Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World: All Good Things Must Come To An End

January 7, 2026: Where We Have A Few Hours Before Our Flight Home, And We Manage To Get Lost, As Is Tradition

After breakfast, we go back to the room and cram everything into our suitcases. After we check out and store our bags for the day, we venture out to spend just a little more time exploring Buenos Aires.

At the front desk’s recommendation, we take an Uber to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. It is a delightful little museum – all of 2 and a half floors, with a wide range of exhibits: from antiquities, to Impressionist and Modern art.

This guy reminded me of George Burns (z”l)

I liked the iridescent quality of this painting

Hermenegildo Anglada Carnarasa “Los opalos” 1904

These are hair combs – they are HUGE.

Spotted this Dega from across the room.

I felt bad for Jesus in this carving – he’s missing his nose and a few fingers.

Anonymous (Spain 13th Century) “Virgin with the Child”

Here’s the Modern Art

Antonio Berni “Pesadilla de los injustos” 1961

Luis Felipe Noé “Introducción a la esperanza” 1963

And another one that was easy to spot.

Amedeo Modigliani “Bust of a Woman” 1920

I’m not familiar with this artist.

The best thing about this museum was how ramps were built into the design of the entire building. There was no need for any steps at all – ramps were everywhere! Unfortunately, the elevator door had some kind of psychological problems – it always started to close as soon as it was fully open, even if you were standing in the doorway.

When we were done with this museum, we decided to find another small museum. Andy had a reference to a “design” museum that was open 24 hours. We suspected it was an open-air museum. Trying to follow Google’s walking directions, we randomly came across interesting things.

A better view of the monument to Evita Perón

After a while it became clear we had no idea where we were nor any idea where this “museum” was. A kind passer-by stopped to ask us if we needed help. Andy showed her his phone and what we were looking for. She studied it for a couple of minutes and then announced: “This is not a real place.”

So whatever that was, it didn’t seem to exist. We gave up.

We found a place to have lunch. At that point it was time to head back to the hotel, but we had *just* enough time to squeeze in one more stop at Freddo’s for ice cream!

This is the last photo I took in the cab on the way to the airport.

Hasta la vista, Argentina! It’s been a blast!

Coming in April, 2026: Tulips and Windmills river cruise in the Netherlands

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World: Jewish Buenos Aires

January 6, 2026 – Where We Have A Much Less Ambitious Agenda For Today: Touring Jewish Buenos Aires

Still a bit tired from yesterday’s adventure, we waited downstairs in the lobby for today’s tour guid, Matias, who comes from the same tour company that yesterday’s tour guide came from.

Uncharacteristically, Matias is running late. A quick email to Maximo, and he tells me it was his own mistake. There are two Bel Air hotels in Buenos Aires; he sent Matias to the wrong one.

Jewish Museum of Buenos Aires

Our first stop was the Jewish Museum of Buenos Aires, documenting the Jewish community of Buenos Aires and all of Argentina back to its origins. Argentina has a long history of accepting immigrants from all over the world, similar to the US.

In the 1880s, Baron Maurice de Hirsch developed the idea of Jewish settlements in the Argentinian pampas. Eventually thousands of Eastern European Jews made their way to one of these settlements, where they were initially supported and guided in their new life as farmers and ranchers. This created Jewish Gauchos, Argentinian version of the American cowboys in the US western states.

We continued on through the exhibits, all of them familiar: artifacts from synagogues, a graphic film on October 7 that we opted not to watch (preaching to the choir, here), etc. All in all, a nicely done collection of Jewish life in Buenos Aires and Argentina.

Matias also explained how the Jewish community of Argentina is tightly integrated into Argentinian society: four generations later, Jews speak Spanish, work in every kind of profession – very similar to the Jewish community in the United States.

I told Matias about my connection to Argentina: my grandmother’s brother who came to Argentina in the 1920s after the US began restricting immigration from Europe. My great-uncle eventually made his way to Montevideo, Uruguay, where he grew his family, and I have family there still! I showed Matias the photo of me with my newly discovered 3rd cousin whom we met for lunch back on December 22, 2025 (3rd day of the cruise).

Templo Liberdad – Temple Liberty, Reform synagogue

The Reform and Conservative movements of Judaism came to Argentina in the 1960s. There are Reform and Conservative seminaries in Buenos Aires! The only ones in South America.

