Ah, Cape Horn, the southern most tip of Tierra del Fuego, the Holy Grail of long distance sailing and circumnavigation! The Zaandam rounded the Horn on November 9 at just after seven in the morning under gray skies, drizzle, and near freezing temperatures. Winds were not howling—only around 20 knots, and the waves of the following seas were manageable compared to what we had experienced a few days before. Just as we passed the tip of the cape, the ship’s horn sounded a long blast, and in the crowded Crow’s Nest the hundreds of passengers who had gotten up early to witness this historic moment, watched in reverent silence.

 So just how big a deal was this?

Short answer: not much. Just anther big, gray rock with jagged edges, rising just over a thousand feet into the sky. A small house and chapel are positioned at one end where there is also a famous statue of an albatross. The island is on Chilean land, not Argentine, and it is staffed 24/7/365 where a lighthouse attendant is on duty for three months at a time. If the island was not at the end of the Earth, few would even know that it existed.

But wait: Being at the end of the Earth is what this is all about. Starting shortly after the time when the elusive passage to the Far East was discovered and rounded by a Dutchman in 1616 , it  transformed world trade. Between that time and 1914 when the Panama Canal first opened, it was the preferred route for trade between the East and West and safer than the Straight of Magellan, which is too narrow for a vessel under sail to manage easily. Over a thousand ships have been lost trying to make the rounding. Over 1,500 sailors have perished. This is a sailor’s graveyard. You tell  someone who has rounded under sail that it is not a big deal and see how far you get.

Tradition has it that any sailor who makes the rounding earns the right to wear an earring in whichever ear was closest to the Horn (East to West–the right ear– is the upwind and more challenging rounding.) and to eat dinner with one leg resting on the table. If he (or she) rounds both Cape  Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, it is two earrings and two legs on the table.

So yes, this is a big deal—even for us docile passengers sipping our morning coffee and seated in the cozy Crow’s Nest, peering out the window. And we actually were lucky to be able to round in fairly decent weather, not the experience of many vessels. Gales are present about ten percent of the time in summer and a third of the time in winter when it is not unusual to experience wave heights of over 100 feet. You try telling anyone on any vessel that has crossed under those conditions that it is no big deal and see how far you get. We passengers aboard the Zaandam were lucky on November 9, 2019.

When the horn of the Zaandam blasted, we were suddenly in the Atlantic Ocean. Good bye to those huge Pacific swells and frigid currents and as far as I was concerned, good riddance—except, of course, there was no magical change in conditions as the ship changed course and headed northeast toward the Falkland Islands.   After another full day at sea we arrived at Port Stanley– the capital of the Falkland Islands and its only settlement– anchoring almost alone except for one other cruise ship about our size.

Talk about isolated! The Falkland Islands consist of two larger islands and several hundred smaller ones. Antarctica is 800 miles to the south, Argentina about 350 miles to the west. The total local population is under 3,000, the vast majority living in Port Stanley. If there is a tree on this lonely, desolate island, I did not see it. Outside the port area where several hundred modest houses are clustered, there are rocky mountains, most under a thousand feet, and vast areas of open tundra and grasslands—perfect for sheep and, as it turns out, penguins. The Falklands is home to over 500,000 of the former and more than a million of the latter.

I have never been to Scotland but imagine that part of the world to look a lot like what we saw in the Falkland Islands, which may explain why the island is part of the British Commonwealth.  It was not until the early Nineteenth Century before anyone lived on the island; but as shipping grew, it was  ideally positioned to assist, provision, and repair  vessels coming to and from Cape Horn. People started moving there, mainly from Great Britain. 

During the early years several countries claimed sovereignty over the islands including Argentina and the U.K. This dispute went on for decades as both stubbornly claimed sovereignty  even though the people who settled there were English speakers. If you did not know where you were, you would swear you were in an English or Scottish village. The dispute continued on again and off again for more decades until the famous war of 1982 when the Argentine navy invaded the Falklands on April 2 and occupied the islands, declaring the Falklands belonged  solely to Argentina. That lasted for only 74 days, the time it took for the British to get down to the territory and retaliate. In a matter of days the Brits arrived with superior air support, British warships, and several thousand British troops. Two and a half months later the Argentines surrendered and withdrew, their tail between their legs.  Several civilians and almost a thousand military personnel had lost their lives—two times as many Argentines as Brits. 

The worst part of the legacy of this war were the  more than thirty thousand land mines that the Argentines buried in an effort to halt the British invasion. Though most land mines have now been removed or disarmed, some remain including  mines still buried on some of the island’s most beautiful, white sand beeches, making them off limits.

The 1982 war continues to be a very big deal for the residents of the islands. Several statues and memorials have been erected  in Stanley, and there was much talk about it from people we talked with or listened to while we were on land. Several years ago when there was a referendum in the Falklands regarding preference for rule by the U.K. versus Argentina, sticking with the  Brits won 99.8% of the vote. Following the vote, two of the three who voted for Argentina later recanted explaining that they did not understand the question. Case closed, at least for now, or so it appears. Argentina, however, still refuses to acknowledge the validity of the Falklands as a British territory, and U.N. resolutions continue to call for negotiations between the two countries. There are 1,500 British military permanently stationed on the islands just in case.

Despite its starkness, there is a beauty about this place, and you definitely get the idea that people who live here love it. Though it is hundreds of miles north of where we were at the southern tip of South America, the climate is similar with high temperatures the day we visited not getting above the mid 40s. So the decisive factor would surely not appear to be the weather. Perhaps there is something appealing about the isolation and being part a small but stalwart community, hunkering down and surviving the challenging conditions. Wimps need not apply.

