Valparaiso, Chile Wish we spent another day or two there

I would have to say that so far the one regret I have is not spending more time in Valparaiso, Chile.  We disembarked off the cruise ship into a port that did not look like much but we were wrong.

The city is quite hilly like San Francisco and there are funiculars to help you get from one part to another or you can use the various stairways. There is train that will take you along the water up to the next City, Vina del Mar, or up into the hills to Limache. But the amazing part is all of the colorful graffiti around the city and the wonderful food and wine. There are lots of young people who reminded me of what the late 60s and early 70s were like in California. Many were street musicians playing Beatles songs and soft jazz on saxophones in the plaza and parks around the city. 

Instead of inserting pics I will instead insert the link to the photos taken and let you peruse them at your leisure and just say if you have the chance to go spend at least 3 days. 

https://goo.gl/photos/sXPJyMMq2vMvtvXF7

Here is a song by Sting that a good friend reminded of that will help set the mood. 






Chase the dog star
Over the sea
Home where my true love is waiting for me
Rope the south wind
Canvas the stars
Harness the moonlight
So she can safely go
Round the Cape Horn to
Valparaiso

Red the port light
Starboard the green
How will she know of the devils I've seen
Cross in the sky
Star of the sea
Under the moonlight
There she can safely go
Round the Cape Horn to
Valparaiso

And every road I walked
Would take me down to the sea
With every broken promise in my sack
And every love would always send
The ship of my heart
Over the rolling sea

If I should die
And water's my grave
She'll never know if I'm damned or I'm saved
See the ghost fly
Over the sea
Under the moonlight
There she can safely go
Round the Cape Horn to
Valparaiso

Read more: http://artists.letssingit.com/sting-lyrics-valparaiso-hp4xcqr#ixzz3vZMFKZ5C 
LetsSingIt - Your favorite Music Community 

Now I have travelled through

We have now travelled around the Horn and seen several Chilean glaciers and are about to fly to our next destination and continent. This mean I have officially travelled from the top of North America passing through Central America to the southernmost tip of  South America. But there are still several more countries in Central America and South America I would like to visit at a later date.

However, Port Stanley in the Falklands is not one of those places. To get from the ship to Port Stanley required getting on a tender in very choppy water. Okay not so bad but as another passenger said it was like riding a bucking bronco. We waited to see if the weather would be better but this was not to happen. Instead it started to rain and sleet. Here are some photos taken from the ship. It would have been nice to see the penguins but that still required taking a truck across bumpy rocky roads to stand in the cold wind. Maybe another time or another place. Was told by some Australian passenger that there are some in Perth at Penguin Island. Who knew;-)

Now this doesn't mean that the weather was any better or any worse for the rest of our cruise. Punta Arenas, Chile was chilly and windy as well as was Ushuaia, Argentina. In Punta Arenas on really windy days ropes are strung from one building to another to allow pedestrian to go between the buildings.

Punta Arenas, Chile

Port area 

Cold and windy but several trees were blooming

Bigger city than I thought it would be and that is snow on the hill in the background

Ferdinand Magellan

Ushuaia, Argentina

Last year our Med cruise experienced bad weather and we did not get to go Marrakech but our luck was better going around Cape Horn. The island is owned by Chile and has a family with two children living on it. Not certain how the children go to school. The are also mines on the island in case there is an invasion, huh?

Cape Horn

Now it is time to pack and leave for Oz. So more later about Valparaiso and Santiago Chile.

Well if it would rain at home like here

Well I haven't posted an update for awhile mostly because we haven't been able to go anywhere as it has rained just about everyday since we left Rio. And when I say rain think monsoon rains, torrential rains, or deluge. Even if one of the t-storms we sat through would partially hit California I am certain it would end the drought.

