Travels and Exploits of the Lamb and the Wolf

Day 15 - Saturday, March 13, 2010: “What’s new, Buenos Aires?” [Steve writes] This morning started off via the alarm clock, but since we got our one hour back, it didn’t feel as harried as it was the previous day in Montevideo. However, today we actually had to be somewhere at a certain time, so it was shower, get ready, and head out into what promised to be another warm, sunny day. As has been the custom on this cruise, the Star Princess was docked at one of the container piers, so it was a Container City tour on the bus that took us to the terminal. We met our guide, Jessica from Buenos Tours, just before 9:00 at the rendezvous point inside the fairly modern terminal. I had found this tour company recommended by someone on cruisecritic.com, contacted them, and they set us up with a personal guide for a 7-hour tour, for US $100 per person. It was certainly worth it, as you’ll soon read. The three of us hopped into a taxi and headed toward the San Telmo neighborhood, south of central B...

Day 14 - Friday, March 12, 2010: “Montevideo, or ‘Where Are We Now?’” It was a bit of a nightmare waking up this morning, what with the clocks moved ahead one hour and actually having to be somewhere at a certain time. The Purser’s Office rang at 6:15 with an un-requested wake-up call. And my alarm didn’t go off at 7:00, because I forgot to set my phone clock ahead an hour. Add this to a bad night’s sleep and Allan having taken 15mg of Melatonin the previous night, and we were off to a less-than-rousing start. By the time I looked out the window, we were already docked in Montevideo, Uruguay. A beautiful pink sunrise was starting to reveal the outline of the city, which was larger than I had originally expected. We met up with Tom, Bruce, and Daniel for breakfast at “The Trough” and were off the ship around 8:30. The Port and Tourist authorities in Montevideo really had their act together. Everyone got a slick multicolor brochure with a map showing the best way to walk to the major tou...

Day 11 - Tuesday, March 09, 2010: “Eat, Drink, and be Merry” The first of three at-sea days began with a late-ish breakfast. It was cool enough that we ate indoors, rather than out in the pool area. There were overcast skies, and the temps were in the low 50s. Seas were fairly calm (I had predicted that we’d have beastly weather down at the bottom of South America, but I was wrong). We actually had breakfast so late that we left it and walked down to the Amalfi Dining Room for our second wine tasting of this cruise. This event was billed as the Maitre d’ Wine Club event, and with its higher cost per person ($25), was a much more intimate affair. There were about forty people who attended, and we were seated with two delightful retired couples from Minneapolis. The tables were set with candles (the first we’ve seen aboard) and a selection of canapés that included caviar, salmon mousse, prosciutto, as well as Gouda and other cheeses. An introduction to the event was provided by the Maitr...

Day 8 - Saturday, March 6th, 2010: “Toss your cares and curls away!” Today began as do all our days at sea; Steve got up and looked to see if there was anything interesting to see out our balcony window, then puttered around the cabin showering and whatnot. I, being “Lizard Boy” slowly emerged from my slumber and stumbled into the shower. Breakfast was as usual in the Horizon Court buffet. Yes, I still eat mountains of bacon and eggs for breaky but that may soon change. After breakfast it was up to Deck 15 for a bit of ping-pong then back to the room. I spent the next hour or two using the “XP Mode” in my Windows 7 laptop to download and install drivers so we could connect our cameras to the laptop to download photos and video. This was rather a tedious process, but successful. Steve went up to the gym to work out while I did this and was quite pleased he wouldn’t have to buy a CF card reader for his camera or more flash cards. At 3:00 we went down to the Amalfi dining room for the fir...

Day 6: Thursday, March 04, 2010 – “Welcome to the Extended Valparaiso Harbor Tour!” Still happy to be here… but we do wish we would go somewhere… else, already .Honestly. Today’s documentation from the South American Travel Vortex is brought to you by – Hordes of Cranky Tourists! Happy to be here? No we don’t think so. You must admit though that after M-A-N-Y hours waiting in who knows how many different airports/hotels/terminals/ports and whatnot that a lot of these folks had had it worse off than us. We who just barely managed to get here by the skin of our teeth and were/are QUITE happy we did. We do think that you all should just go somewhere else and bitch about it for awhile please – thank you – and let us enjoy… the Valparaiso Harbor Tour! Hooray! OK, enough silliness. Today started off normally enough: up for breaky at nine then back down to our stateroom to watch busload after busload of fellow travelers trickle onboard. The Daily Dribble (Princess Patter) stated that all arri...

Day 4 – Tuesday March 2, 2010 – “We’re Just Happy to Be Here” The alarm clock on Allan’s iPhone went off at 7:20, yet we could have easily slept until 11. But up we got, did last minute packing, and had the bags out the door by 8AM. Because of a bad piece of information we received at check-in, we headed up to the breakfast room on the 11th floor (remember, walking up stairs the whole way). Once we got there, a sign said, “Breakfast served in the Terrace Restaurant on the main floor”. Back down we headed, and felt that at least we got a little cardio workout this morning. Breakfast was nice, although the coffee was in short supply for some reason. One last time we walked up to our room, got our carry-on bags, and headed down to the lobby for a 9AM meeting time with other who would be heading to the ship. There were about 15 other people that were heading out as well in our group, and the bus left close to 9:45 than the previously announced 9:15. But who cared? We were heading for the s...

