Remembering Things Past

We took a taxi from the port back to the neighborhood of our tanguera week last September. We arrived at the Abastos shopping center, made a quick visit to the Cote market and then took another short ride to Las Violetas for lunch. We had an enjoyable repast. I had to try the fusilli al fierrito which I had read so much about in my Bodegones book. They were delicious, although not what I expected. Somehow I thought that fierrito meant theywould be spicey - shows how much Italian I know. Seems the fierrito is the knitting needle used to shape them. (fusilli)  
The Tiramisu also gave some pause for thought.

Then back to the ship and a rest before dinner as we left the port of Buenos Aires and headed towards Uruguay. 

Revisiting Old Friends

We spent today revisiting some of our favorite spots in Buenos Aires. First a short walk from our hotel on Calle Florida through the Plaza San Martin, which is at the end of its summer glory. Then a taxi ride to the Ateneo, that glorious book store which took possession of an old theater, to browse and buy. I found a lovely book about the Bodegones de Buenos Aires. We could plan a whole trip around meals at these local gems who feature abundant good food at moderate prices - with lots of local history and culture thrown in. After that I'll come back and buy the Pulperias de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; another whole trip. I also bought a small book on the food of Argentina - from the beginning, local foods through the history of the country.

Then another cab ride to Puerto Madero for a leisurely lunch in Cabaña Las Lilas. Wonderful as always. We sat out on the terrace overlooking the water. They fastened all our handbags and purchases to our chairs with tie wraps. And we settled in for a wonderful meal.
Then back to the hotel to reclaim our luggage, a short hop to the Port, a cut finger (Jim) a couple of scares over misplaced documents and bags, but we finally boarded the Infinity, found our cabins, rested a bit and then headed up for dinner.
We handed our dining card to the waiter and he took us to our table. We waited and waited and Jim and Irunu never appeared. We did our best to communicate with the four Romanians seated at "our" table. They were truly charming and experienced cruisers. Finally, Ralph got up and walked around the dining room to find Jim and Iru eating alone at the table we should have been at. Our guide had taken us to the wrong table. We finished up our meal with our new acquaintances and tomorrow we will try to sit in the right place.
A tango show after dinner. Pleasant, but  not as good as those in town. The median age of the cruise population is rather high, although we did sit near an adorable couple of newly weds from Ecuador - they were lamenting the lack of people their own age on board. According to the cruise director there are 37 countries represented by passengers, so the variety of languages is great - not much Spanish heard.
After the show we headed back to the cabin and oblivion.

Getting Reaquainted...

Buenos Aires is an old friend and with each encounter we enjoy learning something new about her. Today was a lazy day, recovery from our 24 hours of travel.
We walked along Corrientes, found a promising restaurant, Cafe Rigoleto, with outdoor tables and enjoyed a relaxing lunch. Then on to Centro Comercial Pacifico for all those necessities we neglected to pack (sun block for that hole in the ozone layer) and a visit to Mimo (Emma's shoes +).
Ralph had a visit at the end of the afternoon from a fishing friend, president of the Argentinian Fly Fishing Association, who broght him several copies of their magazine. Ralph's article on fishing for pavon in Lake Maracaibo appears in No.71.

Anibel and Marcela came to the hotel and we walked several blocks to the Calle Suipacha for dinner. (The Battle of Suipacha, in 1810, was the first victory for the Argentinians in their war of independence.) The street has very recently been blocked off and reserved for pedestrian traffic. Work is beginning and on our next visit we hope to see that the restaruants have expanded their seating out onto the sidewalk as Suipacha is incoroporated into the pedestrian zone of the Centro. We dined at Almacén Suipacha, in their own words "un restauant bien porteño".  The restaurant is full of antique furniture and artefacts from an old general store (almacen) both on the street level and upstairs, along with large wooden carvings of tango figures. A bandoneon player near the entrance provides background music throughout the evening. The meal, the company and the conversation were thoroughly enjoyable, a lovely way to spend a Saturday night, and celebrate our return to Buenos Aires. Do follow the link on the right to the restaurant's web page. It includes a wonderful collection of photos of Buenos Aires in general.

The walk back to the hotel was welcome excercise after our repast. Farewell, but hasta pronto to Hanibel and Marcela, and so to bed.

