The Lemmers Lynns, Lachine, QC, CA - SA Cruise 2004, Valparaiso

The Lemmers Lynns
Lachine, Quebec, Canada
Bienvenue! / Welcome!

South America / Antarctic Cruise 2004
Thursday, January 29, 2004 - Valparaiso, Chile

Today we left Santiago by bus headed for Valparaiso, Santiago's port city. We'll be in bus F for all the remaining tours. The road to Santiago is a fairly scenic route through a low mountain range (3 km tunnel), followed by plains. Saw almond trees, mesquite, some palms, bougainvillia, crab apples, willows, olives, prickly pear, cactus, grapes. Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc are produced in the area.

A popular local drink is Pisco Sour, made from Pisco liquor, lemon and a fizzy beverage. Guess that's what we had before dinner last night - very refreshing (and potent). Lots more to come, although we don't know it at the time.

En route we stopped for a pit stop and to see their alpaca (llama ?). They also had a few flowers.
Pit Stop En Route to Valparaiso

The port city of Valparaiso sprouts along the hillside facing the ocean. Some of the residents have access to home only by funiculars (not seen here).

We had a photo stop at the main square.
Main Square, Valparaiso

We then headed out to the Vina del Mar area, similar to the Côte d'Azur. Lots of pricey condos with some beach front. (I did not learn the significance of the stone bird.)

In that area we had a lunch stop at Chez Gérald. Pisco Sour, sea food platter, fish / rice / veggies, pavlova, ice cream with fruit sauce, and wine. A portent of things to come?

After lunch we headed to the port to board MS Amsterdam, our home for the next 21 days. Embarkation took a while as documents had to be checked, etc. Then when we arrived at our cabin the door key card would not unlock the door. Found the cabin steward to let us in, then went to the front office to get the card fixed, along with half the other passengers. Abandoned that effort to attend the mandatory lifeboat drill at 4:14 pm. Our lifeboat holds 150 people and has twin engines!. It also serves as one of three tenders to ferry passengers to port where the ship cannot dock. The other lifeboats only carry 120 passengers each and have one engine - rather larger than my concept of a lifeboat. At 5 pm the captain announced that departure would be delayed for several hours due to bunkering problems, but the subsequent schedule would not be affected.

Headed to early supper at 6 pm, dress casual. Met our table mates for the remainder of the cruise - Bob and Jo Henderson from St. Catharines, Margaret Reid and Kay Barry from St. Catharines, and Bill and Lorna Switzer from Stratford. Marg vowed to pump Bill about possible connections to her Switzer ancestors.

After supper I went up to get our key, which was now fixed, then we headed for the entertainment lounge to see the show, followed soon by bed in our new gently rocking home.