This will be one of our longer trips - 30 days in all! We leave this Friday, arriving in Buenos Aires on Saturday the 14th.
We'll spend the week exploring the city and surrounds: a Tango show, an intimate steak dinner in a neighborhood house, and we'll have a day at a working ranch (think gaucho rodeo).
On the 19th we board our cruise. We love Oceania Cruise Lines; this will be our fifth cruise with them. And every cruise has been aboard the Marina (a lovely 1250-passenger ship with five specialty restaurants, a huge lounge, a fabulous wine collection, and a loose casino).
Our first stop is in Montevideo, Uruguay where we've chosen a city highlights and beer tasting tour. We'll be in port all day, and I'm sure we'll track down some beers on our own.
We're also stopping in Punta Del Este, Uruguay for a quick tour of the city and its nearby beaches. But what I'm looking forward to is the trip to the art museum. The Ralli Museum is home to a fabulous collection of works by - among others - Dali, Miro, and Chagall. I hear shopping is pretty good in PDE, too!
Back in Argentina on Christmas Eve (also Joe's birthday), we'll head into Puerto Madryn - a wildlife paradise of elephant seals, penguins, and a host of native seabirds. Argentina is known for its fine leather goods, and I'm known for loving fine leather goods! I'll have to buy Joe a birthday present here.
Christmas Day finds us in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands - that is if the weather cooperates. We've read several accounts of cruise ships not being able to get into the port due to high seas and inclement weather. Fingers crossed.
Ushuaia and the legendary Tierra del Fuego park await us on the 27th. We're wait-listed for a glacier trek, but have a confirmed 4X land adventure through the park. Either way, we'll be pointing and snapping pics left and right.
On the 29th we travel the Strait of Magellen to Punta Arenas, Chile and its stunning views of the bottom of the world. We have a city tour scheduled, but we'll have plenty of time on our own while in port. Might be a good time to find a bar with a great scenic view and spend the afternoon gawking.
We'll celebrate New Year's Eve on board, cruising to/through the Chilean fjords. Beautiful scenery AND a built-in party...what's not to like!
New Year's Day we'll be in Puerto Chacabuco on the edge of Patagonia and the Andes Mountains. We have a tour at 8:00am (are you kidding me???) that takes us - via catamaran - into the Aysen Fjord and to Ensenada Perez - a collection of natural hot springs of rich mineral water that we will get to enjoy. Sounds like a hangover cure to me.
Still in the region, on the 2nd, we'll stop in Puerto Montt. Here we'll see the snow-capped Osorno Volcano (let's hope it stays snow-capped); the Petrohue Falls; and Puerto Varas, a resort community on the shores of Lake Llanquihue...aaaahhhhhh.
We end our cruise on the 4th in Santiago, but that's not the end for us! Our tour operator will pick us up from the ship and whisk us away to Valparaiso - a beach resort town, where we'll relax for a couple of days.
Sunburnt and seafood-full, we'll head to Santiago on the 6th with a stop in the Casablanca Valley for a wine tasting.
In Santiago, we'll have a couple of days to explore the local scene and eat our way across the city on a "Bite Tour."
Finally, we'll head home and sleep in our own bed on the 11th.
I've been excited about this trip for a long time; it's full of new places and adventures. But I have to say that, until I wrote this post and really took to the detail of what we'll be doing, my excitement was understated. I'm over the top! I've gotta go pack!
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