Good Morning, Buenos Aires

We're here. We really had two very nice flights on LANChile. It's easy to complain about the long trip - we've been traveling for 24 hours.  But when you consider the distances we've covered you have to be amazed. How long would this trip have taken 50 years ago? 100 years ago? It would have involved over land travel and ocean voyages. It's really amazing to see how far we've come in one day.

Well, time for a shower and a rest. Just wanted to let you all know that we have arrived safely in Buenos Aires.

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Let the Games Begin...

At least we´re getting the worst part of the trip out of the way at the beginning.

We arrived at the airport in Maracaibo to be told that our 11:00am flight to Caracas would be leaving an hour late – or more. The pleasant young man at the counter also said that if we didn’t hear anyone call our flight for a long time that we should come back and ask again. ??  Ralph observed that the airport is a microcosm of Venezuela.  Officially everything was just fine. All the flights were on time on the airport boards – they just weren’t really. As Venezuelans have learned, the official numbers look great, but have little to do with reality. The girls at the tax window asked cheerily if the 11:00 flight was going to leave. ??  A cup of coffee, two newspapers and a Sudoku game later we finally took off, arriving in Caracas about 1:30 instead of at noon. Not bad, considering. We have plenty of time before our next flight.

After reclaiming our bags, travelling from the national to the international terminal, checking in at LAN, paying two different taxes at two different windows, and filling out our immigration forms, we were free to go upstairs and meet with Irvin and Blanca who had driven in from Valencia. We had a nice visit with them until about  5:20, then headed down to the security lines to enter the departing area.  We had an interesting talk with the immigration official. She was lamenting that Carnaval vacations were coming up next week. Ralph asked her which times were worse travelwise and without hesitation she said, the summer vacation period. Her reason was telling - families don´t travel together anymore. The parents go off in one direction while the children go their separate ways to soccer camp or other special tours. Each Venezuelan child traveling without their parents must have a special permission form. She said that in the summer the permission forms stack up at her station.  "It used to be that families took their vacations together. Now they all go in different directions..""

Our flight was a bit late in leaving – closer to 8:00 than its 7:20 posted time, but we finally got off. All went well on the first leg from Caracas to Lima. We arrived in Lima at 11:00pm local time (11:30 our time) and immediately had to go through security again. Shoes off, computer out, etc.

We are now waiting for our 1:15 am flight to Buenos Aires. I watched a movie and enjoyed a constant back massage on the flight from Caracas. On this next one I hope to sleep.  Until tomorrow in Buenos Aires!!

Notes on Penguins

All 17 species of penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere (that's right, no penguins in the Arctic). They are water birds that can't fly. So in order to preserve the species they generally live on islands or remote regions that are free of predators. That way their inability to fly doesn't matter much.

 Magellanic penguins ( spheniscus magellanicus) are found on the Falkland Islands and along the coasts of Argentina and Chile. And that's just where we're going to visit them. The genus spheniscus (Magellanic and Humboldts) are temperate penguins. They have unfeathered fleshy areas on the face and distinct stripes across their chest.

Penguins are said to be among the most sociable of all birds. - We certainly hope so and will report on this aspect.

Penguins communicate by vocalizing and performing physical behaviors called displays. As we don't speak penguin we will just have to guess what they are trying to communicate. It is said that penguin calls are individually identifiable, allowing partners to recognize each other and also their chick. This is important since (as you can see in the background photo) members of a large colony of penguins are nearly indistinguishable on sight. I really can't imagine the poor chick having to find Mom and Dad by their individually identifiable calls in a colony where everyone is dressed the same and everyone is vocalizing, but it must work. The species has survived.

The average lifespan of a penguin is 15 to 20 years, although some live considerably longer. 

The popularity of "ecotourism" is increasing with cruise ships frequenting antarctic waters. Enthusiastic sightseers must be careful not to interfere with normal penguin activity by staying back and keeping noise levels down (MOller-Schwarze, 1984). We will try to keep our noise down.

Follow along with us as we set out to visit the penguins. We will be leaving home on Friday, February 25th, and setting sail from Buenos Aires on Sunday the 27th on the Celebrity Infinity. I'm sure we will know much more about these elegantly attired, non-flying, social sea birds when we reach Valparaiso, Chile two weeks later. I can hardly wait!!