.  In the meantime, we’ve gotten to know the casino staff really well especially while playing craps.

Last night we decided to curtail our visits to the casino as we’re winding down the trip.  We spent a couple hours with our casino staff friends and gambling buddies playing craps.  It was actually the latest we’ve stayed “out” on this trip so far (we’ll likely stay “out” later on the last night when we go to a closed door restaurant).  It was a lot of fun.

Yesterday I mentioned running in port.  I’ve largely curtailed my treadmill activities although I may pay a visit tomorrow morning.  Instead, I’ve been walking an hour or more on the promenade.  I’ve had some interesting step totals –

Yesterday – 21,589 (Puerto Madryn)

Sunday – 11,468 (Sea Day)

Saturday – 16,519 (Falkland Islands)

Friday – 7,991 (Sea Day)

Thursday – 15,334 (Antarctica Day 4)

Wednesday – 16,212 (Antarctica Day 3)

Tuesday – 17,667 (Antarctica Day 2, with treadmill time)

Monday – 16,944 (Antarctica Day 1)

I had planned to do a number of yoga and pilates classes, but early in the cruise after my first class I couldn’t get motivated to attend because I didn’t enjoy the instructor’s style, so I never went back.  I’ve practiced yoga on Carnival and Cunard cruises, the last time being back in 2017, but I haven’t found any on this or my past two cruises that I truly enjoyed.  I almost think decent fitness classes were a casualty of the Covid era.

One thing they mentioned last night which I never would have known – HAL canceled their bottle stewards after Covid.  They still have a sommelier around and they have one full time in Pinnacle Grill, but not so much visibly; they just have a beverage runner in the MDR, at least on this ship.  You order through your waiter.  I wonder if HAL pushed bottles of wine versus elite beverage package more prior to Covid.  This, by the way, is one thing I like more about Cunard; HAL has a decent wine list and I think it’s better than our experience on Celebrity nearly four years ago now but you have to ask for it.  Cunard is a little more forward with their wine list.  And we enjoyed (again, this is four years ago, right before all of the cuts) Celebrity’s beverage service in Blu a bit better.

But again, especially in the dining room, Pinnacle Grill, and with food in general, HAL has surprised us.  The variety of food and drink available is stellar.  The MDR menu isn’t as generic as we had on our Celebrity Silhouette cruise a few years ago – and thus we didn’t dine in the main dining room. Here there are often more interesting dishes offered.  When you get to know the system and get to know your dining room staff, things are really in your favor.  And the Pinnacle Grill breakfast experience is top notch; to think we almost missed it because our goal had been to skip breakfast every day.

Now, speaking of the Lido Market buffet – we still haven’t returned for buffet dining, even though today is Cake Day (it’s hard to handle Cake Day after a few days of a lot of eating).  We’ve learned that they do not have an Asian corner on this ship as they do on Noordam and Westerdam (someone please correct me if I’m missing something regarding info and availability this winter please).

Also, today, without eating breakfast, I was craving a typical sandwich, something like a club sandwich, so we ordered room service lunch.  They warned us it would be a 45 minute wait; it was a ten minute wait and the sandwich was great.

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Categories Foodie, Running, South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel, Travel Logistics

Looking ahead to the Falkland Islands!

January 22, 2026 //
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Looking ahead – what the guide says about The Falkland Islands:

“Many ships call into the Falkland Islands on their way to or from Antarctica.  These stops usually turn out to be a pleasant surprise for those on board.  Located 477 km (296 miles) east of southern Argentina, the Falklands are a rare mix of wildlife hotspot and delightful inhabited outpost.  Comprising over 700 islands, the archipelago has a human population of around 4000, and a sea-bird population that dwarfs that.  For wildlife lovers the Falklands are a fantastic destination.  Unlike other subantarctic islands, they can be visited independently by scheduled flights.”

The archipelago is slightly larger than the area of Jamaica including water.  Theya re around 51 degrees south latitude, the equivalent to Southern Labrador, London, and Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula in the north.  They are, however, much colder and are constantly raked by strong winds.  There are no naturally recurring trees.  Temperature in the summer tends to be around 9 degrees Celsius / 48 degrees Fahrenheit and the sun shines more often than not.

The book talks about literally millions of petrels, albatrosses, penguins, gulls, and cormorants.  Black-browed albatrosses, rockhopper penguins, giant petrels, white-chinned petrels, Antarctic prions, Magellanic and blue-eyed cormorants, kelp geese, upland geese, crested ducks, flightless steamer ducks.  

There are mammals including Commerson’s and Peale’s dolphins, killer whales, Sei whales, elephant seals, South American fur seals, sea lions, etc.

We’re looking forward to it.  We have a Volunteer Point excursion planned.

We’re also reading up on our next stops in Puerto Madryn, Punta del Este, Montevideo, and finally Buenos Aires.  

