Travels with Llama Blog

When we returned from our December 2023 and January 2024 South American and Antarctica cruises, we’ve often been asked what were our favorite things that we saw or did. I always struggle with those kind of questions. I love travel. I love just about all aspects of travel. Well flight delays and things like that not so much, but the actual seeing sites, meeting new people, getting to experience things that are so different from my home and my way of living, I really enjoy. So it’s always hard for me to narrow down a list of favorite things. I love it all. It’s kind of like picking a favorite child over another.

On these three back-to-back cruises, which left Los Angeles circled down around the coast of South America ending up in Buenos Aires then took off from Buenos Aires down to Antarctica and back up to Buenos Aires, we saw and did so many amazing things. It was really hard to pick. It would be so easy to say standing at the base of a volcano in Patagonia Chile, or standing at the top of Iguazu falls and then taking a speedboat ride through the falls and getting drenched wet, or seeing a meteor shower from the deck of the ship in the southern hemisphere while picking out the southern cross, or celebrating Christmas and New Years with people I didn’t know and many who spoke languages other than my own, but those are not the ones that I think I want to talk about here.

I thought about six different things that really stuck out to me and that I enjoy thinking about again and again, and looking at my pictures and videos again. And here are those six things.

First was visiting Antigua, Guatemala. Our ship was supposed to stop in Costa Rica but there were some issue with the dock, so our port was changed to Antigua, Guatemala. Though I’m sure Costa Rica is truly amazing and I’ll get there one day, I am so glad we got to visit Antigua.

As we took the bus transfer in to the old capital of Guatemala, the fire volcano, one of several surrounding the area, was sending out puffs of smoke. It made me ponder about sense of place and home, as the people who live here live with the thought of anticipated eruption at all times.

After we got to Antigua we wandered around pretty much on our own and really enjoyed all the sites of this old city. The old city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1773 and the capital was then moved to Guatemala City.

The remnants of the old cathedral are still there, and we paid the couple dollars to visit it.

As we entered back in the old ruins we heard a music, somebody was singing. There was restoration work going on and we thought maybe one of the workers was singing. As we climbed up to the top we realized it was other visitors. There we met Daniel and the other male members of his immediate family. They were taking a guys trip traveling around Guatemala by motorcycle. Daniel stopped singing when we walked up and I told him to please keep singing he had such a lovely voice. It was so special he serenaded us standing on the top of the ruins and looking out at the volcanoes around us. It gave me chills. I will never forget the blessing that he gave us that day.

Our last stop on Cruise #1 and first stop on Cruise #2 was Valparaiso, Chile. Part of this large city, which hangs along the coast, is a UNESCO World heritage site. After going over to the mall and purchasing a couple things that we needed, we took an electric trolley and then a funicular and ended up on top of the city.

Yes the views were amazing and the murals that are painted all around and the old buildings were stunning, but what really stood out to me was meeting a woman who hand crocheted the most beautiful sweaters. I had not anticipated Chile being quite so chilly, so I thought I would buy a touristy sweatshirt while I was there. When I saw her beautiful sweaters I decided that a hand crocheted sweater from this lovely woman would be way better than any touristy sweatshirt that I can buy just about anywhere. She was so lovely and assisted me in picking out the one that was right for me. I wore it several times on the trip, and will get several more years of wonderful use out of it. It will be a reminder of this great trip and this wonderful woman.

Next, at the bottom of the world, through the Strait of Magellan and the Chilean fjords, you end up at Ushuaia or Tierra del Fuego.

The bottom of the South American continent is gorgeous! I didn’t expect it to be so pretty and so quaint all at the same time. We really enjoyed the town, cruising around it and finding a really fun wine bar after our day’s excursion.

But what I really remember from there, is at the end of our excursion we stopped in the national park at Ensenada Bay on the Beagle Channel. To be at what they call “the end of the world”, to have the sun shining and the beautiful water crashing in front of me was almost too beautiful to believe. This was it. Next land was Antarctica. It just couldn’t be real. I couldn’t be standing here. This was a dream.

We had to keep going.

Our third cruise, the one that had Antarctica, would bring even more experiences that really stuck with me.

The first of which of course is seeing Antarctica.