Day 1 – Saturday February 27, 2010: “Getting There is Half the Fun!” Our grand trip to South America was almost over before it began. Just after midnight on February 27th, our departure date, we received a phone call from Peter Johnson in Los Angeles telling us that a massive earthquake had hit Chile, our first destination. A few hours of fitful sleep were ended by a phone call at 4:15AM from Mike Giles telling us how bad the quake was (8.8 on the Richter scale) and to watch CNN. Since we were going to get up at 4:45 anyway (for a 5:30 departure to the airport), we watched the news cycles and saw the devastation that had occurred. The epicenter of the quake was closest to Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city. They were reporting several hundred deaths and a good deal of destruction there. There were pictures of collapsed highways, buried houses, and the misery that goes hand-in-hand with natural disasters. The capital city of Santiago, 200 miles north, was also affected, though not ...

We had fortunately changed our departure time to 8:00. Originally we’d been scheduled off the boat at 7:15! We got up, showered, packed the remainder of our clothes and toiletries and headed up for breakfast. It seemed hard to believe that this was all coming to an end. I was glad our trip was almost over but part of me wanted to stay and do it all over again! Getting off the boat was really very easy and we didn’t have any trouble getting a cab. We did have to wait a few minutes because there were four of us and we had a great pile of luggage. I think Rick took a picture of all our bags actually stuffed into that little minivan. I couldn’t believe it. We drove in to the Axel Hotel in about fifteen minutes. After getting our bags into the lobby and out of the way (stuffed in a corner for the remainder of the morning till our rooms were ready) we headed out to see what the city held in store. For us it would be a stop at the Jamaica Coffee Shop ( www.jamaicacoffeeshop.es ) – a place wi...

Today was a bit strange and different. We would not be reaching Barcelona until around 2PM and we had to at least start packing our bags so they could be left outside our room no later than 11PM. Steve took about 90 minutes to pack… I think it took me three hours J. We had gotten in the habit over the course of the last week of having breakfast delivered to our room between 8:00 and 8:30. We both thought this a most civilized practice and enjoyed it mightily. The air outside at sea was very humid and warm. It was a bit foggy all the way into Barcelona. The first thing we saw were several container ships waiting for berth space in the harbor, then we saw what looked like a refinery and finally the city itself. It was very hazy and/or foggy as we came in to the pier, so there was no point in trying to take many pictures. We headed upstairs for a quick bite (along with almost everyone else on board) and waited for the notice on the ship’s public address system that we were cleared to leav...

…I went to Nice and all I got was carbon monoxide poisoning… I had no idea what to expect from our stop here on the French Riviera. I was looking forward to getting a car and driving around between Nice and Monaco, but had no preconceptions at all. We were tendered off the ship and walked a short distance to the train station. The weather once again was fabulous – of course. We waited for the train and I snapped a few pics of the environs and other folks that were waiting. The train arrived and we hopped on for our short (two stops) ride into Nice. Nice is a large but beautiful city, full of interesting buildings from the Art Nouveau period. It reminded me a bit of Paris but was obviously warmer as there were palm trees everywhere. We walked around the corner to the Hertz office to pick up our car – a strange sort of little minivan that just barely held the four of us and our backpacks in the back. Once Steve figured out how to start the car (same as his Camry hybrid – step on the brak...

This was to be a very special day for some in our group (as only Florence/Rome/Venice can be) and not so special for some. Tim, Rick, and several others in our group were off to Florence to see the highlights of the city with a tour guide who specialized in "Gay Florence". Apparently he was really a hoot, but their time with him was cut short due to a faux pax on the cruise line's part having to do with an unannounced stop at a leather factory outside Florence that went on way too long. Steve and I were on our way to the Cinque Terre: a group of five small villages perched on craggy rocks by the sea on the northwestern coast of Italy. This was the only excursion that we booked through the cruise line so we weren’t really sure what to expect. It turned out to be a very enjoyable day – if a bit exhausting, but not terribly memorable. Not at all the spectacular day we had on the Amalfi Coast (I know, I know – I’ll finish writing it up when I have more time :-). We had our ne...

After yesterday’s hectic and exhausting pace, we were looking forward to a slightly less intense, though just as manic, visit to Rome. I (Steve) must admit that I was so excited to return to Rome that I woke up early enough to see our ship dock in Civitavecchia (pronounced chee-vee-tah-veh-kee-yah), the port about 35 miles northwest of Rome. The Millennium, like most modern cruise ships, is remarkably maneuverable on its own, thanks to bow thrusters and other such devices. So, no tugs are necessary to park this puppy. And the ship that arrived immediately after us was the aforementioned Voyager of the Seas! After eating breakfast in our stateroom, we headed out for our day’s adventure. While others we’re enduring the 1.5 - 2 hour bus ride into the city (nasty traffic), we walked ten minutes from the port gate to the train station, where we boarded the 9:22 to Rome. The ride was relaxing and afforded us the opportunity to work on postcards (yes, just like this blog, we are horribly behi...