Well, once again we had the boring part of the holiday to get through – the long flight home. After a good breakfast we collected our cases, checked out of our room and sat in reception to await the arrival of the buses that would take us to the airport. Last time we flew back…
Month: January 2013
Ashore in Argentina
We were up bright and early this morning, dressed and packed up and along to breakfast before getting our hand-luggage (our cases had already been collected from outside our door in the early hours of the morning) and going along to the Globe lounge to await our call to disembark. Then down the gangplank we…
The Magic of Montevideo
When we woke up around 7.45 this morning, the Arcadia was already docked in Montevideo, on the Rio de la Plata (River Plate). We went out onto our balcony for our first glimpse of Uruguay, our 71st country visited. After breakfast we assembled at 8.45am in the Palladium for our shore excursion, the Montevideo city tour….
Capricorn Crossing
Sunday, 20th January 2013 Crossing the Tropic of Capricorn at 23° 27′ south in the early hours of this morning, Arcadia left the warmer waters of the tropics on her passage towards Uruguay. Today and tomorrow would see our last two sea days before our arrival in Montevideo. We enjoyed a bit of a lie-in this morning and…
Rocking in Rio de Janeiro
When we woke up this morning the Arcadia was just about to dock in the port of Rio de Janeiro, bustling vibrant city and former capital of Brazil. We had stayed here once before, for three days, in 2001 so we were excited to be back. With anticipation we went out onto the balcony to see…
Canberra on Arcadia
Today we had another full day at sea to look forward to. People who read this blog sometimes say to me, “But you always seem to do the same stuff on sea days – don’t you get bored?”. I wouldn’t say we always do the same thing, but like everyday life, we tend to fall…
Samba in Salvador
This morning we watched from our balcony as the Arcadia slowly pulled into her berth in the port of Salvador da Bahia, ancient former capital of Brazil. We had had a fantastic holiday here in 2001, when we stayed at the beach resort of Costa do Sauípe, so we were looking forward to exploring the old…
Ship Happens
When we woke up at 8.00am this morning and turned on the TV to catch the morning Sky news, we were shocked to learn that, in London’s grey and very foggy skies, a helicopter had crashed into a crane in the centre of the city near Vauxhall Bridge, killing the pilot and at least one…
Roaming in Recife
We woke up very early this morning; around 5.00am in fact. We had already noticed that the sun rose much earlier south of the Equator than it does in the North (even in the tropics) at this time of year. Of course, the reverse would be true if this were July instead of January. From…
A Line to Cross
Once back in our cabin, we went out onto the balcony and Trevor switched on his hand-held GPS so we could check our position. We could see we were at 00° 00.415′ N so we were literally just about to cross the Equator. A few minutes later, at 01:20 hours local time, the readout showed…