Templo Liberdad was built first. Once again, we had to provide our passports to gain access to the synagogue. Security is taken seriously in the Jewish community!

Here are some photos of the interior of the Reform synagogue. The sanctuary is huge, and is still used.

This window is unusual with the Tetragrammaton – not typically depicted

Orthodox synagogue

The Orthodox synagogue felt a little more familiar and closer to what we’re used to in Conservative synagogues. In Orthodox Jewish synagogues, men and women sit separately. In this synagogue, the divider (metchitzah) is down the middle (men on one side, women on the other), instead of a more traditional separation of women sitting up in the balcony.

The stained glass windows are simple, with only Stars of David.

1992 Bomb site

We visited the memorial to the victims of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy that killed 29 people (Jews and non-Jews).

1994 Bomb site

In July, 1994, the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires was targeted by Hezbollah, killing 89 people – the worst Jewish disaster since the Shoah until October 7. A new building was built. Additions have been made to the building over the years, the latest being the bollards and entrance are now painted orange in memory of the Bibas family murdered after October 7.

The bollards and entrance are orange in memory of the Bibas family murdered after October 7

Garment district/frum neighborhood

Our last “stop” so to speak, was through the garment (“shmata”) district and religious neighborhoods, both of which reminded me of the garment district and Lower East Side of Manhattan (or my old neighborhood in Queens).

Our tour ended with Matias dropping us off at a recommended kosher restaurant. He helped us order. It turned out to be too much for 2 people.

After lunch we took an Uber back to the hotel to rest up for a bit. Lunch was so huge, a real dinner was out of the question. At some point hours later, we decided to walk over to Freddos and have one last ice cream. My personal favorite: Chocolate Doble Tentacion.

Hint: this was, in fact, not The Last Freddo ice cream of our visit

Tomorrow: Some time to kill in the morning, and then it’s time to head to the airport to come home.

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World: Iguazu, Part 3

Where, After Much Trial And Tribulation, We Tour Iguazu National Park.

January 5, 2026 We Are At Iguazu!

For reference sake, here’s a map of the Argentina side of the falls, Iguazu National Park. There are three different “circuits”.

Devil’s Throat (Garganta del Diablo)
Upper Circuit
Lower Circuit

As we’re driving along, Emmanuel is introducing himself and telling us how the day will proceed. I also tell him about my mobility limitations and what Maximo and I agreed we would do when we get to the Lower Circuit.

Emmanuel not having any of it. He insists that all three of us will do it all. There are golf carts that can drive me down to the lower circuit. He will take care of it (contrary to Maximo’s proviso that the tour driver would not take care of it).

We arrive at the Visitor’s Center and take a bathroom break. While we’re waiting, some coatis (a/k/a “ring tailed racoons”) are wandering around looking for human food.

We and board the train towards Devil’s Throat. The ride is not that interesting, in that it’s mostly trees and we don’t see any wildlife. When we arrive at our stop, Emmanuel says the trip up to the falls and back in 90 minutes. He offers to push my chair instead of Andy (contrary to Maximo’s info). What Maximo or any other source didn’t mention is that the walk way is metal grating separated by slats. You can see them in the photo above. This makes for a bumpy ride, and upon occasion the front left wheel of my transport chair gets stuck. Eventually we resort to me walking a bit when the grating is particularly difficult.

Along the way we see a turtle sunning on a branch in the water, and a ginormous catfish.

The views from the Devil’s Throat of the Brazilian falls are as amazing as hyped.

We take a zillion more photos and head back. My chair is really struggling now, even with attempted fixes to tighten the front left wheel. Finally, Emmanuel asks us to sit in the shade at a pull-off spot for a bit. He will go back and grab one of the macho trail wheelchairs (that Maximo said were scarce and that I’d have to find myself).

While we’re waiting, a butterfly found Andy’s red hat attractive.

About 20 or 30 minutes later, Emmanuel comes bounding up with the giant wheelchair. I climb into it, and he proceeds to *run* at top speed with me in the chair, bouncing all the way back to the train station, constantly and politely asking people to move to the side. Andy is somewhere behind us with my chair. Emmanuel is running, because now we’re just a bit behind schedule.

Basically – for the rest of the day, my chair is moved from one resting spot to another, while Emmanuel pushes me along in the giant chair.

