Abbott's take a Holiday

Everyone needs a vacation from time to time and it was time that Dan and I took some time off to rest and relax. We knew we wanted to get away, but we were unsure as to where to go. Intially we had planned to go to Peru in October, but then with all the political unrest our plans were canceled. We wanted to take a trip that was both safe and relaxing. Dan saw an advertizement for a cruise online and when we checked it out it seemed to be perfect for what we were looking for. We rationalized that the trip could prove to celebrate 1) Dan's 60th birthday, (November 29th), 2) our joint Christmas 3) my 55th birthday, (February 28th), and our 35th wedding anniversary, (May 25th). Our goal was to get away and to relax. We did both! We have many more pictures of the cruise than you will find on this blog, but we just could not put them all on. We hope that you enjoy them as much as we do.

This is a picture of Royal Caribbean's ship "Radiance of the Seas."

This was our cabin during our 13 days at sea. It was small but affordable. Fortunately, because of Dan's age we got a senior discount which really helped! We were on deck three, (the cheap cabins), and way in the back of the boat by the employees quarters.

It is required that everyone take part in an evacuation drill the first day out at sea. Here was ours.

Our first stop on day 2 was in Montevideo, Uruguay. The city is noted for its long beaches. It borders Brazil and is a tourist location. As we walked toward the center of the city we came upon this "square" or park where artisians had set up their wares.

In the middle of the square ethnic dancers performed for the tourists wearing traditional costumes. The men wore clothes characteristic of the gouchos which were Uruguayan cowboys.

As we walked downtown you can see the busy streets and below are the statues.

A women babysits her grandchild.

Below is a drum group that beat their drums for all the tourists coming off the ships.

We were out at sea a number of days. Our second stop along the cruise was Porto Madryn, Argentina. There wasn't much to do in Porto Madryn. We did walk around the town, and below you can see a picture of Dan on the beach with Porto Madryn in the background. We paid a local tour company to take us out to the bluffs so that we could see the "lobo de mar," or sea lions. Pictures of them follow. While there a tarantula tried to walk over Dan's foot. I took a picture of it.

In Punto Arenas, Chile we took a tour to a penguin santuary. The following pictures are of the drive there and of course, the penguins. I have a lot more pictures of penguins, but I think that you get the idea.

The following pictues were taken in Ushuaia, Argentina. This place was very nice with mountains dropping into the sea. It was beautiful! The city of Ushuaia is the last city before reaching Cape Horn. Many of the houses are European in appearance as you will see by one of my pictures below. Lupines, (the purple flowers) were very abundant. While we did not go to any of the tourist attractions here such as the old Russian Prison or Tierra del Fuego National Park, we did go out on a catamaran to see the "light house at the end of the world," and to get up close to the sea lions. When the ship docked an old Russian sub was anchored there in port.

On day 8 our ship went around Cape Horn. You can see the picture below. It was very cold and rainy on the day we went around the cape. The captian said that it was really a very nice day to go around the cape because they have had days when temperatures were frigid and dangerously high winds. As you can see there really wasn't much to see so the trip around the horn was kind of anti-climatic.

Below is just a picture of one of the two pools on board the ship.

Down by the cape our days were long. Some days the sun did not set until 11:00 pm. Below is a picture of a sun set that we actually did see. I believe it was on this same day that Dan and I were eating lunch in the cafe and a small school of dolphins swam by. It happened so quickly that if we weren't watching we would have missed it.

On day 11, as we headed north again, the ship stopped in Punta del Este, Urugauy. There wasn't much to do here either, but we walked around the penninsula, sat along the shore and watched the people. Below are a few pictures of things we saw there.

On day 12 there was a towel folding demonstration. There were so many people there that we really did not see much of the demonstration. However, with my soom I was able to take this picture of the monkey that they made for everyone to see.

Our last stop before the cruise was over was in Porto Belo, Brazil. While there we walked around town and then took a small boat out to an island where there was suppose to be an ecological park. The park was small but we did the tourist thing and then returned back to the main land. Below are the pictures we took during this stop.

Indian Petrografia

Once in Sao Paulo, Brazil we boarded our bus which took us to the airport. The following pictures are of what we saw along the way. We found Sao Paulo to be very dirty, and very old. There was a huge drainage/sewage ditch which ran right in the middle of the city and it was in dier need of being cleaned. There were homeless people in the streets begging. As you can see there were homes which were erected along the hillsides. We did not do any site seeing in Sao Paulo because we had been told that it was a very dangerous city to visit unless accompanied by someone who knew what they were doing. Since we were on our own we chose to forgo a visit to the city. We were supprised to see that there was a Walmart in Sao Paulo, however we unable to tell if it was open or if it had been abandoned.