And they have a role model: the penguins! There are over a million of these stoical creatures on the island. While Embry  went on a hike,  I joined one of the many penguin tours, this one to a remote location accessible only via four wheel drive vehicles.  I boarded a minibus with about 20 other tourists (Most were Brits from the other cruise ship anchored in the harbor.). We rode for about a half hour  along vast, empty fields of rock and tundra and then turned onto a dirt road where we hopped off and piled into five Land Rovers, which sloshed and bounced along through pastures where sheep were grazing alongside their small lambs. About fifteen minutes later we arrived at Bluff Cove, where there were several Gentoo Penguin rookeries and one King Penguin rookery. All totaled I would guess there  were several hundred birds nesting and half again as many standing. The ones standing would occasionally poke their beaks into the air, make a kind of gasping noise, flap their arm-like wings, then calm down and wobble around a bit, before returning to their position next to their mate, awaiting their turn on the nest. 

Now is this a hard life or what? Sitting or standing there in the  cold  waiting for an egg to hatch and then risking your life in the frigid  ocean searching for fish to bring home to your mate, while realizing you could be lunch for a hungry sea lion just waiting for you to jump in? Are they having a good time? Do they actually enjoy this? What about when the gale force winds come or when it starts to snow? How do they do this, day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime?

Well, hats off to them! Like the human residents of the Falkland Islands, they tough it out, hunker down and live the life they were programmed to live as best as they can. In that regard you could say they are kind of like us humans—except a whole lot cuter.

At the end of the day, the Zaandam weighed anchor and headed west. In two days we will arrive in Montevideo, Uruguay. We are now on the last leg—only a week left on the cruise.

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Around noon on Friday, November 8, under mostly blue skies, and with chilly temperatures and strong, gusty winds, we pulled into the port of Ushuaia in Argentina, the southernmost  town on the planet Earth. At a latitude of about 60 degrees, Ushuaia is about the same distance from the equator as southern Alaska or Iceland. The remote town has a population of a little over 100,000  and is situated on a hill below a snowy mountain towering over 5,000 feet above the  Beagle Channel, leading to the Pacific Ocean and Cape Horn, over a hundred  miles due south. The town, which has a definite alpine feel to it, seems more European than the Chilean cities we have visited, with its colorful, mid-rise buildings and few overt signs of poverty. The closest port to the South Pole, Ushuaia is where many expeditions to Antarctica originate, and two of these smaller cruising ships were docked near us. 

The highlight of the afternoon was our excursion aboard a large catamaran to several tiny islands– more like very large, desolate rocks– to observe scores of sea lions basking in the sun, and one large colony of Imperial Cormorants. The scenery was stunning with snow-covered mountains all around us and whitecaps decorating the choppy, blue waters. The last few days have been all about extraordinary natural beauty and pristine wilderness. The Beagle Channel was a fitting conclusion to almost a week of wonder.

The highlight of the evening was Che Guevara. Remember him? The infamous South American revolutionary from Argentina, who was a key participant in the Cuban Communist Revolution in the 1950s, and in the 1960s was killed, according to most reports, by the CIA. The Motorcycle Diaries, a 2004-acclaimed, coming-of-age film, was the ship’s movie of the day. Based on the journal that Che wrote when he was a 23-year old medical student about a motorcycle adventure, riding with his buddy through several South American countries in 1952, it is not the typical movie you would expect to see on a cruise ship. More of an art flick than a popular movie, it paints a very sympathetic portrait of Che, who grew up in a comfortable, middle class family and became a revolutionary mainly because of the glaring societal inequities he witnessed on the road trip. 

The big takeaway for me was how the more things change, the more they stay the same. The inequities that made such an impression on Che are still present throughout South America and the world. In fact in some respects they are getting worse. Communism is no longer the silver bullet it was thought to be by some intellectuals and idealists in the early part of the last century. In fact you could argue that   Communism not only failed to deliver, it made things worse. And the inequities remain.  Life is just not fair. There is too much suffering. Yet there are big question marks as to where we go from here. 

And you don’t have to go far to see glaring inequities. Just look in the mirror.  Here we are on a fancy cruise ship, in what could easily be described as Exhibit A of  over-the-top, self-indulgent living. I would argue that few of us passengers on this cruise ship “deserve” this experience. Few  have “earned” it. It is not our “reward for success.” It is due mostly to luck and circumstance—what country we were born in, what kind of family we were born into, how we were treated as infants and toddlers and what kind of support we got growing up. It is due to the education we received, who our friends were,  the mentors we had, the status  of our physical  and mental health , the kinds of jobs available to us, and the opportunities that came our way. Sure, we had to make something of these opportunities, but still….

Now take a look at the 500 persons on this ship who are not passengers but are here to take care of the 1,400 people who are—to keep us safe, entertained, enriched, comfortable, and happy.

When Embry attended the captain’s talk today, there were a bunch of questions to the captain about the treatment of the crew, especially the line employees at the bottom of the food chain—those who clean our rooms, prepare our food, serve it to us, and keep the ship going. They are mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines with a sprinkling from other, mostly Asian countries. These people are courteous and polite, always greet you with a smile and also, as far as I can tell, do what they are supposed to do and do it well. How much they get paid was not disclosed, but surely it is not a lot. What was disclosed is that a 70-hour workweek for them is not unusual. (Apparently there are international regulations that prevent workweeks over 90 hours. Yes, that’s 90!) And the irony is that most of these workers on this ship will tell you they are the lucky ones.

