South America's treasures unfold during a 15-day cruise
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Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. -
"Post office at the End of the World" in Ushuaia, Argentina. -
Buenos Aires boasts some of the world's best steakhouses. -
Tourists descend on a funicular elevator at the Artillery Hill in Valparaiso, Chile. The Artillery funiculars cover a length of 574 feet and were brought from Britain and Germany.
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We were just 17 hours out of Rio de Janeiro when the winds hit.
They hit hard, blasting from the southwest at a relative speed -- the cruise ship's speed and the wind speed combined -- of 59 miles per hour.
We were expecting the winds but not until we got to Cape Horn, where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet unwillingly in a constant frenzy of wind, waves and whitecaps. But that was still eight days and many nautical miles away.
On the cruise of a lifetime, we were aboard Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's Mariner of the Seas, the 1,020-foot-long behemoth that was taking us around South America in grand -- if blustery -- style.
In late January, we were aboard for a 15-day, 5,000-mile second leg of a total 46-day, 16,158-mile repositioning trip that took the Mariner from Port Canaveral, Fla., to Los Angeles via the world. Our adventure was from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; to Montevideo, Uruguay; to Buenos Aires, Argentina; on to Cape Horn, Chile; then to "the bottom of the world" at Ushuaia, Argentina; and, finally, to Valparaiso, Chile.
Cruise lines: Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Celebrity, Holland America, Princess, Norwegian and a few smaller lines. Note: The bigger the ship, the better for your stomach if you hit rough Cape Horn waters.
Cruise costs: Depends on shipboard accommodations, time of year, cruise line and hidden costs. Air fares and fees add a lot more to the total, and Ushuaia is not among most ports of call. Add about $17 per day per person for tips for ship's personnel.
Air fares: In today's market, air fares are mercurial, but round trip from Pittsburgh to Rio de Janeiro is about $1,000. Round trip to Buenos Aires is about $800.
Info: Your travel agent or any cruise line Web site.
The adventure, as we experienced it:
Rio de Janeiro (River of January, named by the Portuguese who founded the city on Jan. 1, 1502). Ah, Rio, "The Marvelous City," home of the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, the Christ the Redeemer statue and, sadly, the crime capital of Brazil.
We were a month early for Carnaval, but the beaches offered sun, sand and surf -- it's summer in the Southern Hemisphere -- while the statue awaited our arrival with, literally, outstretched arms. Visible from just about everywhere in the city, Christ the Redeemer is, in a word, imposing. He has been watching stoically from atop 2,300-foot Corcovado Mountain since 1931, remaining impassive even when hit by lightning a year ago.
Two cable car rides took us to the 120-foot, 700-ton statue where crowds mingled in awe, stepping, occasionally, on those who lie flat on their backs at the base to get a better perspective for their photos.
If the statue could see, it may be disappointed with its subjects. It would be happy, certainly, with a modern, vibrant city of 6.1 million people, some of them among the richest in the world. But it would certainly be unhappy with the wretched poverty of many more. Interestingly, the poor live on the hillsides and have the best view of the ocean and the beaches.
Because of this poverty, the city's drug traffic is rampant, contributing heavily to a recent average of about 30 homicides a week. But tourists are relatively safe, except for the time they spend in a taxi. Intent on speed and apparently having taken a vow to never let another car pass, taxi drivers are, well, homicidal.
Montevideo ("I see the mountain," shouted a Portuguese sailor when he saw land in 1726 while on one of explorer Ferdinand Magellan's expeditions). What that excited sailor saw here is ultra-flat Montevideo's one small hill. He must have been at sea for a long time before making his historic announcement.
It was here in Montevideo that we found some of the friendliest people in South America. Even the port police, usually a dour lot, have a ready smile for the traveler.
It was also here that Pittsburgh's three rivers were diminished in our minds to mere trickles by comparison with Montevideo's Rio de la Plata (River of Silver), a muddy, churning mass of water only 190 miles long but 120 miles wide where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Depending on the wind, the Plate wavers between salt and fresh water.
Our entry into the port here was a masterpiece of navigation by Johnny Faevelen, the Norwegian-born captain of the Mariner of the Seas. Although the Mariner, huge as it is, has a draught of only 29 feet, the dredged channel of the Plate is just 32 feet deep, leaving only 3 feet of silt-laden water between the hull and a muddy grounding.
If the Old City is the heart and soul of Montevideo, the boardwalk (it's brick-lined but brickwalk just doesn't sound right) along the Plate is its nerve center. The city boasts 12 miles of white sand beaches and the natives make good use of them.
Prevalent throughout the city but most noticeable along the boardwalk are the mate-drinkers. I was puzzled by the number of people with a sort of mug in one hand and a thermos in the other. Turns out they were having their mate, a bitter herbal tea sipped from a cup through a silver straw. The thermos, of course, contains hot water for refills.
