Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
The amount of sea days were somewhat irrelevant when we did the sums comparing two business class flights from South America to Sydney vs, 36 days of being fed, watered and visiting destinations such as Easter Island, Tahiti and the Cook Islands. They seem more relevant now as they spread out before us like sand at the sea shore. The ship makes a big fuss over some things, Valentine's Day on 14 Feb was a big hoo-hah, but the show was lacklustre - nice enough bloke, nice enough voice, but no energy - like a cushion with not enough stuffing. The audience here needs defibrillating on a good night, so it's no good if there's not a motza of energy coming off the performer, particularly with no live music - it's just glorified karaoke. The world-famous in Peru, Peruvian chef brought on board in Arica was interesting enough - but no spit-roasted Cuy with an apple in its mouth that's for sure.
On 15 Feb we went to but didn't visit Callao in Lima, Peru. I think they would have avoided the port all together, but with nothing much more than a corner shop until we reach Auckland, the ship really needed stores and presumably fuel. It's a long way, to the shop, if you want a sausage roll in this part of the world (to paraphrase AC/DC's 'Long way to the top' of course). So the ship stopped in Callao but due to the fact Peru is a a political and social basket case, the decision to cancel all outings was finally made. Passengers were allowed off the ship, just, and able to visit a small market on the pier set up for the purpose. Based on all the shopping bags we've seen getting around the ship, the market had an outstanding day. We went down early on but it was very humid, blazing sun and awfully peoply. We bought James a Peru t-shirt for gym use in order to save his two posh t-shirts from sure and painful destruction.
To fill our no-day in Callao we had a pretty lazy one and sat in the spa and jacuzzi area for a long wile. In the late afternoon the harbour was completely fogged up and it delayed us leaving port for a short while - we could have run over a fishing boat and not noticed. It was so foggy, we could have run over a car carrier and not noticed. We did however take some fabulous fog photos. We're not sure what the show tonight will be.
We amused ourselves on 16 Feb with researching and booking a day out on the lagoon in Aitutaki, the second day of our visit to the Cook Islands. We are both fascinated at the thought of snorkelling over a field of giant clams.
17/18/19 Feb. Sea. More sea. Sea as far as the eye can see. The Pacific Ocean is huge. Due to it's general peaceful-ness, it was named 'Pacific' by Magellan a few hundred years ago. Huh. Interesting. Bring on port stops. Bring on any stops. There was a Gala Night (Elegant? What used to be 'Formal' back in the day). On Gala night itt was an all-singing, all dancing variety show and the highlight was the jugglers. If one were cynical, jaded and a pragmatist one might think the Hair and Beauty Salon just needed to drum up business.
- comments