We take a short break when we arrive at our next stop. We see this visitor

We take the train to the next stop, which is at the Upper Circuit. From the Upper Circuit we can see where the Brazilian Falls and the Argentinian Falls meet at an apex, and just below that is an island.

The views continue to be stunning. Note: All of these views have names, and I know Emmanuel told us the names, and I also know I remember none of them.

On the right are the Argentinian Falls, on the left are the Brazilian falls, and in the center is the island with a tiny beach.

At least some of the walkway was in shade. You can see the metal grating that I wish we knew about ahead of time.

White ginger lily a/k/a butterfly ginger

After the Upper Circuit, we have lunch while Emmanuel procures a golf cart. The caddy drives Andy, me, and my chair down to the bottom of the long flight of steps that I told Maximo that I couldn’t do.

The path of the Lower Circuit is a smoother concrete path. We walk all the way around, see more views, and watch one of the boats zoom right into the bottom of the falls.

This is the moment the boat enters the falls. A giant NOPE.

We circle back to the bottom of the stairs where we started.

We did it! We did all 3 circuits! It’s late now, and the rangers are coming to start closing the paths. The caddy cart comes to take us back up to where we need to exit. We spend a little time in the gift shop finding an expensive fridge magnet.

As we’re about to exit the park, a crowd spots a toucan. I can’t see it from where I’m sitting in the car, but Andy gets out and gets a photo. Some capuchin monkeys wandering around the parking lot.

It’s a relatively short drive to the airport. As promised, Emmanuel comes with us to the check-in counter and talks with the staff member about whatever the issue is about the chair. He tells her about our experience that morning with security’s odd and annoying behavior, including the security guy’s seemingly endless examination of my passport.

When I asked him to ask her why she thinks he was doing that, she says, “There was no reason for that. He’s an asshole”. Well, yes, that was my thought as well, but she’s allowed to say that out loud.

We never really find out what the issue was with the chair, but with one more unnecessary form to sign to take with us, we have new boarding passes and we are done!.

We say our goodbyes to Emmanuel, who has earned every penny of the large tip we leave him with!

We arrive at our gate (as is tradition, it’s as far away as possible at the very far end of the terminal). We finally take a close look at our boarding passes and realize we’re not flying back to the same airport where we flew from in the morning – we’re flying to the big international airport. Maximo has it all under control – our driver knows where to pick us up.

The two hour flight to Buenos Aires is uneventful. We expected to have to pick up the chair at baggage like we did in the morning, but it’s waiting for me outside the plane door – inside a scissor bus, where another wheelchair person is waiting. Apparently there was a walk down a flight of steps to the tarmac, and the scissor bus rescued us from having to do that walk. This airline seems to be a bit more on the ball than JetSMART when it comes to assistance!

Our driver is waiting for us; 40 minutes later we are back at the hotel. We left at 4:00 a.m. that morning, and we arrived back at about 10:15 p.m.

What a completely insane and totally magnificent day!

Tomorrow: Tour of Jewish Buenos Aires

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World: Iguazu, Parts 1 and 2

January 5: Where Insanity Manifests Itself In A One Day Up-And-Back Visit To Iguazu Falls

And The Tale Is SO LONG, I’m Breaking It In Two

Part 1: Booking Iguazu

Iguazu Falls National Park is in the very north of Argentina with the border of Brazil. Thinking that this might be our one and only chance to see these falls, we decided we’d figure out how to do it.

Similar to Niagara Falls having an American side and a Canadian side, Iguazu Falls has an Argentinian and Brazilian sides. Many people do an overnight stay to see both sides. This was not going to work for us, because:

By the time of our visit in early January, we will have been gone from home for almost three weeks. We knew we’d be running on fumes. And it would just be time to go home.
The logistics of arriving in Buenos Aires and staying in a hotel, then packing up and schlepping all the bags onto a plane to Iguazu (with no tour guide to help), stay at a hotel in Iguazu, visit Iguazu, then turn around and schlep all the bags BACK to Buenos Aires – well, that sounded exhausting just typing it.
We didn’t want to deal with getting a visa to visit Brazil for one day.

The challenge was finding a tour company who would provide a private an all-in-one up-and-back package. It wasn’t easy, but I found one through Get Your Guide. They, of course, contract it out to somebody else. The somebody else is BATourguide.com.ar.

