Coquimbo & La Serena, Chile

Sunday morning and we arrived in Chile to this scenic port view in Coquimbo.

Andrew has become the king of negotiators with taxi drivers and did an excellent job of interviewing and hiring Eduardo for our tour of the surrounding area. We started off with a drive south on freeway 5 (it's in much better shape than its name-sake in Seattle) to Herradura Bay. This is a fairly upscale area with a small yacht harbor, clay tennis courts, and some gorgeous estates. 

We visited a shop selling locally produced goods which was perched with a delightful view over the entire bay. 

From there we traveled north to La Serena where we took a stroll around the town square.

You might know that we arrived just as they were setting up for a local celebration involving fire fighters and all manner of fire equipment from many of the surrounding communities. As Mark had on his Stevens County fire district hat he had a brief conversation (with help from the handy language cheat sheet) with the locals. This resulted in the photo op complete with them posting the colors.

As it was Sunday there were a lot of people shopping in the markets, the church bells were tolling and the town had a really nice feel about it. This little guy was practicing his moves while waiting for his Mom to finish shopping. Andrew was suitably impressed that he was wearing the official Arsenal club jersey for a guy that has only been with the team for 2 months. That's pride for the local guy!

From there we went down to the lighthouse, where a race was just finishing up. Then along the coast, nipping into a beachfront bistro to sample the local beers, and we were dropped off back at the fish market just adjacent to the ship. All in all a great day!

Callao & Lima, Peru

Having been warned that Callao, the port area for Lima, Peru, was quite dangerous with muggings and other nastiness we opted to ride the ship's bus into town. Lima is a city of 10 Million people in a country of 31 Million people. While it was not a terribly long distance from the port it took about 45 minutes because the traffic is a cross between Rome at rush hour and Bankok.

Traffic control is handled by a female police force wearing snazzy white gun holsters, but according to our guide they never give tickets. Based on what we witnessed they never actually venture into the traffic either. As with other countries we have visited the traffic light system money could have been better spent on landscaping---as they are completely ignored! We experienced total gridlock at intersections where cars trying to turn left did so in front of buses, container trucks, tuk-tuks, you name it. What you ended up with was a game of inches. When someone moved the person with the most guts edged a few inches into the vacated space. And so it went on for 25 minutes at one intersection. Of course, this was accompanied by a horde of pedestrians, taxis going the wrong way, and horns honking! We were glad to be watching from a very comfy, state-of-the-art, bus!

Arriving in Lima we were just in time to watch the changing of the guards at the Government Palace. This impressive building faces the Plaza de Armas de Lima which is surrounded on the other 3 flanks by equally stunning edifices. 

From there Mum & Dad went off to the department store and the guys and I wandered the steets ending up at a local restaurant for some refreshment.  We did stick to beer nuts after having difficulty with even the English language translation menu. one of the sandwich fillings was translated as "guinea pig" which someone on our bus said was correct! Yikes, not fluffy!

Quick lesson on how to stand out like a sore thumb in a foreign city:

Announce in your best Monty Python voice "and thanks go to the Minister of Silly Walks for putting on this special performance" while standing in front of the palace for the Changing of the Guards (thank you Andrew).

Wearing shorts (ok, so it was 70 degrees) when all of the local are in dark suits or long pants, jackets, and in some cases scarves and hats. (Everyone guilty--see top photo above)

Standing head and shoulders above the locals, who average about 5 feet talll, and having lighter-colored hair or facial hair. (All guilty)

Trying to pour a oz. beer into a 12 oz. glass then mopping it up with a tiny cocktail napkin. (Fritz)

Still, the locals seemed to tolerate the odd-balls with polite smiles and we throughly enjoyed our time in Lima (except for the traffic).

Here are a couple of additional shots of Lima.

 Gorgeous Architecture

Great street signs

 Lots of shoe shine stations, all busy!

One added attraction in Callao worth mentioning is the port construction that is taking place across from the ship. We are in port for two days and the men, particularly Roger & Fritz, have spent ages watching the process from the balcony, commenting on the way that they would have done it, and have decided that their expertise could be invaluable. We have offered to leave them here to supervise--stay tuned!

Manta, Ecuador

As Karen spent 3 days in bed with a killer sinus infection, Manta, Ecaudor is covered by guest blogger, Marco! (As have no good internet connection it had to be painstakingly re-typed from his PC to Ipad by Karen).

After two days at sea, spent watching Futbol and cricket on the TV, reading, Andrew (The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake) Mark (The Worst Journey in the World-Antarctic 1910-1913), fast walking over 3 miles a day, playing numerous games of ping-pong and eating too much, the brothers Dalton disembarked on the dock at Manta, Ecuador on the morning of October 19. Armed with a rudimentary Spanish phrase sheet, reading glasses, camera, swim trunks and Yankee dollars our intrepid adventurers hired Jorge with his taxi to take them on a grand loop to the south and east of town. Jorge spoke very little English and we spoke less Spanish but we were eager to communicate!