I’ve been using Peter Carey & Craig Franklin’s Antarctica Cruising Guide for information on Antarctica as well as the surrounding islands including the Falklands; this includes the quote above.

For ideas on what to do in ports as well as Santiago and Buenos Aires, I’ve been using the latest version of Lonely Planet South America. This helped me give our private guide in Santiago a list of neighborhoods and sites to visit as well as for me to identify what was good for us to see on our own. I’m also using it for a similar guide in Buenos Aires. And it helped me with the museum in Ushuaia and to find Isabel Cocina al Disco in Ushuaia.

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Categories Books, South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel, Travel Logistics

Leaving Antarctica

January 22, 2026 //
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So yesterday I had a pretty amazing men’s facial, shave, and haircut, not necessarily in that order. 

The original plan was for us to arrive at Deception Island around 6:30pm.  As it seemed we were running late, I went up to the spa and asked if they could smash my two appointments together and begin at 6pm, and they accommodated.  

It was great.  I pre-booked these appointments over a month ago following on someone’s advice – Antarctic nights tend to be fairly calm and the expedition team and Captain go off duty so it isn’t a horrible time to book services as they are discounted.  My appointment dragged on a while though.  We were done at 8pm so our options for dinner were room service or wait for late night dining to open or take advantage of the Neptune Lounge.  We chose the lounge option as we are now on the “two meals a day” plan anyway.

I still managed to snap a few photos. I barely went outside in the evening, though.

Panorama view.

Others did go outside.

Today’s two meals are Pinnacle Grill breakfast (asian congee) and Pinnacle Grill dinner.  Hopefully the boat doesn’t rock too much.

Anyway, I captured a handful of photos of Deception Island during and after my spa appointment.  I wasn’t going to go outside for long, though, as there was an incredibly strong wind.  Deception Island seems very desolate, and now that we were away from the peninsula where less precipitation falls it didn’t necessarily seem the same.  I think Deception Island is a place where you need an expedition ship to enter the caldera and hopefully get off the ship a bit to see properly.

We spent the night moving from Deception Island to King George Island.  Before we went to bed, we went out on our veranda and realized the waves were coming from behind; this made sense as there was a 30 knot wind from the southwest and we were moving to the northeast.  End result was there were occasional thud noises as waves hit the flat stern of the ship.

Blue in the morning!

More penguins!

Leaving blue waters behind

This morning was our final scenic touring which started in one arm of Admiralty Bay and moved around considerably.  Again, like last night, at 7am conditions on the bow were rather inhospitable, but this didn’t stop me from catching some photos of the blue waters of the bay.

Eventually we moved on from our first stop and caught some sunshine and conditions improved – we spent probably an hour parked at the base of a very large glacier where we were witnessed to a decent sized calving of a glacier followed by a couple hours of slow sailing through the bay past multiple research bases –

the Peruvian,

Uruguayan,

and Brazilian research bases, and then to return.  By noon we were leaving the mouth of the bay and heading to sea.

So how do I rate our Antarctic experience?  Honestly, I do think it was better than expected.  Even though there were three days where half the day had absolutely miserable weather, the rest of the time the weather was fairly decent.  We saw most of our penguin wildlife early in the stay.  We saw a lot more whales than I was expected (perhaps into the hundreds if you were out there for most of it).  We saw fewer seals and sea lions than I expected.  And there were more ships and boats down here than I was expecting.

Conditions on the Drake headed south were reasonable.  On the north remains to be seen but doesn’t look as if it’s going to be apopalyptic.  Internet connectivity has been good, and there have been things to do.

We finally hit our groove as far as getting enough sleep and attaining a healthy groove of dining and fasting and exercise.  I’ve replaced some of my workouts with walking the promenade instead of using the treadmill.  One note – I tried the fitness classes; I don’t really like them here.

Anyway, northward.

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Categories South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel

Antarctica Day 1 – Plans change! But not too much. January 19, 2026

January 20, 2026 //
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So, my notes from yesterday. This post is going to be all over the place a bit.

Supposedly on the last cruise down here in December they only saw a single seal.  Now I’m seeing photo posts of multiple in multiple locations (I have one myself).

Yesterday we started at Palmer Station, paid a visit to Port Lockroy, did some scenic cruising through Nemaire Channel and sat at the base of a glacier in a floating field of bergy bits for a while playing chicken with Seaborn Journey (I have some fun photos of that), circled most of Wincke Island…. The original plan was for us to overnight in Paradise Harbor (I believe this is still the plan) but we were to spend the afternoon not in Nemaire Channel.  The weather changed though – it was sunny and in the upper 30s (maybe 3 or 4C).  It has been great for walking the deck.  

There had been some flurries and mild snow squals but it was mostly peaceful until after bedtime. Darkness fell sometime after midnight (I wouldn’t really know, I wasn’t awake, but around 2:45am I saw light outside even though sunrise is around 4am).