August 2025

I reached out to BATourguide to begin the conversation. The challenge always is: my mobility issues. For walking long distances, Andy drives me in a transport chair (a wheelchair with 4 small wheels).

The person I was dealing with was Maximo Yedid. The description of the tour said: “Not wheelchair accessible”. I needed to know exactly what that meant, especially since the Iguazu Falls website said explicitly that wheelchairs are available.

Obstacle #1: As in many cases, Maximo said the cars used to transfer people around do not have a wheelchair lift. I said, no problem, I don’t need a wheelchair lift. I have a small chair and it folds even smaller to fit in most trunks.

Obstacle #2: Maximo brought up was the supposed scarcity of loaner wheelchairs, and it would be up to you to get one; that’s not the guide’s job. I said, no problem, I’ll bring my own. {Note: in 20/20 hindsight, it would have been good for Maximo to tell me the surface of the trails are metal slats that are a bit of a problem for a wheelchair with little wheels, but I digress}.

Obstacle #3: the tour guide is not going to push you. No problem, I said, my husband will do that.

Obstacle #4: I won’t be able to do the lower circuit, because it requires climbing down a very long flight of stairs. No problem, I said – if there’s a cafe where I can get something to eat, access a bathroom, and sit in a shady spot, I can wait for Andy and the tour guide to do the lower circuit and I’ll just see the photos later. We do this ALL THE TIME.

Obstacle #5: We won’t have time to do the boat ride. No problem, I have zero interest in this boat ride that takes you right into the falls and you are soaked. Nope, no thank you.

I’m guessing he was concerned about the liability of dealing with a customer with mobility issues. But at this point, Maximo ran out of obstacles. I booked the (non-refundable) excursion for January 5, 2026.

Maximo booked the flights and sent me the info. I asked him if he told the airline about my personal wheelchair. No, of course not, I had to do that. {I was beginning to sense a bit of passive/aggressive stuff going on here}. No problem. I called the airline (JetSMART, an affiliate of American Airlines) and set it all up. Easy peasy.

November 3, 2025

JetSMART sent me an email in early November to notify me that our return flight was cancled and rescheduled for 10:30 p.m. Maximo rebooked us on an Aerolineas Argentina flight instead at 7:30 p.m.. I was able to add “wheelchair assistance” to the reservation via the website. No problem, good to go.

December 26, 2025

We are on our cruise. I receive an email from Maximo regarding an email Aerolineas Argentina sent him asking for information about my chair. The phone interface created a jumbled mess.

The Spanish isn’t even the problem here.

Fortunately, on my computer it appeared fine. I used google translate to make sure my understanding of the Spanish was correct.

They wanted to know whether the chair is motorized or is manual (manual), its dimensions, weight, etc. PLUS they wanted photos of the chair folded up and a photo of brake locking mechanism.

AND they wanted something called a “sworn statement” that supposedly is in the chair’s user manual. The chair’s user manual is in Maryland and there doesn’t seem to be an online version of it. I have no memory of seeing a “sworn statement” in the paper version.

I sent an email to the airline asking what a “sworn statement” was, but I never received an answer. Google said it was a form needed for motorized wheelchairs guaranteeing the battery was safe.

Except there is no battery because this is a manual wheelchair. I couldn’t figure out why they included this requirement in a form for a manual chair. It made absolutely no sense.

I filled out the form as best I could and sent it in 5 days before the excursion asking for confirmation of receipt of the email. No response.

January 4, 2026

Part 2 Getting To Iguazu

Maximo checks us into the morning flight and sends us our boarding passes. I have no way to print them off, so the PDFs will have to do.

I was in bed by 8:30 the night before. We were up at 3:00 a.m. We had our backpack packed and our clothes laid out. We were downstairs in the lobby waiting for the driver at 3:50 a.m.

Our driver arrives right at 4:00 a.m. It’s a 15 minute drive to the local domestic airport. The driver drops us off at departures, and we’re on our way!

Because we have nothing to check, we head straight to security. They kinda notice Andy is pushing me in the chair, so they sorta scoot us around to the priority line. We send the backpack, my purse, etc. through the machine. My chair and I go around the metal detector for the manual inspection. A woman security person pats me down. All this is perfectly routine.

And this is where the fun begins.

Suddenly, it’s apparent that I must be The First Person In Argentina to ever bring my own private wheelchair to this airport. This is a major sticking point. They couldn’t believe it. This is yours? Yes, it’s mine. Your personal chair? Yes, it’s mine. Not the airport’s? No, it’s mine.