This, of course, is just one example of  low hanging fruit on the inequity scale. But if you think about it, the low hanging fruit is everywhere, all the time. For Che Guevara the answer was a revolution, in fact a violent revolution. Some today may continue to argue that only a violent revolution will level the playing field. As one  who vigorously  would not agree, I also have to admit that I do not have a simple or compelling answer. And if I am honest, I will admit that while I should probably feel guilty about being among the privileged few who   are able to go on a cruise like this, I am enjoying myself immensely. It takes a movie like Motorcycle Diaries to remind me of the way the world really is and that looking the other way is not the answer either.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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It is now Friday, November 8, and this marks our 23^rd day aboard the Zaandam. For the past five days we have been coasting along in the fiords  except for one brief stopover at Punta Arenas, the southernmost town in Chile at the 52^nd parallel or about where Winnipeg, Canada, is in the Northern Hemisphere. The weather has been pretty consistently inconsistent the whole time. One minute you are fogged in and can only see silhouettes of mountains at best. The next minute the sun peaks through, the water sparkles, and snowcapped peaks tower into the heavens above you. Then a rain shower comes, then a snow shower, and then suddenly the sky is blue again, and the cycle repeats itself. It was like this  the entire time. The experience is mesmerizing. The spectacular scenery  is never the same, always changing, always surprising you. In fact over the entire fiord experience I have spent most of the time just marveling and taking photographs as we cruise along. The big decisions are do I  marvel from our balcony or the library with wide windows or the Crow’s Nest or the open aft deck. Tough choices. About the only thing that remains constant are the chilly temperatures—highs in the low 40s—and the brisk winds at 25 knots with higher gusts but ameliorated by the protection we have in the narrow channel. 

Why doesn’t the word get out about this extraordinary natural wonder? Why isn’t it on the Top 10 List? Why isn’t it high on everyone’s bucket list?

One of the most amazing things is just how isolated this space is. There is no sign anywhere of any human activity—no houses, no boat docks, no visible paths or roads, no indication than any human has ever set foot on the steep slopes at the edge of the channel. Except for the passage through the Straight of Magellan leading into the town of Punta Arenas, we have seen a total of only six vessels—two tramp steamers, two fishing boats and one partially sunken freighter.  We have seen a few seagulls, cormorants, and a few albatross, but not as many as you might expect. So where is everybody, you ask. You get the feeling that time has been rolled back eons, to a time before there was any human life on the planet, even before there was any animal life. So, you think, this is the way it all looked way back when, way back before we humans had our opportunity to leave our mark. Or perhaps it is a scene out of the future, when we humans are long gone, having left behind a mixed legacy.

Besides peering out of the ship’s windows or shivering on our balcony or the aft deck, we have continued to do the things people do on cruises—enjoying the food and meeting interesting fellow passengers at  the evening dinners from all over the U.S. or Canada or the UK or Germany or wherever, doing our walks around the deck when weather permits, enjoying a cocktail at one of the ship’s many bars, attending the daily, classical music concerts by two gifted, young musicians, a pianist and a violist, or taking in a movie or a show or a lecture about what we will be seeing. Getting cabin fever is a bit of a risk on a long cruise, but on this leg we have been saved by the views.

At Punta Arenas, a back woods port of around 120,000, the Zaandam  paused long enough to  permit excursions during the day. Via a speedy catamaran, we joined an excursion to a small, flat island with over 30,000 Magdela Penguins (of which we saw maybe a hundred) and probably even more huge seagulls. Quite impressive cute little fellows and nice to get off the ship and stretch our legs. Late in the day, the ship departed again, headed toward Argentina where we will anchor at the world’s southernmost town, and then on to Cape Horn, which we should arrive at around six a.m. tomorrow, then toward the Falkland Islands.

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Joe has kindly offered me the opportunity to do a “guest blog,” while we are going through the Chilean Fjords.  I’m sure he will soon be writing to you about the beauty of this remote part of the world.

In the meantime, I am going to write about the thing that impressed me most soon after we got on the ship. That is the prevalence of older couples.  It immediately struck me that we were surrounded by people who looked a lot like us.  This is not what I am used to in Washington, D.C. or most other places we go these days.  I was shocked!  Where did all these people come from?  At the risk of sounding totally politically incorrect, the preponderance of people on the ship look to be older “plain vanilla” types (ie. heterosexual, white couples). They walk around just like we do, holding hands and (looking to be) comfortable just being together for 33 days with not much to do. 

Quite a few years ago Joe and I were invited to the Washington Cathedral to have our marriage blessed among others who had been married 25+ years or more.  At that time (at about age 60) I felt very young, and expected to be surrounded by really old people who had been married for ages and ages. To my shock and surprise, Joe and I (who had at that time been married about 40 years) were called up among the longest marriages in the Cathedral.  That really set me to thinking about what the ingredients of a long marriage consist of.  I concluded it involves lot of luck (to have found the right person, and persevered through some hard times together), to have been blessed with good health, and to have married young.  We were in our early twenties when we married, and during our generation many of those early marriages did not survive. I came away from that service feeling both blessed by the Bishop and blessed by our God-given fortune to have such a (generally) happy and long-lived marriage.  Now, over 10 years later, we will soon celebrate 54 years together.

As I got acclimated to the boat and thought about our fellow shipmates, I began to realize that we were among a lot of people who look and act a lot like we do. It is not surprising that folks who want to spend a fair amount of money to be with someone for 33+ days must be:  retired with the time to do it (therefore aged 60+); relatively prosperous; and happily partnered.  So there was a selection process going that lead to this situation.  Still, it also made me forecast that we were to have some boring times ahead when we met and talked to our fellow shipmates over dinner.  