We got pretty lucky with the really pretty calm time through the Drake Passage, relatively speaking. The next morning when we awoke we were so surprised to already start seeing massive icebergs.

I didn’t expect to see that. To be honest I didn’t know what I expected from Antarctica. We had been to Alaska and now we had seen just a bit of Patagonia, the Chilean fjords and a taste of what Southern South America had to offer. But I wasn’t prepared for Antarctica as we sailed later that day into Paradise Bay I find myself at kind of a loss of words for it. There’s no vegetation, the sky is really kind of a light gray but a white light gray, not depressing gray. The colors of the icebergs ranged all the gamut of white to deep blue to light blue to this iridescent blue. And it changed from one second to the next as the light changed.

There are no animals on the land, except for penguins on the iceberg. No moose, elk, or bear. That was a such a strange concept to wrap my brain around.

We were amazingly blessed to see about 50 different humpback whales during our time there. They swam and played and dove.

Then we entered Paradise Bay. It was a beautiful day and our captain was able to get in way far into the bay. What you may not know is that cruise ships can only go about 10 nautical miles an hour in Antarctica. And if the weather isn’t conducive, the ships may not get to enter Paradise Bay or be able to go down too far or close to land. I consider us very lucky. This is by international agreement to keep the areas as pristine as possible. There can be no announcements on the decks of the ships to keep the noise down. Also only so many ships can be down there at one time. Though we did see a couple other ships, it was really just kind of us. It was an eerie but also magical feeling.

The weather was so nice, about 34 degrees Fahrenheit and very little wind. The captain opened up the helipad deck. That was thrilling experience itself as I had never been on one.

Even with the hundreds of people out there on the helipad deck with me, I found it very peaceful. I kept thinking if everybody would just quit talking for a minute and everybody just be quiet, it would be the most perfect stillness that any of us would have ever experienced in our lives. But of course we couldn’t get everybody to quit talking! That’s okay, I can imagine it. Back on the balcony of our stateroom, looking out, it was very quiet there and I could kind of get a feeling for that stillness. It was just so beautiful.

We did of course have to leave Antarctica. After cruising slowly past Elephant Island, we made our way back towards South America. Unfortunately weather stopped us from porting at the Falkland Islands, but we were kind of prepared for that. Only about one in three ships get to dock there due to the notoriously high winds. Our next port was Puerto Madryn, Argentina. It is here that there’s a very famous colony of Magellanic penguins.

We booked an excursion to Punta Tombo Penguin Colony and I’m so glad we did. This was worth the drive and time it took to get to the colony. There are about 300,000 penguins here and they all had babies. We learned that they give birth to two babies but one only typically survives. But at this moment in time there were a bunch of sets of twins waddling around. The colony is their home and they have the right away and we got to witness a lot of penguin parades was they walked around the colony and headed down to the water for a swim and a bath. I could have watched them all day long.

So adorable.

The last of my favorites would have to come from our stop in Montevideo, Uruguay.

We booked a tour that included a visit around the city and seeing the Murga Carnival Museum and performance.

Murga is a type of Uruguayan musical theater that is performed during Carnival season and is associated with the country’s carnival. It is a mix of comedic theater, music, and social critique. Murga is Uruguay’s most popular carnival category.  These musicians and dancers are so talented and work so hard. Learning about it and watching the performance was stunning. Carnival was set to start within the next few weeks, so their preparations were in full swing and the rehearsals were going strong to get ready for all their performances and parades. Uruguay does a full 40 days of Carnival. They’re proud to say they have the longest Carnival celebration!

At the end of the performance, which was jaw-dropping, we got to join in if we wanted to. Of course I did! I live by my motto “that life is more fun if you participate!” They had some costumes and hats that we could put on to join them in their dance. I grabbed up a hat that I didn’t realize was quite so large, but I was up for it. It gave me a real appreciation for all that they go through in these performances.

Well that’s the end of picking my favorites. In reality I could probably make many many more of these posts. I had so many favorites but really had to consider what popped into my brain when I thought about this whole trip. And these were my top six. If you ever get a chance go to South America – GO, go to Antarctica – GO. Make your own memories and find your top experiences to bring back.