Mind you – all this is in Spanish, and I’m proud to say that my barely awake brain was able navigate the “This is my chair” sentence as many times as I needed to say it.

The woman security person is now poking at my chair (seriously poking it), looking at my name tags as if they held nuclear secrets, opening the name tags to see the bits of paper in them, and the Apple air tag in one of them. Multiple times, touching the tags opening the tags, looking at the bits of paper, looking at my Airtag.

What in creation is going on here?

Then another security guy asks for my passport. Of course, if a security guy asks for your passport, you give him your passport. This is a non-issue.

He proceeds to examine my passport literally page by page – I am not making this up – holding each page so close to his face I thought he would eat it. Both sides of each page. The whole passport. Every page. Multiple times. Over and over and over again. I sure hope he enjoyed seeing all the stamps from all the places I’ve been!

I’m not saying a word at this point. Nor am I showing any emotion at all. My inside voice is going crazy with all sorts of scenarios, but outwardly, I show nothing.

Security guy continues to hold my passport and randomly look at pages, the dates, the scan code, etc. Many supervisors are contacted. As one supervisor is brought out, that one contacts the next one up, and the next one up, until there are at least 2 if not 3 supervisors involved.

My guess at this point:

Somebody decided to randomly give a 72 year old grandma from the US a hard time for reasons completely unknown. Maybe they were bored.
That person questioned the chair as some security something-something.
Typically, once a low-rung security person commits to something, even if it’s 100% wrong, all the security people up and down the food chain will back the low-rung guy.

It seemed like hours, but I’m pretty sure it was about 10 minutes, when finally a supervisor high enough up takes one look at me in my chair and tells everybody to give me back my passport and let me go on my way.

Still with me?

We go to the gate, which is, of course, as far away as possible, as is tradition. The gate staff show up, and we ask about the gate check of the chair. No problem at all. They put a baggage tag on it.

While we’re waiting to board, I get another email from Maximo saying that he can’t check us into the return flight. He suspects it has something to do with the chair. He says our tour guide will come with us to check in and figure it out for us. Sounds like a plan

Andy and I are first to go down the ramp – to find out that we are taking a bus to the plane! Ok, no problem, we get on the bus to go to the plane. I position myself in the chair in an open space for wheelchairs.

It’s a very crowded bus. Out of nowhere, another security guy in an yellow vest literally shouts at me:

“JOO! What joo doing here!” It’s obvious his English doesn’t particularly exist.

I said, “Going to the plane, why else would I be here?”

“Joo no be here!”, he said.

“How else do I get to the plane?”, I said. I’m beginning to think that the gate staff should have called for assistance to get me to the plane instead of me taking the bus, but I don’t know how I would have known that.

Yellow vest guy disappears for a few seconds, then comes back and says, “Joo OK!”

The bus takes us to the plane. We get to climb up a flight of steps. Mr. Yellow Vest is there and now he’s all concerned. He motions for me to stand in a certain place and tells me when to start climbing the steps. “Joo ok? Need help?”. No, I’m fine, thank you.

I’m halfway up the steps with Yellow Vest behind me (which is fine, always good to have a spotter), and he occasionally asks me “Joo ok?”. I guess he, too, is feeling guilty for plaguing an 72 year old grandma who just wants to get on the fricking plane.

Fortunately, the flight itself is fine. Though what’s weird is when the flight attendants offer food for sale, Andy and I are never offered anything, as if they don’t see us. We’re sitting in the first row.

It’s only a two hour flight, and it’s fine. We arrive in Iguazu. What we didn’t realize is they actually checked my chair into luggage under the plane, and now we need to retrieve it from the carousel.

Finally, finally, we walk out looking for somebody holding a sign with our name. There’s a guy there holding a sign, but the name is completely wrong. Eventually he asks us if we were there for a one day tour, and we say yes, and I give him my name. AH HAH, he finds us, he had looked at the wrong booking, it’s all good.

He introduces himself as Emmanuel, and now the good part starts.