I am happy to report that the conversations we have over dinner are anything but boring. While many of the couples we sit with are in the “plain vanilla” category, they come from many countries and walks of life.  We have heard fascinating stories of their travels and their past experiences pursuing a variety of occupations.  They come from many countries (mostly the U.S., Canada and Europe).  And, while you have to look a little harder for them, we have met people of a variety of skin colors, some gay couples, and lots of single people (mainly older women). 

Two books I am reading on the trip have given me insights into what makes up a long and happy marriage.  In Don Quixote (LONG but good), written at a time when most marriages were arranged, Cervantes says, “Love and natural inclination readily blind those eyes of the mind that are so necessary in making life’s important decisions; and when it comes to choosing a mate, there is especial danger of going astray, and great caution and the grace of Heaven are needed if one is to be guided aright.“ So true!  I am also reading First Family:  Abigail and John Adams by Joe Ellis. He says he wrote this dual biography to explore the “…startling capacity for a man and a woman—husband and wife—to sustain their love other a lifetime filled with daunting challenges.”  It is reassuring to me to learn that, in our secular world where marriages do not receive as much support from society as they did in the past, we are not alone in this quest to sustain a long-term partnership throughout a lifetime.  Did I mention that I have proposed a voyage around Africa (taking two months)?  Joe is skeptical, but thinking about it.

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On Sunday, November 3, the Zaandam departed the San Antonio harbor in the late afternoon in brisk winds and heavy seas. Our latitude was about 45 degrees, right in the middle of what sailors call the Roaring Forties, where the wind howls most of the time– the kind of weather we were expecting. The sun was out, however, and the sea was sparkling. As the huge rollers hit the cliffs near the harbor, their spray reached 40 or 50 feet. 

When we woke up the following morning, seas appeared calm with  towering cliffs  on both sides, not far from the ship. Overnight we had entered the northernmost part of the Chilean fiords, the first day of what would be three days meandering in these protected waters. As the depth of the channel permitted, the Zaandam coasted along.  I positioned  myself on the  aft deck for almost the entire day taking photographs and marveling at what ranks among the best that Mother Nature has to offer.  The Chilean fiords are right up there with Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, the Yellow Mountains in China, Lake Baikal in Russia and Mount Fuji in Japan. Bucket list material for sure.

Unfortunately, it  was not too long before we made a sharp right turn, taking us due west toward the ocean. As we turned into the wind, white caps started to form, and we could begin to feel the strong breeze. The captain’s somber voice came on the ship’s public address system alerting us to a change in plans. Our original course had us headed out of the channel the next day  in the direction of a major storm to the south, producing gale force winds and seas of over 30 feet high. In order to avert extremely difficult cruising conditions, he had made the decision to cancel our first stop in the fiord in order to get a jump on the storm in order to  make it back  into the fiords before the worst of the storm hit. 

It did not take long to understand why he had made that decision. When the Zaandam  left the protected waters and entered the Pacific, we were slammed by howling winds and huge waves. White caps were everywhere making the sea look like a giant cappuccino. Suddenly it was not all that easy to keep your balance. Sea sickness bags began appearing in common areas, and the captain came on the address system again  to announce that for safety reasons, all doors to the outside decks had been locked and the elevators shut down. All the water had been drained out of both swimming pools.  The captain said that the temperature outside was 46 degrees and the sustained winds were 42 knots gusting to over 50 knots.  Keeping on your feet required holding on to railings.

All morning Embry and I sat in the Crow’s Nest, a bar and gathering area on Deck 9, the top deck, peering out the window through the fog and rain, watching monster waves crash across the bow of the ship with spray at times reaching the window in front of us, some 90 feet above the sea, 

We did finally get some relief from the rocking and rolling in the afternoon when we were able to make the next passage  back into the fiords, just missing the  predicted storm waves of  30 or more feet, almost twice the size of what we had been plowing through. Unfortunately, however, in the afternoon the rain and mist settled in again. All we could  see were eerie, gray silhouettes of mountains and an occasional fleeting glimpse of a towering snow capped peak and  waterfalls draining melting snow into the ocean. 

Then close to five pm as if on cue, the rain stopped, the mist began to rise, blue patches of sky appeared, and the snowcapped peaks showed off their full glory.

About an hour later, the ship paused in front of a glacier, a bluish ice pack about 50 feet deep beginning at the top of a large mountain and extending all the way down to the sea. Even though the rain had started up again and the mist had returned, the aft deck was crowded with fellow travelers snapping photos of the glacier, the snowcapped mountains and the blue fiord. Despite the frigid temperatures and  howling wind, they were asking, I suppose, the same question I was asking: When will we ever see anything quite like this again?

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On Thursday evening, October 31, Halloween, the Zaandam, escorted by tugs, inched its way into the crowded harbor of San Antonio, Chile’s largest port, located about 70 miles from Santiago and 50 miles from Valparaiso. We were supposed to stop in another port a few hundred miles to the north, but that was considered too dangerous due to the violence sweeping the country. As soon as we docked  in San Antonia, we learned that every excursion the next day had been cancelled for security reasons, and passengers were encouraged to remain on the ship at all times.

So what is happening in Chile? For more than two weeks, massive demonstrations have been occurring all over the country but especially in the two largest cities, both close to us, Santiago with a population of almost five million and Valparaiso with over 800,000. Over 2,800 people have been arrested and 2,500 injured. As of today, 19 protestors have been killed. The country is in a state of emergency with the army called out to restore order. Martial law is in effect. 

Welcome to Chile!

Over the years Chile has had its up and downs. We old folks from the US probably  remember Allende, the Socialist leader who in the 1970s  was overthrown by a military junta, possibly with help from our CIA, ushering in the 20-year dictatorship of Pinochet when thousands of Chileans were imprisoned, tortured or simply vanished in what then was one of the world’s most repressive regimes. But those days are long past; and for the past 20 years, leaders have been elected democratically, and the country has been relatively stable producing one of the strongest economies in South America.