Buenos Aires (Good Air). Forgive me, Eva Peron, but, for me, your gravesite can't even compare with the city's steakhouses. And forgive me, Texas, but you have a long way to go before your beef can even share a plate with the meat of Argentinean grass-fed cattle.
One of the top tourist destinations in the world, Buenos Aires is a clean, modern city with the sensual Latin beat of its countless tango clubs and the vibrancy of the mixed cultures of millions of immigrants who reached its shores in the 19th and 20 centuries.
Along the Calle Florida, a wide, pulsing urban mall that stretches for nearly a mile, shoppers bring smiles to merchants who sell high-quality jewelry, books and the soft, beautiful leather that encased that wonderful beef while it was still on the hoof.
We shopped, of course. But we also found the answer to Clara Peller's "Where's the beef?" question in that Wendy's commercial of 25 years ago. "In Argentina," I answer and, specifically, "At Las Nazarenas."
It was the lunch of lunches. We shared a FILET. Not a filet. A FILET. And we thanked the waiter for his suggestion that we share. It arrived on a platter, all 800 grams -- 28.2 ounces -- of it. And it was exquisite, cooked perfectly, seasoned oh, so subtly and as tender as a marshmallow. It was accompanied by grilled vegetables and, with a drink and tip, the bill was about $40.
Cape Horn is part of the Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire) archipelago. This is where we expected the winds, here at the southernmost tip of South America. Storms, strong, swirling currents and the occasional iceberg usually make passage extremely dangerous.
It was a walk in the park. The waters were flat, with swells rising to only about 3 feet and the winds almost nonexistent. The sun was bright on the treeless land mass. It was a day for Cape Horn to blow its own horn and a day for us to marvel at a natural wonder.
Because it was the inaugural rounding of the cape for the Mariner of the Seas, Capt. Faevelen stopped the ship and visited the Argentinean weather and communications station sitting bleakly at the top of a cliff. Along with five crew members, he went ashore and presented the current residents of the station, the four members of the Elliott family, with a model of his ship, a plaque and T-shirts. The Elliotts and their two children, 4 and 7, there for a 12-month post, assured the captain that he had arrived on the nicest day of their year.
Ushuaia (The Bottom of the World). On the banks of the Beagle Channel (named for the boat on which amateur naturalist Charles Darwin sailed to the part of the world where he later formed his ideas on evolution), cold, windswept Ushuaia is, of all things, a tourist attraction. For me, it was one of the highlights of the trip, including a visit to Carlos Delorenzo, who has the job of "First Minsterio" at "The Post Office at the End of the World." He hand-stamps every piece of mail.
A shivering town of just more than 60,000, Ushuaia bustles in summer, such as it is, and winter. Explorer Magellan named the area Tierra del Fuego and noted it was the "end of the world." At least in terms of climate, he was so right.
Average daytime high in Ushuaia in summer is 57 degrees, and there are gale force winds (40 to 50 mph) at least 30 percent of the time in winter when the average daytime high is about 5 degrees, not counting that penetrating wind chill.
In summer, the cruise ships stop by and in winter South Americans flock to Ushuaia for skiing. That should be good because snow starts falling in April and continues through September. In mid-winter July, there's usually about 4 feet of snow on the ground.
Valparaiso (Paradise Valley). Known locally as "Valpo," the city is home to 800,000 people but reminds one of Pittsburgh because of the 15 inclines climbing its steep hillsides.
It's a law of nature that wives shop. And it's a matrimonial law that shopping means buying earrings. In Valparaiso, that means lapis lazuli, a beautiful, dark blue semi-precious stone found only in Argentina and Afghanistan. Per the marriage vows, there are now a couple of sets of lapis lazuli earrings in our home.
For me, one of the attractions here was the local drink, Pisco Sour. Made with pisco, a Muscat grape brandy, egg whites and lemon, it's a tart and tasteful concoction, but it leaves me wondering how anyone ever thought to make egg whites a cocktail ingredient.
Next, Santiago (St. James). One of the most modern cities we have ever visited, Santiago is just now starting to feel the effects of the world's economic slowdown.
But it comes after two decades of rapid and spectacular growth, including construction of a subway system. One of the problems of that growth is that much of the water is unsafe. Only about 65 percent of waste water is treated and the local river is rife with untreated sewage. The city is tackling that problem now as the next biggest project.
Another local problem doesn't have a local solution. Sitting atop a major fault, Santiago experiences an average of one tremor every day, although seldom is the quake felt. But the potential is always there; the last major one, in 1985, killed 177 people and destroyed 142,000 homes.
But with the grand, snow-capped Andes Mountains as the city's marvelous backdrop, Santiago is our pick for the place to go if you can go to only one place in Chile.
First Published April 12, 2009 12:00 am