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World: Buenos Aires City Tour

January 4: Where We Spend Six Whirlwind Hours Racing Around Buenos Aires To See All The Things

We had the first of our three tours scheduled for this week. Today’s was a 6-hour tour of Buenos Aires. Our tour guide’s name was Juan. Very knowledgable about Buenos Aires. He told us about the many courses he had to take to get a degree and certification as a professional tour guide. He was terrific – speaking for 6 hours in a language that is not his native tongue.

First stop – The Floralis Generica. A giant mechanical sculpture that used open and close. Unfortunately, the mechanical parts are broken and somehow a city with a huge college of engineers can’t find an engineer to fix it. Two of the petals were restored to their positions just a couple of weeks before we arrived.

Next photo op: the law school of the University of Buenos Aires.

Faculty of law building at the university of Buenos Aires

And then the seat of the Jose San Martin Institute. San Martin was the founder of Argentina, akin to George Washington for the US.

Jose San Martin Institute – he was the George Washington of Argentina in 1820

Next stop was the Paseo El Rosedal – a huge rose garden. It was too much for me to walk, so I enjoyed the sunshine while Andy and Juan went looking at roses. Here are some of the photos he took.

Here is the monument to Eva Perón – first lady of Argentina in the 1970s and 80s. She is still greatly revered in Argentina

It was fitting that our next stop was the Recoleta Cemetery that is the final resting place for the rich and wealthy in Buenos Aires for the last 200 years. The cemetery is complete – the only way to get buried here is to have a family mausoleum or be somebody incredibly important. In other words – most people don’t rate.

A couple of notable mausoleums:

Tomb of Admiral William Brown, founder of the Argentinian Navy

I forgot to make note of who these people are. Juan says this is typical of the interments in this cemetery – the coffins are above ground. The only exception: Eva Perón.

And here she is. Evita is buried underground. Other family members are housed in the mausoleum.

The Recoleta cemetery was endlessly fascinating, with all the different designs

Tomb of Liliana Crociati de Szaszak – killed at age 26 in an avalanche while she was on her honeymoon

The next few stops were quick ones.

Next up: the beautiful Catedrál de Buenos Airs, where Pope Francis was the archbishop before he became pope.

Randomly, Juan asked us if we were religious. We told him we were Jewish, which triggered a surprise: an exhibit memorializing Jewish victims of the holocaust and terrorist attacks in Buenos Aires. It is the only memorial of a different faith in any Cathedral. The normal requirement to remove your hat inside the cathedral is waived in this nave, because it is Jewish custom to keep your head covered, even inside.

Our next stop was the Plaza de Mayo, the main square in Buenos Aires, created in 1884.

Monument to General Manuel Belgrano, creator of the Argentinian National flag

On our way to the neighborhood of Caminito, we stopped by the market of San Telmo. We had a fleeting thought of getting lunch in here, but that quickly evaporated. We were crushed from all sides just trying to move forward. We didn’t get very far at all before we gave up, turned around and came back out.

Caminito is my new favorite city neighborhood. Home of past generations of immigrants living by the docks, it’s now a lively food/arts/party scene, with colorful buildings, fanciful cartoon figures on the street, street side cafes, and plenty of great shopping. The only problem: the streets are all cobblestone making it very painful to walk, and my transport chair can’t function.

People line up to take their photo under the “Messi” with the World Cup

On our way back to the hotel, Juan pointed out two more interesting landmarks.

Puente de La Mujer – a rotating footbridge built in honor/tribute to women

It was 3:30 p.m. by the time we were back in our room. Juan and his driver had done a masterful job of showing us as much of this beautiful city as can be seen in six hours!

We ended up having an early dinner or maybe it was a “linner”, since we never did manage to squeeze in lunch in those 6 hours.

Tomorrow: Super crazy day – up to Iguazu Falls and back.

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World: Hasta La Vista, Celebrity Equinox!

Where We Are Gently Encouraged To Get The Heck Off The Ship So They Can Clean For The Next Batch Of Cruisers

And We Enter The Final Week Of Our South American Adventure

January 1, 2026

Day at sea. Everybody is recuperating from the night before. I realize I’ve come down with Andy’s cold.

January 2, 2026

This was supposed to be a tender day in Punta Del Este, Uruguay, with a planned excursion boat ride to see yet more sea lions do nothing. Unfortunately, the weather was rainy and windy and deemed not safe for tender operations, so the port was canceled and we have yet another day at sea. At this point, I reached that moment that I can only describe as “antsy”: too many days on a ship and – in particular – too many days at sea. On this itinerary we missed: the Magellan Straits, Punta Arenas, and now Punta del Este – about half the itinerary. Now I just want to get back to dry land, where we have more control. I spent a could chunk of the day artfully arranging vacuum packed bags in my suitcase of what’s left of my clean clothes.