So what went wrong? It is the same old, same old story that we are now witnessing all over the planet and in the U.S.– globalism’s winners and losers. While Chili’s economy was growing due in part to world trade, income disparities were increasing. The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer, and the size of the middle class was shrinking. What initially sparked the unrest was a transit fare hike in Santiago, which ignited demonstrations. It did not help that the president of the country, Sebastian Pinera, a billionaire, was photographed eating at a fancy restaurant when the first demonstrators were being shot. The demonstrations quickly spread to other areas of the country, and the issues broadened from transit fares to economic justice. No one knows where this is headed or how it will end. 

All I can say is that they have a lot of nerve to start a revolution just when we arrive and are ready to see the sights.

But does a violent revolution deter one Embry Martin Howell, who only three weeks ago was herself in Mali where just yesterday another 40 or 50 innocent civilizations were murdered by revolutionaries? Hey, compared to Mali, Chili is a cakewalk. In less than an hour she had been on the internet and arranged for a private guide to take us around. My only question was whether she knew if he was armed.

So as it turned out, we got our own private tour to the area around San  Antonio after all. A few of the other frustrated–and brave –passengers apparently found local guides also since as we left the heavily guarded port, we noticed a bunch of drivers holding cards with their client’s name on them. 

So the next morning at eight a smiling Gabriel, a man probably in his early 40s and a pretty good English speaker, met us. Hiring your own guard—pardon, “guide”—is a bit expensive, but it does provide some opportunities that you can’t get on a group excursion with 25 or 30 other passengers. Probably most important is that it gives you a chance to meet  local people and to find out a lot about them and their lives. This was for me the best part of our around–the-world-trip in 2015 during our one-month tour of China when we visited 11 cities with a different, local, private guide each time, often spending two or three days with them. That gives you a lot of time to talk, listen and learn.

Gabriel spoke good English because he had  lived in New York City for several years when his wife, a lawyer, was part of the Chilean delegation to the U.N. She tragically died from breast cancer a few years ago, and now Gabriel has remarried, has a two-year-old daughter, and lives with his family in an apartment in Santiago. Being a tour guide is not the best job you can have in Chile, but you would have to call him solidly middle class. He is college educated, smart, and entrepreneurial. However, he is not a happy camper. He sides with the protestors and believes that life in Chili has been rigged to benefit the rich and hurt the middle class. He points to the same problems that we have in the U.S. and believes you need a strong leader to bring about justice and fairness. And who might that leader be in the U.S.? You got it: Donald Trump.

Now Gabriel is not stupid. He is not prejudiced. His values are solid.  He is a loving husband and proud father. He has experienced personal suffering. He is, quite simply, a nice guy and was a delight to be with. Yet he sees Trump as the solution to the economic disparities and divisions affecting the world, not part of the problem. Bottom line: we (bleeding heart liberals and progressives) don’t get it. I don’t get it. Until we do get it, however, we are not going to be able to heal the divisions that divide us.

The time with Gabriel was special. On a splendid day with sunny skies, temperatures in the low 70s, and low humidity, he drove us through the beautiful, peaceful countryside with hills dotted with olive and eucalyptus tress, then along vast vineyards, and finally to Valparaiso, the port city about 50 miles to the north, described as the San Francisco of South America. Since a lot of the protests and demonstrations have occurred here, when we got to the downtown area, we were relieved to see very little evidence of it, perhaps because it was still early on a Saturday morning. The old Colonial city is compared to San Francisco because  of the steep hills covered with houses that seem to be stacked on top of each other. 

Other similarities are its dynamic port, its prestigious colleges and universities, and its hip culture of artists and intellectuals. 

What Valparaiso has that San Francisco does not have are  its famous murals. Gabriel informed us that Valparaiso has more murals than any city in the world except Sao Paulo and by far the most on a per capita basis. That would appear to be true, but what is even more impressive is its street graffiti that surpasses anything I have ever seen. To say every building in the city is covered with graffiti is an overstatement by not by much. And a lot of it is actually quite good. As one who basically thinks graffiti is hideous and is best described as urban kudzu, I was surprised to find myself actually enthralled by a lot of it. Seeing this graffiti was by itself worth the visit. 

And then there were the dogs. Stray dogs, fat stray dogs. Not on every corner but surely on a lot of them. These animals run wild, lounge in the middle of sidewalks as they please, chase cars for fun, and poop when and where they want. The signs directing owners to clean up after their pets fall on deaf ears. Who feeds these animals anyway, and why are they all either black or yellow?  And why do they mainly run around or sprawl  on sidewalks in pairs?

After lunch with Gabriel, we drove back through wine country stopping for a tour and wine tasting at one of the smaller vineyards, specializing in traditional wine making techniques. The area to us looked a lot like California and I suppose that was no surprise since our  guide at the winery observed that the equivalent location of the Chilean wine country we were visiting in Chile in the Northern Hemisphere would be Sonoma County in California.

 All in all a great day and a safe one despite the dire predictions and precautions regarding mob or police violence. It also marked the mid point of the cruise when about two-thirds of the passengers departed and were replaced by new ones who flew  to Santiago to join the cruise.

The new fear has to do with the weather. A major storm is predicted to affect us and to bring with it gale force winds and waves of 30 feet and higher with even taller swells. This dire forecast  has forced the captain to cancel going to the  next port (and all planned excursions there) in an effort to dodge the bullet of this monster, but at this stage it is not clear how that will happen,  where we are going instead, or what it will mean. Stay tuned.

