Monday, January 4, 2016

Our South American cruise - Buenos Aires to Valparaiso

We hope that you have enjoyed looking at our photos from our last holiday. We were away for 3 weeks with 3 days in Buenos Aires before joining our ship for 14 nights sailing followed by 2 days in Santiago, Chile.  Our ship was the Holland America, Zaandam. We chose this ship because she is not too large to get through all the fjords and channels for the scenic cruising. Some of the larger ships are not able to do this. It proved very good value for money. We wanted to birdwatch from the cruise so that was a deciding factor on our itinery and destinations, thinking we could get some good southern birds that we would not normally see, and all from the comfort of a cruise ship. 

Our ports of call were: Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Port Stanley in the Falkland Isles, Punta Arenas (Magellan Straights), scenic cruising through Glacier Alley and Beagle Channel, Ushuaia (the bottom of the world and Tierra del Fuego), Cape Horn, Summer Pass, Sarmiento Channel, Puerto Montt, Valparaiso and onto Santiago. A brilliant itinery that certainly didn't disappoint. We saw killer whales, 100's of Sei, Southern Right, Minke and Fin Whales, Fur Seals, 1000's of Albatros, lots of endemics, sailed through the best scenery ever with glaciers down to the water's edge, fjords, Cape Horn, the Falklands and all it's history and 180 new birds. A brilliant trip, the best ever !!

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