Adventure of the month

Let’s say, hypothetically, that it’s summertime in the southern hemisphere and you are a wealthy Argentinian. In order to keep up your social standing, you want to go somewhere where you can both see and be seen. What do you do? Easy, you take a jaunt across the Rio de la Plata to Uruguay and find yourself a posh spot at the “it” seaside resort of Punta del Este. You then discuss these plans with everyone you know, doing so in a sing-song accent that strives to be as pleasant as nails on a chalkboard. New hypothetical, your work has you hanging out in Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital, for four days. It is springtime and Punta del Este is a bit on the dead side. You will soon take to Montevideo’s town square to cheer their soccer team as they qualify for the World Cup. You will roam up and down the colonial streets and learn that beer is only served in magnum-sized bottles (which you will carry with you during your roaming, because soccer hooliganism requires it). You will marve...

There is easy and then there is so ridiculously easy that slowest child in class, the one that can usually be spotted eating his own boogers, can do it easy. I can safely report that doing a day trip from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento falls squarely into the latter category. There are two competing companies in BA that sell packages for under $100 which will get you there and back, get you oriented and even get you fed. The transport options include either a fast (1 hour) or slow ferry (2 ½ hours) across the Rio Plata. Once there, a guide is waiting to hand out maps and brochures, lead an hour long walking tour and do her very best to sell visitors on the charms of this UNESCO world heritage site. And it is indeed charming, with its cobble stone streets and picturesque colonial architecture which speaks of the back and forth battle for possession between the Spanish and the Portuguese (Colonia changed hands multiple times between the two serial colonizers), but the itty bit...

Sightseeing made simple. Original jewelry by Cristina Schroeder The Solis Theater, opened in 1856. The final port of call and in all likelihood the subject of the last post of 2008 was country #79, Uruguay. More specifically, we stopped in the capital city, Montevideo. Like Valparaiso, this was once an important port city that lost its prominence once the Panama Canal was completed and trade ships could bypass it altogether. As a result, the once impressive Art Deco, colonial and neoclassical buildings have fallen into disrepair and the streets, at least on this Saturday afternoon, appeared eerily quiet. The only signs of life were a result of having two cruise ships in port, both the tourists they off-loaded and the multitude of police officers assigned to protect them. Some wise soul at the Montevideo tourism office came up a walking tour brochure, which a battalion of representatives cheerily handed out at the port, and also calculated every possible way in...

Our route. Map courtesy of NCL.com The one and only towel creation that ever manifest itself in our room. Other guests ended up with entire menageries. Passing through the Patagonic Channels. The first of many glaciers. Cruising through the Beagle Channel, something I would later do in a tour boat like the one pictured. The legendary Cape Horn. On the day we rounded Cape Horn, we had a ceremony where the Captain baptised us as honorary "Horneans" with ice cold water. Why I agreed to participate, I have no clue. Our room was an inside cabin, therefore channel 22, showing the view from a mounted camera became our official "window". Yup, I agreed to pour champagne into a pyramid of glasses aboard a moving ship. Not sure what I was thinking there, either. I can see how it is possible to interpret my running tally, where I am keeping score pitting myself against NCL when it comes to shore excursions, a...