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So how do travelers manage to get through a day cruising along in ships like the Zaandam? It is true that there is a lot of stress. So many decisions to make. First there is breakfast. Do you want to eat in the elegant, full service dining room or in the casual buffet venue on the top deck? And how do you begin to choose between all the food selections available? 

After you have managed to make a decision and have finished a sumptuous breakfast, then you are faced with what to do next. You can sit in one of the dozen or so venues looking out at the vast  sea, but which one? The library? The pool area? The main lounge or mini lounge or maxi lounge or aft deck?

But maybe you don’t want to sit and look out at the sparkling blue waters decorated with whitecaps.  Maybe you want something more. Every hour there are about a dozen choices: baking classes, classes on preparing desserts, another on appetizers or one on fish recipes. There is always an option of learning about how eating more translates to losing pounds or why calories don’t count. Just thinking about these options makes you hungry, so it is time for your first cappuccino and an oversized, freshly-baked donut or croissant  at the Deck 4 café. Now fortified you are ready for a game of competitive bridge or mahjong or chess or a lesson on how to play one of these games. But you don’t want to miss the talk about how to buy the perfect diamond or how to use Microsoft products or a class in chocolate tasting. These tough choices cause more stress, which can  be ameliorated  only with another cappuccino and croissant.

You look at your watch and realize it is time for the first major presentation of the day in the large theater, a lecture on what to eat on board. You rush to get a seat only to find that this lecture is SRO, so it is back to the café. Now you are ready for something more serious, so it is time to finish your coffee and sweetroll in the salon area where a classical pianist and violinist are playing Mozart sonatas. After the concert you wander up to the pool where people are sunning and splashing around in a small pool and order a Bloody Mary to calm your nerves before lunch.

There are so many lunch options  you don’t know where to start. Of course you could try the main dining room or perhaps the exclusive, extra cost, gourmet restaurant, but you are not really dressed properly. You could do the buffet, but that tends to be crowded at lunch time. So you settle on the café in the pool area and get a plate full of tacos and a large salad, followed by an ice cream Sunday. 

Now it is time for a nap, but that will mean missing your favorite activity, the trivia quiz contest, next to bingo,  the most popular of all the activities on the ship. So you sign up to be on a team and do pretty well, but not so well as to reduce all the stress, so it is time  to calm your nerves by attending  high tea, followed by a lecture in the main theater about the culinary delights of Central Asia. After this you have to decide between a class in ballroom dancing or  learning the tango, a stressful decision, so you decide to order a gin and tonic and relax in one of the lounge chairs by the enclosed pool on the top deck before returning to your room to dress for dinner where you will be seated with nice, well-traveled people  from all over the world, whom you don’t know and  may never talk to again.  The conversation at dinner is about mutual interests associated with travel, avoiding any mention of politics, as you sip wine and think about whether you want to take in the evening song and dance act or to watch the ship’s movie or stop in the bar with the jazz singer. This choice, of course, leads to more stress but not enough to spoil your delicious three-course meal followed by a scrumptious dessert. After dinner, you decide you have time to try one or two hands of blackjack in the casino, which is stressful because you lose fifty bucks and can’t  decide whether after  attending the evening entertainment in the main theater, you want to take in the bar scene on the upper deck or call it quits for the day.

So yeah, it is tough being on these cruises. There is just too much stress, but not so much as to spoil the experience or keep you from repeating the cycle the next day.

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On Wednesday, October 30, 2019, aboard the vessel Zaandam, en route from Peru to Santiago, Chili, we watched on the ship’s television the historic World Series victory of the Washington Nationals over the Houston Astros, said by some to be the best team in baseball, winning 107 games in the regular season. The game is now history. Through the sixth inning, the Nats had only one hit, and the two runs posted by the Astros seemed insurmountable. Scherzer had not gotten a strikeout and did not have his usual great stuff. The only upside was that he had managed to allow only two runs, leaving 15 runners stranded. We watched the game on board at a crowded bar with a wide screen TV. The 50 or so people watching seemed about equally divided between those rooting for the Nats and those rooting for the Astros. The situation appeared hopeless. 

But wait! The Nats had been in this situation before. In five previous playoff games they had been behind in elimination games and had fought back in late innings to win the game and stay alive. Could they do it one more time? Could this be another miracle?

Indeed it was! No team in World Series history had ever won the pennant without winning a single home game. No pitcher had ever won five playoff games without a single loss as did Strasburg. No team with close to the worst record in baseball in May (19-31)  had ever come this far  to win it all. It was truly a magic season.

Here is an excerpt from the email I received from my good friend and baseball guru, Jim Killebrew, when asked if he believed the Nats comeback victory to be a miracle:

Well, yes, I do believe in miracles. It’s called pixie dust. 

But this was a matter of the team with the best record in baseball losing to the wild card team that got hot in September and October and got to the Series by beating  the team with the best record in the National League. This was a Series where the visiting team won all seven games. That record may survive even Joe Dimaggio’s 56 game hitting streak. The team with four, count ‘em, four stellar starting pitchers lost to the team with two stellar starters and possibly the shakiest bullpen in baseball; and that was all thanks to the best job of managing ever. And, oh yes, don’t forget the no-name Howie Kendrick coming out of the woodwork and possibly winning the Series MVP. 

Thanks, Killer. And thanks, Nats. Washington needed this.

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The way most cruises work–especially those in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean– is that you have a day ashore and then motor at night to the next port, arriving early in the morning, allowing time for explorations and excursions. You cast off late in the afternoon, and the cycle repeats itself. This cruise is a little different because of the great distances that we will need to cover. Overall the cruise will take 35 days, and we will have 17 days at sea and 18 at port. We have just spent four out of the last five days in various ports in Ecuador and Peru, so we have some long sea days coming up. This port day, October 29, marked the end of our second week of the cruise. It will be our last port before our three-day journey at sea takes us to Chile. 

