Author: Richard Smith

What a great day! This was probably our best port visit ever. Carole Gordon was recently in S America with Ian, and told us that the Brazilian jewelllery firm H Stern offered tours of the City incorporating a visit to their headquarters.

We went ashore at 9.30am. It was a beautiful day and almost immediately we were introduced to a young man, Hugo, from Stern’s, and were told that he would be with us for the day. A new black shiny Toyota then appeared driven by Philip. Getting the folding wheelchair into the boot/trunk was tricky because the car was fuelled by natural gas and the gas tank was located in the boot! But we managed to do it.

Hugo asked us what we would like to see. As we had been up Sugarloaf in the cable car on a previous visit and as we could see the statue of Christ the Redeemer from most parts of the City, with Hugo’s help we decided on the route we would take. First stop was a private boys school which had formerly been a monastery. The chapel was almost completely built of gold. The walls and ceiling were gold as was everything else. An incredible building.

By then we were ready to face the H Stern selling experience. It was not a hard sell and we felt no pressure to buy, although Jane did buy a smallish piece. After an hour there we returned to the car and were then driven to the massive botanical gardens. Hugo knew his trees and plants and the history of the gardens created by King John VI of Portugal in 1808 and opened to the public in 1822. We spent an hour in the beautiful gardens before returning to the ship. By then it was 6.00 pm and we had been out, courtesy of Stern, for 8 hours.

Montevideo is on the north shore of the River Plate (which separates Uruguay from Argentina) with Buenos Aires being 140 miles to the west on the southern shore.

We were here back in 2006 on Queen Mary 2 and took an organised tour on that occasion, so this time we decided to go on Smithy’s Walking Tour. The capital of Uruguay was just across the road from the berth and as a Holland America ship, Zaandam, was also in port the locals were out in force with their market stalls.

Museums were plentiful, but sadly they were not equipped with lifts (elevators) and we were restricted to the ground floors.

Our next port is Puerto Madryn, Argentina where we are due tomorrow, but there are apparently problems there including some sort of blockade of the port. The Captain reported in her regular noon broadcast that there was a potential difficulty. The problems that she faced were that she has a number of passengers who are due to leave the ship there, she also has a group who have booked a 4 day tour of Patagonia returning to the ship in Ushuaia. And she needs to take on 2 Chilean pilots to assist her in navigating the waters off Cape Horn and through the Beagle Channel.

No wonder Captain Peter Philpott, who left the ship in Rio to go on leave will be pleased that he has avoided this hot potato!

Instead we cried as the lovely, brilliant flautist Gillie Poznansky and the wonderfully talented pianist Mark Tanner left us in Buenos Aires at the end of their contract. They had given five superb recitals over the previous two weeks and had captivated us all. They were also great dinner companions.

Buenos Aires is a large and beautiful city – too large to cover in one day. We took a taxi because one of the shuttles organised by the ship was not wheelchair friendly. The first, from the gangway to the terminal was fine. It could tilt and had a ramp but the second from the terminal to the city had neither. We took a taxi but as roads were closed because of a noisy demonstration a ten minute journey took mpre than an hour.

Last night we were less than 100 miles from the Falkland Islands. It was appropriate that in the major lecture yesterday that the former First Sea Lord should deliver it.

Last time we were at Cape Horn it was early evening – darkish, cold and windy. On that occasion we were sailing from the Pacific to the Atlantic, west to east and it was only during a lecture the day before that I heard that cruise ships rarely travel round Cape Horn by the obvious route around the bottom of the continent. 

The winds and currents are considered to be too wild and changeable to risk the simple route. It was reported to me that for 200 days a year there are gale force winds and 50 foot waves in the region where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet and 130 days when fog and icebergs abound.

The bottom part of S America, Tierra del Fuego, is a vast island surrounded by hundreds of small islands. Cape Horn is on the southernmost of those small islands and there is a navigable channel round it.

After our trip around Cape Horn we tracked north to the Beagle Channel and into Ushuaia where we spent Tuesday. It is a busy little community and the centre for Antarctic expeditions and fjord cruises. I could remember that the main street was parallel to the port but up a hill. 

We are not popular in Argentina. Large signs called Ushuaia the “Capital of the Malvinas” and other large official signs stated that the occupation of the Falklands by the British is illegal.

Many of the world’s glaciers are retreating. Amalia is located in the Bernardo O’Higgins (Could this be one of Brian Kelly’s relatives?) National Park on Chile’s Southern Patagonian coastline, and it has retreated nearly 5 miles over the last 50 years. Frankly it looked much the same as it  was when we were here 7 years ago. 

As we edged ever closer to the glacier at perhaps 2 or 3 knots (to avoid creating waves and damaging the wall of the glacier) we sailed through growlers and mini icebergs that had broken away. A small, fast rib was launched to take photos of the ship and to collect a small iceberg which was then brought aboard the QV and carved into a sculpture of the Queen.

After fleeing North America in the early 20th century Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are said to have settled in Argentina and bought ranches with the proceeds of their US bank and train robberies. They are said to have crossed the Andes and travelled to Puerto Montt to sell their cattle and buy supplies. As we know they returned to the more exciting life as bank robbers and were eventually killed in a shoot out with the Bolivian army.

The main street of Puerto Montt did not appear to have changed very much in the years since they were here. It had the feel of a cowboy town, but those that travelled out of the town found breathtaking mountain scenery in Chile’s Lake District and at the resort area of Puerto Varas on the shores of Lake Llanquihue.

As QV was at anchor Jane was not able to get ashore but I had nearly 3 hours wandering around the town and taking in the Cathedral and museums.

The Captain has just announced that we are having to divert as there is someone aboard who needs urgent hospitalisation. She is aiming for Concepcion and it appears that a boat will come out to us to collect the patient. We are due in Valparaiso early tomorrow so the individual concerned must be very ill if he or she needs to be taken off now. Whether or not this diversion will delay our arrival tomorrow is not clear. Valparaiso marks the end of this leg of the World voyage and a large number of people are leaving the ship (and a similar number joining).