Day 25-26: Buenos Aires to E-ville, Observations Part 1

Day 25-26: Buenos Aires to E-ville, Observations Part 1

Weather: Still very pleasant in BA, also nice in E-ville

Quote of The Day:  Good morning folks, good morning It's an inside joke: Nate the leader made many announcements, always in the same format with a drawl to open and then a repeat of the intro in a slightly more clipped tone. The people who wanted to sleep in grew to hate his morning announcements. Plus it was always followed by supposedly the exact same message in Chinese.

Palacio Duhau main entrance

Remember the days when you came into a hotel room and immediately knew how to turn on and off the lights. Those days are over.

Cafe

Very refreshing

The Jacaranda are in bloom downtown

So, a Bitcoin ATM...hmmmmm....the outcome when you have run-away inflation

THB and DB remember the ice cream in BA and Volta does not disappoint: dark chocolate and coffee is an exceptional combo

Eureka! It's the bakery that THB came to visit often enough that the staff greeted him by name. And, THB swears two of the women today waved at him. THB shows tremendous restraint and continues the successful search for helado

In brief: THB and DB walk the old BA hood, finding several places we shopped at oh those many years ago. We took a long walk to MALBA (Latin American art museum, shared a chicken hamburguesa and veggie sandwich, two lemonade slushes, $25, tour the museum ($4pp) and make a purchase in the gift shop.  

The cab ride to the international airport was fraught with peril: the cabbie spoke no Ingles and kept up a running dialogue, when he wasn't smoking; stopped for gas; nearly rear-ended a succession of cars; passed on the right (THB is pretty sure the fast lane is on the far left); and charged almost double what the hotel guys said was standard. It was still half the cost of a pre-arranged transfer and we just made the flight...we're here FOUR hours early, stationed in the Admirals Club.

So how was the trip, really?

Observations, Part 1: The big stuff?

1.      Blinding flash of the obvious: 20 something days is a long time to be a’sea. Especially for a guy with a history of seasickness. The travel days (i.e., no sight of land) seemed long, the excursion days (particularly on S. Georgia and in Antarctica) were special. The food was ordinary, too bland for THB, not terrible either. The ship was well run, the ship’s staff very accommodating. A small fitness center would’ve been a nice bonus though most likely never used!

2.      Interestingly, neither THB nor DB felt overwhelmed by the penguins and the smell was rarely an issue. This had something to do with being the first cruise of the summer season before the penguins were mating and the chicks were hatching and larger colonies were accessible. As for whales and seals and sea lions and birds, THB can see way more near or in the Elkhorn Slough, less than 2 miles from the beach house….with otters as the bonus round. Icebergs were a whole nother thing…you can’t see those anywhere near California, and they were terrific, justified the entire adventure.

The Zodiacs went up and down right in front of our balcony

3.      The expedition staff seemed competent and accessible. DB got closest to the essence: an expensive sleep-over camp for old folks, with an overly cheerful head of camp and droll camp counselors (most of whom seemed somewhere between 35 and 45). Apparently many of the staff had worked together before and their comradery and cheerfulness was not entirely faked.  Some moments the staff went above and beyond rote service, which was much appreciated. Very few of the staff were American (if that would make any difference). By the 2^nd to last night, the head counselor was downright demeaning of the cruisers (e.g., showing cat  and flying penguin videos) and the staff requesting we become ambassadors for travels to Antarctic (powerpoint to be included in our going home kit). Barely a mention of global warming, treating it as a “political” issue. THB felt deeply condescended to…mom and dad will not be sending me away to camp with this leader next year. To be fair, others that had made several cruises in Antarctica thought the staff and head counselor were very good, getting us (along with the captain) to places that other ships would not have visited. THB was definitely in the minority here.

4.      Our travel-mates were a mixed bunch: 30% Chinese (just the tour, there are maybe another 15-20 or so Asians who were not part the Chinese tour), 25% Americans, 40% Commonwealth members, a smattering of other nationalities (e.g., 4 Israelis, 2 couples who didn’t know each other, a few Dutch). Given the way meal service was set up with tables for 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, you could mingle with just about everyone except the Chinese tour (who got their own four tables and some of their own food at dinner) and an Asian-Aussie tour of 10 (at their own table), or you could sit at a table for two most of the time and pretend you were on your honeymoon (like at least one or two couples). A few singles (and expedition staff) figured out to come to meals 15-20 minutes after the bell rung and avoid standing in buffet lines and just took their chances on an open seat at random tables. There were decidedly more women on the trip than men, maybe 60% female?

The age spread was pretty wide: a few 20-30 year olds to some in their 80s. THB guesses that the Chinese tour skews younger, maybe 50ish, and the 75 non-Chinese tour cruisers probably averages around 65.

THB guesses that of the 65 non-Chinese and Asian-Aussie tours, there were maybe 8-10 he would want to spend an evening with. Maybe 4 that he would be long-time friends with. There was one true character: a British woman (maybe 65? 70? 60?) traveling alone who easily could be transgender, with a wicked biting wit and an ability to handle every single type of person on the ship with some level of brazen sincerity and honesty. THB is not sure how she did it, it was like some magic trick. She also had traveled widely, apparently on her own. It’s possible she even pulled off some sort of rapport with the Chinese and Asian-Aussies. Very impressive! If you had to pick 3 people to invite to a dinner party, Lu was clearly #1, very entertaining.

5.      THB was surprised there was not more openness and discussion of the oncoming changes to the planet from the warming climate. After all, the livelihood of the expedition staff is going to be dramatically changing over their remaining working years. Many of the staff are naturalists with specializations directly impacted, highly educated and well versed in science. THB surmises that it is just too political to tackle head on and even more depressing to be discussing all the time. Frankly, THB expected that at least one lecture every other day would be devoted to the topic of the impact of climate change on Antarctica flora and fauna and instead there was way too much about Shackelton who spent a lot of time in this area (and who in THB’s opinion was a glorious failure, something the Brits specialize in, and this was a heavily British-weighted cruise…not sure this is a fair statement).

6.      Kayaking….ah, kayacking. It was an upcharge of something like $750/pp, and each time we went for a paddle we divided the $750 by the new denominator (that’s right isn’t it? The denominator is on the bottom, right?). Given that it really did give THB and DB a different perspective, a bit of exercise, and some advantage (generally we got to go ashore and kayak), it seemed worth the expense. And, in truth, THB appreciated the humor and angst in never knowing if an event was on or not due to the whims of weather and human judgment calls. It does give one something to bitch and conjecture about beyond just the normal bitching and conjecturing THB spends most of his time doing. Game on!