Thursday, 6 January 2011 Cruising

GOING DOWN IN THE WORLD

This morning I checked out of the Sheraton to join a city tour and transfer arranged privately through CC. Trying to get down to reception was difficult as I was now on the 5^th floor of a 22 storey hotel – with everyone either checking out or going down for breakfast. So, by the time the lifts stopped at my level they were full. I even tried catching a lift going up but it was full with breakfast–goers returning to their rooms. Anyway, it took 20 minutes before I could get into a lift with my luggage and by this time I was afraid I’d keep the others on my tour waiting.

One of the really great things about joining a forum on CC is the people you meet (not to mention the money you can save on booking tours privately). When the mini bus came to collect me at 9am there were quite a few familiar faces waving to me out of the windows, all people I’d met last night on our tango trip.

This morning’s tour traced some of the areas I had already covered in BA – but with more background information. Once again I visited La Boca, San Telmo and Plaza de Mayo with its Casa Rosada (the Pink House) where Evita addressed the people from the balcony.

Two more images of colourful La Boca

 Casa Rosada

We also visited Recoleta Cemetery where Evita is buried. This cemetery is such prime real estate that most of the mausoleums go down 7 stories (hence today’s title) but it is a little creepy how you can look through the glass doors and see the coffins on display plus little stairways going down. With such prime real estate, naturally upkeep is required, and we saw quite a few with ‘housecleaners’ vacuuming, polishing, dusting etc. Weird! We also saw one coffin being moved and one of the workers was crouched down opposite the entrance watching the goings on. I’m not sure what happened but suddenly there was a thump from inside the mausoleum where the coffin was being removed from and the guy jumped about 6 feet. He was a bit embarrassed when he saw us watching.

In need of some housekeeping

Next stop, the port and after a very streamlined and speedy check in, I was on board the Veendam and in my cabin. I have an outside ocean view on Main Deck. I’d actually specified this cabin which is probably why I didn’t get an upgrade to a balcony like quite a few of the other CC members. If the seas are rough going around Cape Horn, though, I’ll have the last laugh because my cabin location will suffer less movement than being in a balcony much higher up and towards the back of the ship. I shouldn’t complain though as it is a very nice cabin and actually better laid out than the balcony cabins. It’s also obvious that the ship had major refurbishments fairly recently so the cabin looks fresh and well cared for. Also, I found from my Alaskan cruise last June that at this level I was closer to ice floes than being on a higher deck looking down on them.

Two nice little surprises I found in my cabin were a beverage card and handmade chocolate truffles from Holland America’s (HAL) Australian agent who my booking was made through. The beverage card allows me to buy soft drinks, speciality coffees, cocktails and alcohol up to a certain limit. The truffles didn’t survive the hour!

In the Lido I had some lunch with Robyn and Ken before exploring the ship a little and then unpacking in my cabin. One of the best things of a cruise is that you can visit numerous countries without living out of a bag.

I watched the sunset from the back deck as we were preparing to leave BA and met up with Deb, who with her travelling companion Audrey, had been lucky enough to be upgraded to an aft balcony. Okay, so maybe I would have very graciously accepted a balcony if it had been offered to me! Anyway, as I was invited down to check out their cabin, we were sailing away so we had a great view of BA disappearing in the distance, with the moon overhead!