Last night instead of Paradise Bay (supposedly there was ice) we were situated in a strait somewhere south of Dallmann Bay with the intention of visiting Cuverville Island, Dallmann Bay, and Wilhelmina Bay tomorrow, in that order.  Obviously that’s the intention.  Today’s reality was slightly different than planned – we did not visit Paradise Bay due to ice and we did not visit Lameire Channel due to ice.  However, Palmer Island and Port Lockroy had plenty of penguins – that was this morning.  Then we had a face-off with a Seabourn ship.  Otherwise, the Captain spent the day driving around…

Around 4:30 yesterday afternoon I was napping in my cabin to the pleasant sounds of the bow camera on the television when suddenly the captain put on full thrusters – slamming on the brakes, as it were, as we feel this quite well on the stern.  I thought, “Uh oh, something is going to happen.”  Captain gets on the horn and tells us all we’re approaching a pod of killer whales!  Now according to The Boss who was in the Crows Nest at the time everyone from the Crows Nest suddenly rushed the windows and there was no seeing anything.  It was absolute mayhem.  I went back to sleep though.  She went out to the bow and looked for killer whales and sure enough there they were and penguins started flying out of the water trying to get away!  Some got eaten…

As you can tell I’m not the most fanatical about wildlife sighting but I’m not the least fanatical either.  I’ll share now a samping of photos.

This is from when we came back from an hour in the casino after dinner.  The light is really surreal here.  Also, from the veranda the ship was mostly silent and the waterwas still, at least for a few minutes.  I guess we’ve found our place to sit for the night.

Evening light

There were icebergs and masses of ice everywhere, but none too close. We later learned (today) that a Seabourn ship and another expedition ship came and hoovered in Dallmann Bay with us. Turns ou the Seabourn captain was a crewmate with Captain Kevin on the Konigsdam a few years back before Captain Kevin took the helm on this ship. Yesterday afternoon, as other guests put it, we attempted a “kiss” with the Seabourn ship.

I mean, we were really close.

REALLY close.

I don’t know who these guests are.

Zodiacs buzzing around Seaborn Journey and the Oosterdam

We visited a couple of different penguin rookeries yesterday. First was the gathering at Palmer Station.

A mob of penguins at Palmer Station

You really couldn’t see them well there as we were fairly distant, but this was our first stop in Antarctica. In some years the Palmer Station scientists send a zodiac out and exchange supplies and occasionally give a short talk, but for us this was not to be this year.

Just a handful of Palmer-adjacent penguins

After Palmer Station we had time to freshen up a bit before our stop at Port Lockroy where there were massive amounts of penguins.

Arriving at Lockroy

Lockroy is popular with smaller expedition ships as well as sailing yachts. I think we probably saw five or six sailing yachts yesterday.

For example

The station there was founded by the British during the middle part of the 20th century but then was abandoned for a number of years until a preservation group showed up in the 1990s to restore it. Now there is a small museum, shop, and post office. They have no boats though so they rely on others for transport.

This is actually an outbuilding at Port Lockroy. You see some zodiacs buzzing around dropping passengers off. Penguins appear to be nonplussed.

Main building at Port Lockroy

As you can see there are penguins everywhere.

They are actually a lot denser than this in many places, but here they sort of look like our greyhound at home. They just sort of stand around looking at people wondering why they’re there.

Later in the day we went on a sailing expedition to another point in the bays which is where we encountered the Seabourn ship.

Anyway.  The Antarctic days (four of them) are lightly scheduled as far as entertainment activities go.  There was only one talk scheduled yesterday. Today (spoiler alert) there were three. The Rolling Stone Band was largely off .  There was a show on the main stage today – a stringed instrument player.  For the record, we haven’t seen any main stage shows yet, but we intend to see the mentalist tonight.  We’ve been more focused on catching snippets of shows elsewhere and going to bed early so we can wake up early.  We’ve been up between 5:30 and 7 most days for the past two weeks compared to my usual 6:30 on weekdays and 7 or 8 on weekends.

We did spend a good chunk of the day looking at wildlife, one of us more seriously than the other.  My mother spent probably eight or nine hours today at various places out on deck with a camera (I spent about 3 or 4).  The weather wasn’t bad for it yesterday. Sunday’s weather would have been brutal.  So, to some degree we lucked out, but I’ve seen people say this in reports regarding most all of the Oosterdam’s pastAntarctic cruises going back two years.

Nothing exciting in the dining room today, but nothing bad either.  It was a good day.  We played some blackjack and came out even and The Boss taught me to play craps and I came out way ahead.

