South America & antarctica 2025/2026

Day 1

17th December

Our train left Hamilton on time.
Less than an hour later we broke down. This is the view we had for the next five hours.
These photos were taken towards the end when the weather had improved.

Colleen using my laptop to plan replacement flights.
She waited till we checked into the airport hotel before making the bookings.
We got to bed after midnight.

Auckland (NZ) - Buenos Aires (Argentina)

18th December

Auckland Air Port 6am.
View from depature gate for our flight to Melbourne to catch our LATAM flights to Buenos Aires.

Off at last!

Breakfast.

Our LATAM plane at the gate in Melbourne.

Reorganising the the cargo.
The air temperature is too hot for our take off weight.

We took off two hours late.

Chicken stew.

Our flight path.

Breakfast.
Before landing in Santiago.

Chile, before landing in Santiago.

After take off from Santiago.
The last leg of our journey to Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires (Argentina)

19th December

We reached our stateroom at 1:12 this morning.
This afternoon we have a wine tasting with tapas at a Tango Bar and Retaurant.
I took a couple of photos of Buenos Aires from the bus on our way there.

This is the English Tower.
It was gifted to Buenos Aires by the british residents to commorate the centenary of the founding of Argentina.
After the Falklands war it was called the Monumental Tower.
It is still called the English Tower by some people.

Looking down into the basement room where we had our tasting.

Every body seated waiting for the tasting to begin.
Our tour guide was the lady in orange on the right.

Below are the Tapas.

This was a little pastie containing mince.

Remains of a lamb stew.
I forgot to take a photo.

Beef Kebab with onion and peppers.

Quince jelly and a sweet potato/cream cheese combination.

This was the only white wine.
We both liked it and bought a bottle.

Another room in the Tango bar where we had the tasting.

A final photo of Buenos Aires as we head back to the ship.

Montevideo (Uruguay)

20th December

Sunrise on our first day after sailing.

The first hawser being dropped over the bollard on the dock in Montevideo.

Today we have a private walking tour of the old town of Montevideo.
It took us 3 hours and covered 10km. And it was hot.

This is the port market not far from the port gates. It was inaugurated on 10th October 1868.
The iron work was cast by the Union Foundry workshops in Liverpool.

I snapped this fruit and vegetable store as we walked by.

A photo of a pair of the doors in the street.

Our guide, Gonzales, leading us down a street. Colleen then Jeremy.

Gonzales showed us this false cotton tree (Ceiba speciosa).
He had a sample. It was very soft and cotton like.

We were shown round this period house donated to the city by a business man.

The ornate facade of the Scotiabank building.

Consitution Plaza's fountain.
That is our guide, Gonzales, on the right.

Montevideo Metropolitan Cathedral.

Nativity scene in the cathedral.

Independence Square.

Under the square is the mausoleum of Jose Artigas a national hero of Uruguay.

Punta del Este (Uruguay)

21st December

We are using local tenders today to take us to the dock for our Olive Oil tasting excursion.

Sea Lions at the dock where they were cleaning fish.

On the way to our olive oil tasting we drove along the sea front.
This is one of the hotels there.

Out in the country.
Uruguay is mainly rolling plains. The highest point, Cerro Catedral, is onle 514m high.

Olive trees at Olivos De La Animas farm.

Olives.

This machine separates the olives from any leaves. Then feeds them to the crusher.
In the background are the trailers to take us to the homestead for the tasting.

The crushed olives are transfered to the container on the left.
They are left for the oil to rise to the top before being fed into the tanks to let the solids settle.
Finally the oil is filtered to remove the very fine particles.

Boarding the trailers to be taken to the homestead for Olive Oil tasting.

A selfie of us us on the trailer.

The homstead where we had the tasting.

Jeremy spotting a bird.

The food we had with the olive Oil.

The three oils.
Strong, Medium and Mild.

Along the coast on our way back to the ship.

There's our ship in the bay.

On my way back to our room I took these pictures of the Christmas display in the Atrium.

At Sea

22nd December

Today is our Mariners Society Regional wine tasting. Wines from Argentina and Chile.

This is Bernie the sommelier. We have had him on several cruises.

These are the wines we tasted.

Below are two photos of gingerbread houses for the Christmas decorations in the private lounge for Neptune Suite guests.

Puerto Madryn (Argentina)

23rd December

The wind was so strong that the captain had to be very cautious with docking.
. Due to the late docking we were over an hour late for our tour to El Pedral penguins.

While we were waiting to dock we saw some jelly fish. This is one of them.

Once out of the town we were into the country.

This is the type of road we were on once we left the town.

These are guanaco.
A camelid closely related to the domesticated llama.

Darwin's nothura.

The homestead close to where we had lunch. There is a bore here and therefore trees can be grown.

This is where we had lunch after visiting the penguins.
There is nothing between town and the homestead so this was the toilet stop before the penguins.