When we woke up, the Zaandam was already tied up along a pier with no other vessels present. The area was desolate except for a small village at the other end of the bay. We were docked here, I presumed,  because of two major tourist attractions– a large national park and what was described in the itinerary as  Peru’s version of the Galapagos Islands. Unlike the other ports we have visited, this one had no cranes, no place to stack containers, and no sign of human activity anywhere near except for a fishing fleet, a couple of tug boats, and the tiny village across the bay.

Embry had signed us up for the “Peruvian Galapagos” excursion to the Ballestas Islands. The drill is pretty much the same at every port. If you have signed up for an excursion, you report to the main theater for instructions. Otherwise you go directly to security, check out, then hop on one of the shuttle buses, which will take you out of the port area to a central drop-off place where you will be on your own. As part of an excursion we were directed with 23 fellow passengers to Bus 11 where we were met by our guide, a 30-something woman with a broad smile and twinkle in her eye. The bus ride to the other end of the bay was along a lonely road with sand dunes on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. There was no evidence that the area had ever received any rain. The day was beautiful with sunny skies and temperatures around 70. My only complaint that day, and every day in Peru for that matter, was that due to very hazy skies we never got to see the towering peaks to the east, which we knew were there. That is where it rains. The rivers the rain produces make life possible along the coast. But you can’t see the mountains. Occasionally you think you can make out their slight silhouettes in the distance, but you are not sure.

The reason that it almost never rains in the coastal plains is that they are on the dry side of these invisible mountains. In the Southern Hemisphere, the prevailing winds are from the east, not the west, as is the case in the Northern Hemisphere. The humid air comes off the relatively warm Atlantic Ocean  (warm compared to the chilly Pacific Ocean). When the air rises, it cools and is unable to hold as much moisture, first producing clouds and then rain.   By the time the winds push the air west toward peaks of 15,000 to 20,000 feet, a lot of rain has fallen, sustaining the Amazon rain forest, and when the air falls back down the western slopes and warms again, there is no way it is going to produce rain. This is the phenomenon that affects the entire continent, though when we get to Chile and later to Argentina, I am anticipating that there will be differences from the climate in Peru. In any event the narrow coastal plain along Ecuador and Peru is about as dry as the Sahara.

After about a half hour driving along a dusty road, Bus 11 arrived at a village that was a mix of very modest housing and upscale, resort hotels and was buzzing with activity with  at least a dozen buses lined up  dropping off passengers. I had no idea where the other buses came from but guessed all or most were from our cruise ship. The center of activity  was a large pavilion, jammed-packed with people leading to a long pier where guide boats were lined up to take tourists like us to the Ballestas Islands. I had no idea what to expect.

Our enthusiastic guide led her charge of us 25 old folks down the pier to one of probably a dozen, sleek speed boats with twin Yamaha 250 hp outboard motors that could accommodate about 25 people each. How she and the captain got all of us into the bouncy and unstable boat without losing anyone overboard was pretty impressive, but they did it. We all buckled up with orange life vests, and off we went. 

The first hundred yards were not so bad as we slowly motored through a huge fleet of tuna fishing boats at anchor in protected waters. As we passed them and entered open waters with a two-foot chop, six to eight foot swells and a 25-knot head wind, the captain stepped on the gas. Off we went! 

Lord have mercy!

I do not know how fast the vessel was going, but it had to be close to 50 mph. Had the sea not been so choppy, it probably would not have been so bad; but as it was, every time we blasted through a wave at breakneck speed, water would spray up into the sky and splash down on the passengers, especially those in the stern where we were seated, cowering in fear. I did not look up. In fact no one looked up, not because we were not apprehensive, but because keeping our heads down helped keep off some of the frigid spray splashing down on us. 

My only comment to Embry, who was hunched down beside me shivering and trying to keep dry, was that there damn well better be some wildlife on this godforsaken island.

In about a half hour the boat started to slow down, the splashing on our heads ceased, and one by one heads poked up and started to look around. We had arrived. You could almost hear a collective sigh of relief.

Along with a dozen or so other speed boats, we found ourselves at the edge of the first of four contiguous tiny, rocky islands. We began to look around and dry out and to warm up in the morning sun as our boat rose up and then down in 10-12 foot swells. I could not help thinking that this experience would have to be something really special to justify the terror and discomfort of getting there.

Well, it was. I have never been to the Galapagos Islands. These Peruvian islands are much smaller and certainly can’t begin to compare with regard to diversity, but  in terms of the seabird population and sea lions? Oh my goodness! I have not seen anything that comes close to it. I have never seen so many seabirds  or  bird activity. On these four islands on a typical day, our guide told us there would be well over a million seabirds and over 200 species. On one of the islands there is a tall hill perhaps as high as a thousand feet, and this day it was completely  covered with tens of thousands of Peruvian terns. As our boat slowly motored from one island to the next, she tried to tell us what the birds all were when we got close enough to get a good look— many varieties of boobies, cormorants, gulls, pelicans, terns and so many more, some unique to this part of the world. However, there is no way she or anyone else could begin to describe the vastness of this extraordinary bird world.  I could not help wondering what kind of fish population would be required to feed a million, flying, hungry creatures every day. 