We did the airport shuffle to get to Iguazu Falls-flew into the International (EZE) airport in Buenos Aires, grabbed our luggage to catch the shuttle to the domestic aeroparque (don't call it an airport or it will confuse everyone at EZE) to catch our flight out of AEP, and landed in Iguazu with only being delayed for an hour (later you will understand why "only" was used). There were about 40 Chinese tourist also waiting to get on the plane but it did not appear that they had a tour guide with them. As soon as any sort of announcement was made about the flight they all got up and headed to the gate. After about the second time the gate agent motioned to them to sit down before they got up. We were flying the State owned airline AeroLineas Argentinas which later I found was not best choice and flights were often cancelled for no reason. Well the price was right.

The flight was reasonable and the legroom was pretty good. As we were landing in Iguazu you could see the mist rising from Devil's Throat (Garganta del Diablo in Spanish or Garganta do Diabo in Portuguese) and all surrounded by jungle. 


The agreement with our hotel was to have them pick us up at the airport. We looked for the driver and did not see him so we started to book a taxi (beware it can be a scam) when he suddenly showed up. There was a payment issue but it was worked out in the end.

Along the road to town there are several signs cautioning you to be aware of jungle animal crossing the road. The signs look like our deer crossing signs but have Warthogs, coati, tapir, and anteaters instead. We didn't see any of them nor any roadkill.

Here are some photos taken at Puerto Iguazu, note that the streets are wet. We never saw them dry no any blue sky.

Waiting for the bus to Falls

There are two sides to the Park - Argentine and Brazilian. The park was created in 1934. Across the Iguazu River lies the Brazilian counterpart (Iguaçu National Park). Both sites were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, in 1984. We could have gone to the Brazilian side but chose to do the Argentine side as we were heading to Buenos Aires afterwards. May not have been the best idea but who knew what the weather would be like and it wasn't any better across the river the day we went. The Argentine access, across the forest, is by a Rainforest Ecological Train (you need to change trains halfway) and is very similar to the one in Disney's Animal Kingdom. It is not very weatherproof. The train brings visitors to the entrance of Devil's Throat, as well as the upper and lower trails. The Paseo Garganta del Diablo is a 1-kilometre-long (0.6 mi) trail that brings you directly over the falls of Devil's Throat.

Iguazu River along the walkway to "Devil's Throat". There is a short glimpse of  the Sheraton Hotel in the background.

Everyone is getting wet from the rain

The river is pretty wide and flowing rather fast

First glimpse of the "Devil's Throat"

By the I got to and back I was extremely wet, even wearing a raincoat, and as it was still pouring rain we decided to head back to the hotel. The bus ride back the AC was on and just about everyone was soaking wet and cold.

Then things went downhill from there. We ate dinner in town and by bedtime I was feeling rather queasy. By now I know what the signs of food poisoning are like having experienced it more than once in the last few years, even in California. I spent the next 24 hours very sick and feverish.  Our flight out was scheduled for 11 am. We got the the airport, did the usual checking the bags, going through security, and waited to board the plane. After about one hour of waiting we were told that the flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems and that we needed to get our bags and wait. The next flight out on Aerolineas was not scheduled until after 4 pm but there was a LAN flight leaving at 3:30 pm which they rebooked all of us on. So we went through the whole process again to arrive back in Buenos Aires at 6 pm. 

And it continued to rain. When we landed we were not at a jetway and had to climb down some stairs to board a shuttle to the airport. It was blowing wind and raining fairly heavily. Our luggage arrived wet of course. I am at this point just wanting a bed and sleep. 

We have had some interesting taxi rides while travelling but this is the first time I can say that a bath was included. The taxi that picked us up at the airport (okay it is the Aeroparque) was so small that one of our suitcases had to be put in the front passenger seat. Either the AC wasn't working or there wasn't a heater in the taxi as the driver kept his window open and would constantly wipe the front windshield dry. At one point a car passed us on the left and splashed water into the taxi. It managed to get Dick wet and he was on the far side. My backpack was open and in front of me behind the driver so it too got rather wet.

It is still raining and raining here so not certain what sightseeing we will be able to do. BTW most people walking around in Buenos Aires do not use umbrellas. Not certain why but maybe due to the winds or that the sidewalks are very crowded. So just about everyone is wet when they arrive at their destination.

More about Buenos Aires later.