Our first stop was at a fishing village called San Lorenzo about 20km down the coast. There were many people in the streets, wearing their Sunday clothes, coming or going to church we figured. Our objective was the lighthouse on a steep hill at the north end of the village. We rattled our way up a narrow road to a cell tower that was at the start of the lighthouse trail. This trail was mostly steps carved into loose dirt with a crosswise board for a riser, and on the steeper parts a railing made of rickety posts joined with rotten poly rope. To the north the hillside fell away vertically about 400 feet to a beach. From the lighthouse we had a panoramic view of the village and could see the Isla de la Plata off the coast in the distance.

As we travelled down the coastal highway the three of us engaged in conversation as best we could. Jorge, endeavoring to make our trip as informative as possible, would point out objects of interest and in Spanish sentences that contained only one English word explained what we were seeing. For my part I asked questions, in Spanish, that I concocted by combining words from various phrases on my sheet of Spanish phrases for the complete idiot. Andrew had a more freewheeling style and managed to have a five minute conversation with Jorge using only soccer team names and the word Si!

Our next stop was a small town called Puerto Cayo with a beautiful beach and fishing fleet of small boats. Just outside of town we entered Macalilla National Park which surprised us by being desert like with cacti and scruffy shrubs rather than jungle as we had expected. A few miles inside the park we turned off the highway at the entrance to the beach at Los Frailes. Employees at the gate took the names and ages of tourists and locals alike before sending us down the bumpy road to the beach. Jorge's taxi, which he owns and takes pride in, did not like this stretch and had a broken shock rattling around somewhere beneath my rear seat.

Los Frailes is a picturesque curving beach between two headlands that was perfect for swimming and body surfing and had decent showers.

We were feeling a bit parched after our swim so we had Jorge stop by a tiny roadside shop as we went through Puerto Cayo heading east and purchased a couple of 20oz Pilseners for the next leg of our jaunt. No open container laws we supposed. We followed a bus with a giant picture of Jesus on the back of it out of town and headed up a mountain pass where the vegetation changed to deciduous forest. Jorge was happy to stop at any time for us to take photos and had no qualms about stopping on blind corners next to the guard rails where there was no verge. On one of my photo opportunities the nylon belt in my shorts broke as I vaulted the guard rail, so for the rest of the trip I had to hold my shorts with one hand while trying to act nonchalant and not stand out too much. On the eastern side of this pass some interesting Baobab like trees started to appear, which Jorge called Saybo or cotton tree due to their fluffy seed clusters. There were not many of them so I had Jorge stop when I saw one close to the road and hopped out to take a photo or two. I had to fight my way through thorny brush, one-handed, to take photos of this rare tree. The joke was on me because a few miles down the road they became the dominant tree and we took masses of pictures of better specimens as we drove by them.

Our next stop was in Jijihapa, pronounced keekeehappa, the corn capital of Ecuador where Jorge insisted that we have a photo taken at the giant corn cob that looms over an intersection on the highway.

A few miles down the road we drove through a village that specializes in selling coconut milk from the roadside stands with the most enterprising and bravest sellers set up on the speed bump in the middle of the road. Speed bumps abound in Ecuador but seem to do little to slow down the maniac drivers. 

Our final stop before returning to the ship was in Montecristi which is known for the manufacture of Panama hats and historically for Inca pottery which is promoted by a ten foot tall statue of a buxom naked Inca potter!

Salaverry & Trujillo, Peru

Talk about the difference between night and day and that's what these two places bring to mind. Salaverry is the port town where we arrived at 6:00am. Well, it was supposed to be 6:00am, but rumor has it that our pilot wasn't on time to meet us to bring us into the harbor. So, we awakened to the ship rolling heavily from side to side as the ship waited in the swell. The stabilizers couldn't be used as they might have hit bottom. Apparently tray after tray of glassware went crashing to the floor in the Lido and I stopped just short of going head first into the cabin door as I got up to visit the bathroom. 

Once into the harbor the scene that greeted up was otherworldly. Everything was gray as if it were being filmed in black and white. Having just finished a Clive Cussler novel my mind went into overdrive that this was a "ghost city" which had been abandoned.

Driving through Salaverry on a shuttle bus on our way to Trujillo, about 30 minutes away, the impression wasn't really lifted. There were very few signs of life, just a few guys meticulously sweeping the sidewalks spotless. On one side of the street were brick houses, with or without roofs, which could easily have been considered abandoned. On the other side of the street were shanties, or tar paper shacks that we thought couldn't possibly house people. Except, occasionally there was laundry flapping from a clothesline, so we couldn't be sure.