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Categories South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel

Crossing the Drake Passage – Day 2, preparing for Antarctica, January 18, 2026

January 20, 2026 //
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From our noon update on Sunday –

60 degrees 50 minutes South, I didn’t catch the West, 16 nautical miles per hour headed south. We are 308 nautical miles from Ushuaia and 235 nautical miles to Palmer Station. No icebergs will be seen until early tomorrow based upon the ice maps and ice forecast.  Currently the temperature is 6 degrees Celsius with a northwest wind at 30 knots. Sunset 10:54pm. Temperature tomorrow morning and through the day will be around freezing with sunrise at 3:52am. We are experiencing 2 1/2 meter swells. Again he warns one hand for the ship, one for your drink. Scenic cruising starts at 6:15am tomorrow.

About this scenic cruising.

So, today I sat through three talks, two by the expedition team and one by the captain.  All were repeated in the afternoon as well.  The first lecture was to a mostly full house; the second was to a full house, and the third we were bursting at the seams.  It seemed as if a lot of people were frustrated when they realized that in order to have a seat at the 11am talk you need to show up at the 9am talk or you have to be patient – and expect maybe you’re going to be turned away to return in the afternoon.

Pro tip – if you stand in the aisles or sit in the aisles or on the stairs they will make you leave and the whole theater will wait until everyone situated as such has left.

The Boss reports that the questions asked in the afternoon were… less well thought out than the questions asked in the morning.

Adrian the geologist mainly spoke about the geology in the glaciers – the patterns and layers that develop as the glaciers and ice moves and flows, because it does flow.

Antarctica is basically covered by a system of ice streams as shown above with darker colors indicating faster flow of ice and lighter colors indicating nearly-still ice.  By faster flow we’re not necessarily talking fast; we’re talking three feet a day, or one and a half Oosterdams per year.

He said he sees these patterns everywhere.

It looks like a coffee

But here is what it looks like on the ice:

This is literally an ice river on Antarctica.

For scale – it’s about ten miles across and it’s taken at an angle, most likely from an aircraft flying into a valley, where you would notice it.

The second talk focused on a bit more depth as Ed is actually a person who studies the ice instead of being ice-adjacent due to time studying geology next to or hidden by the ice.  And Ed is a great speaker as well (so is Adrian).

Antarctica has 24.4 million gigatonnes of ice.  As you can see above, a gigatonne is a billion metric tons.  As you can see below, the size of a gigatonne is roughly a 700 foot tall building sitting on Central Park in New York City.

As always New York City is the city that gets demolished by a megaton of ice

He also spoke a bit about the creation of icebergs and what happens over an ice sheet’s lifetime – the water flowing under the ice, fresh and salt water moving underneath the ice where the ice breaks off, and so forth.  He spoke a bit about the A23a iceberg which is 918 feet tall with only a small portion above ground; A23a also is, or was, the size of Rhode Island and I believe floating somewhere near South Georgia Island now.

But both Adrian and Ed were not the stars of the show. The star was Captain Kevin. In the Antarctic cruise community, at least online on social media and in various forums, Captain Kevin is a hero, in part because he explains in detail what he’s doing but also because he has nervous travelers convinced he has their safety in mind. And he’s funny too.

And here he is
Planned voyage map

On Sunday Kevin gave us the details behind his planning for the first two days of the voyage. The goal was to visit Palmer Station early Monday morning, like 6am, then visit Port Lockroy and drop off postcards to be mailed, and take an afternoon cruise through Lemaire Channel. Eventually we would overnight in Paradise Bay.

For Tuesday we would visit Cuyerville Island, Dallmann Bay, Gerlache Strait, and Wilhelmina Bay.

Much of this didn’t actually happen, but stay tuned. I didn’t take any more photos on Sunday.

Expedition team bios

This is the expedition team.  Tomorrow they’re presenting on “Life in the Deep Freeze.”  As the times line up with a couple of the scenic cruising sites I’m not certain when we will make them. The expedition team is mostly into physical sciences – not so much life – but they’ve done a good job with life sciences and ecology on Antarctica as well. Adrian in particular is highly naturalist-adjacent. I believe he’s married to a PhD biologist.

Anyway.  Sunday night was a decent dressy night interspersed with football playoff games.  This weekend they’ve been playing the playoffs in Billboard whereas last weekend everybody was left to fend for themselves.  There was also a tango dance show tonight, jazz band, and of course the Rolling Stone band.  It is / was a lively night on ship.

Weather continues to be gray and gloomy with temperatures falling more and more, and frankly the forecast is not looking promising for New Zealand.  I believe the December cruise had two beautifully sunny days out of three; they’re telling us not to bank on that right away.  But they’re telling us there are currently reports of lots of penguins in the places suggested so far.  

This is actually one of the things the current expedition team is good for – they have a lot of contacts who are out on the ice and have access to current information in conjunction with the bridge.

At least the ship is relatively steady.  We should sleep well.

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Categories South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel
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