So as terrifying and uncomfortable as the voyage was getting out to these islands, I am the first to confess that it was absolutely worth it and an experience of a lifetime. (We also saw a whole bunch of sea lions sunning on the steep rocks at the edge of the sea.) On the way out before our captain let ‘er rip, he pointed out the side of a steep mountain beside the sea where there was an image carved out of the sand  that appears to be a candelabra. The image is over 300 meters tall and 100 meters wide and has been there on the side of this mountain above the sea for at least 2,500 years. No one has been able to determine exactly what it means or who created the image or how they were able to do it. There are some similar giant images on other coastal plains in Peru.

The trip back was downwind with following seas and much, much easier. Back on  board we enjoyed a delicious meal at the fancy Zaandam restaurant and then watched the Nats beat the Astros to force  game seven of the World Series.

Many good memories of Peru. Now on to Chile where  political instability has caused the captain to cancel our first stop altogether (too dangerous) and to alert us that other destinations may also be at risk. Stay tuned….

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The Zaandam spent  days 12 and 13, Sunday, October 28, and Monday, October 29, docked in the large port serving Lima. How do you make the most of a two-day visit to a sprawling city of 11 million people and come away with a profound understanding of its past and present? The short answer, of course, is you don’t. We tried to make the best of it by spending the better part of the first day visiting a private archeology museum, Museo Larco, and the second day visiting Mira Flores, the high rent district perched at the top of the tall cliffs along the southern shores of Lima.

The first impression of Lima is not dissimilar from what you see in  many large cities in what we used to call “The Third World.” Lima is loud, dirty, messy and seemingly out of control. Modest homes are packed together like sardines, the streets  jammed with cars and the sidewalks teeming with pedestrians. Tiny shops with graffiti on their walls sell food along with all sorts of merchandize, and every means of transport is visible at  a glance–cars and taxis of all shapes and sizes, buses of  all varieties, huge trucks puffing black smoke, bicycles with kids riding behind moms, motorcycles carrying three or sometimes four people, scooters, and covered, motorized, giant tricycles– all charging in different directions as  fast as they can.

  There is always a siren in the background and incessant honking. Within eyesight is at least one emaciated dog lounging on the sidewalk and a ferel cat darting into a dusty alley. Trash lines the streets; and at red lights, if you are in a car or taxi, chances are you will be approached by someone who wants to clean your front windshield, someone else who wants to sell you a newspaper, and another who is hawking bottled water or a warm coke. A young woman may tap on your window and ask for contributions to feed the infant she is holding, wrapped in a blanket. Invariably the traffic will come to a halt due to a car breaking down or an incident involving the police. You could be in Bangkok, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, New Delhi, Mumbai, Ulan Bator or Cairo. But you are in Lima; and if you have been to these other cities, as we have, you probably have that “I’ve seen this movie before” feeling. Yet as chaotic as they appear to be at first impression, these bustling “Third World” cities by some miracle actually seem to function, at least more or less, and what I love about them is their excitement, their humanity, and their soul, warts and all.

Also while similar in many ways, each of these cities is, of course, different with its own unique personality. We only saw one or two panhandlers in Lima. No  one tried to rob us, and the charges we negotiated with cab drivers (before getting in the cab!) were quite reasonable as were the prices of just about everything. The  people we met were polite and friendly, and most spoke at least a little English. The overall atmosphere, while chaotic was upbeat. It felt good to be here.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Lima and some of the other cities in developing countries that we have visited or (in Embry’s case) worked in is that in Lima there are a lot of solid middle class neighborhoods and some that are stunningly upscale. Embry made lunch reservations at Rafael’s, one of the city’s highly rated restaurants, which was in an upscale area called Mira Flores. When the taxi driver finally dropped us off in Mira Flores after inching his way in heavy traffic through typical neighborhoods with a mix of housing, some in pretty bad shape, we thought we had ended up in Miami Beach. Sparkling high rise apartments, 15-plus stories tall, towered  above the broad streets above the cliffs over looking the blue Pacific. Beautiful townhomes with tiny manicured gardens lined most side streets. The neighborhood was quiet, and there was no trash to be seen.

And so we have in Lima Exhibit A of the challenges associated with globalism. There is no question that Lima is better and Peru stronger than when we visited the country fifty years ago. The economy is robust (shipping, fishing, minerals, finance and more recently technology). People have jobs. Unemployment is low. The government has been reasonably stable, and the threats caused by  the revolutionary Shining Path seem to be well behind them. There is a large middle class, and some people have made a lot of money. But like practically everywhere else in the world, the fruits of the global economy have not been evenly distributed. There are winners and losers, and too many who have been shut out of the party altogether. The poverty rate in Peru  persistently hangs around 20 percent, and the social safety net is pretty thin. Protests, some violent, regarding inequality and economic justice are making headlines this week in Chile; and in many other South American countries, winds of discontent are starting to blow. This is not new. What is new is that decades ago some believed that socialism was the answer. Few believe that today, and the experiences of many countries in South America with often corrupt, socialist dictators did not help the cause. Venezuela, for example, is now a basket case and Cuba continues to struggle along. Yet at this stage in the evolution of life on the planet Earth, there is no obvious silver bullet that will magically solve the challenges of inequality exacerbated by the global economy.

The museum we visited was fabulous with beautifully displayed artifacts centuries old. And Rafael’s, the restaurant Embry picked out, was world class, ranking among my Top Five of all time. It had only about 15 tables, and the restaurant did not open for lunch until one; and when we left at three, it was still packed, mainly with men (all wearing tailored suits and formal shirts but no tie) and well-dressed women in their 40s enjoying business, power lunches. When there is no name on the building and you have to make reservations weeks in advance for a Monday lunch, you know it has got to be good. It exceeded expectations. 

So thumbs up for Lima. Not perfect and certainly struggling with globalism, but  dynamic, energetic, and  it has a soul.

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