As the entire place appears to rest on hills of gray sand or clay, or is covered with gray sand, you can surmise that concrete and bricks are likely to be plentiful--and that is evident by the never-ending walls. Apart from the shanties every structure had some sort of wall surrounding it. Many with what looked like corner gun turrets. Some of the walls were 16 or 18 feet tall. 

After passing through a small area of farm land we came to the suburbs and then the city of Trujillo. It is the 3rd largest city in Peru and is as quaint a colonial city as you would ever want to see. Beautiful buildings surround the main square, sporting vibrant colors and elaborately carved Andalusian-style balconies, or intricately detailed metal work. 

The church, Basilica Menor, on the square is beautiful inside and out.

But, my favorite part of town was the pedestrian walkway line with shops, including this wonderful travel agency 

which offered me the use of their wifi when I inquired where I might find an Internet cafe. (Everyone and their brother had been directed to McDonalds whose network was taxed beyond its capacity and wasn't functioning--at least for me).

On board Zaandam

Lots of excitement on our "At Sea" days on this cruise. There are 10 sea days out of a total of 22 total days for this cruise from Vancouver B.C. to Vaparaiso, Chile. Interesting note--we have been informed by our lunch table companion, Joseph, from Santiago, Chile, that the correct pronunciation is 

Val-Para-E-So! So now you, too, can sound like a local!

First, in the highly competitive "Games" arena--Karen & Fritz earned a Holland America "South America" pin for being on the winning Orange team at Bean Bag Toss.

Look at the concentration!

Look at the form!

And, i will have you know that these pins are much more coveted than the "ms. Zaandam" pins given out to the winners at Trivia (at least to us they are, especially as we are still putting in "presentable" but not winning scores at Trivia).  There are a two guys from Canada--"the Canucks" (how original) who manage to win most of the Trivia contests. We speculate that it's much easier to decide when you haven't got 6 different, strongly voiced, opinions! 

There is still no official winner from the Dalton Gang Shuffleboard tournament and we did have to put off round two as Mum hasn't finished her acupuncture course for the pinched nerve she suffered in round one!

Mark and Andrew didn't enter the Table Tennis Tournament despite hours of practice in 100 degree heat. There were about 25 entrants and they were afraid that it might run long causing them to miss $1 second drinks at Happy Hour in the Crow's Nest! (Yes, it is all go, go go here!)

In the Dining Category--the dining room has now got in their own supply of Boddington's beer which the Bar Manager said was easier than sending a runner to the Mix Bar every day for our table's order! Luckily, no special action is required for a deliciously lemony Lemon Drop Martini which my Mother & I are happy to avail ourselves of at the $1 for the second drink Happy Hour (or in the dining room)!

On the last formal night we had a delightful and delicious dinner in the Pinnacle Grill. This is the specialty restaurant that focuses on Northwest Steak and Seafood. The service was impeccable, and the food was fabulous. We especially enjoyed the Dungeness Crab Cakes and steaks from the Okanagan. Also, it turns out that many of the waiters on board are from Bali. When this is discovered we then have "old home week" as it turns out that Andrew has visited everyone's home town, and in one case stayed in an Aunt's hotel during his month-long visit to Bali. 

Here we are all gussied up for another formal night. Don't the guys clean up well? (Thanks Tom & Tristan for the duds).

Mum & Dad have trumped the sports pins with their Holland America Medallions for being valued repeat cruisers! They were presented by the Captain at a special event and luncheon. We have warned them that they are likely to go straight to the bottom if they happen to wear them swimming, or if they go overboard! 

Mum & Dad were talking to some people about which table they were at for dinner, and one of them said, "oh you must be near that table of firefighters--you know, one of them has a beard and a braid". When they were able to compose themselves they said that, yes, Mark was a firefighter, but the rest of us couldn't be trusted to carry buckets of water. Mark has been proudly sporting his Stevens County Volunteer Fire Fighters T-shirt (see ping-pong above), which has obviously not gone unnoticed!

Random Events--Mark became concerned when he walked past one of the lounges and heard "serious, rousing, hymn singing". As it was Friday, he was wondering if he had missed an announcement, and should we be assembling at lifeboat station 3?

Karen asked the crew member in the hallway which way to the Gang Plank. He replied, somewhat frostily, that the GANG WAY could be found on Deck 1--forward!

As we crossed the Equator there was a very serious ceremony to indoctrinate those who were doing so for the first time (Pollywogs). It involved having their crimes read out for King Neptune who meted out the punishments and then everyone ended up in the pool and we all got certificates granting us equatorial passage as Shellbacks from now on.