January 3, 2026 Disembarkation day

Disembarkation day is always a bit of a mess, especially when we’re walking off the ship and going back to the hotel where we stayed 2 weeks before. I had arranged with the hotel for a taxi to come get us, instead of us having to stand in line for whatever taxis were available.

We had breakfast in the restaurant for the one and only time this cruise, then went to wait with other people who requested assistance navigating the incredibly steep ramp off the gangway. That process worked pretty well. I was safely deposited at the bottom of the gangway, and the bus took us back to the cruise terminal, where we found our bags. Cruise staff helped us to get our bags to the curb to wait for our taxi.

Who had no idea where we were, because we didn’t know until that very moment that we would be at Gate 3. After a bunch of back-and-forths with the hotel and the cabbie, the cabbie found us by calling me and watching to see what phone rang. Rather clever, I thought.

We arrived back at the hotel in no time, where the front desk told me they did not have a reservation for us for January 3. Um. What? This had all been confirmed several months ago. They had a reservation for June (?!?). But it was all good – they had a room available for the dates we needed it. {Side note: eventually I had the time to go back through all the correspondence and found my original email asking for “3 January 2026 through 7 January 2026”, followed by the hotel’s response confirming the dates with a confirmation number. There was another email where I used “3 Jan” instead of “3 January”; I think this is where they saw “Jan” and thought it meant “Jun”. Anyway, luckily it was not an issue.

The view from our room on December 19 was several HUGE air conditioning units. The view from this room was ever so much better.

We had lunch in the hotel’s restaurant. It’s just not our “vibe” or something. And my head cold had hit hard; nothing looked or tasted appetizing.

We went out afterwards looking for a pharmacy to buy some over the counter head cold stuff, which turned out to be more difficult than one would think. There’s no CVS-like store in Buenos Aires. The small pharmacies fill prescriptions and display skin care products. We found a bigger pharmacy that had a couple of things I was looking for.

Which called for ice cream, of course! We went back to Freddo and tried different kinds of chocolate. Still fabulous.

Feeling adventuresome, we walked further away from the hotel in search of a souvenir store. The one we found didn’t have anything interesting. But it was across the street from a shopping mall, so we tried looking in there. Nothing but clothing stores. And the bathroom.

We decided to have dinner at one of the sidewalk restaurants. We picked a random steak house. We noticed a huge brick wall across the street that turned out to be the big cemetery we’ve hears so much about. That was on our list to the next day on our 6 hour city-tour.

I was fading quickly, so we went back to the hotel and I just went to bed. I hoped to shake this cold before our Big Day on Tuesday, when we fly up to Iguazu Falls and back on the same day.

Tomorrow: city tour

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World: Dolphins and Sea Lions

December 31 – New Years Eve at Puerto Madryn

Puerto Madryn in the distance as we pulled into port looked like a resort town:

Greeting our arrival into the port were Southern Giant Petrels

We booked another wildlife excursion for Puerto Madryn to (hopefully) see dolphins and, yes, more sea lions. As with many of the other excursions we booked, the exact details were very fuzzy. We had talked to Luis in the excursions desk the day we boarded – there was concern about the very long walk to the end of the pier to get to the excursion boat. Luis said he would be there to get me some help.

Turns out there was a regular shuttle running between the dock and the end of the pier. Unfortunately, the shuttle driver was confused as to why we were taking the shuttle if we were on an excursion. Finally, Andy, said, “This is what they told us to do”, and we were able to take the shuttle to the end of the pier to meet up with the group.

I was a little concerned about the mechanics of climbing into the zodiac boat, but the walk on the beach to the boat was very short, and the crew helped me climb up the ladder and into the boat without a problem.

It was an absolutely glorious day! Low 70s, sunny, nary a cloud in the sky.

We rode out for a bit before arriving to a spot where we were likely to see dolphins. I always managed to be on the wrong side of the boat, but I was able to capture something of a dusky dolphine.

We traveled to a different spot to see sea lions and cormorants

Also visiting with us were a couple of snowy sheathbirds

And many sea lions.

We also saw jellyfish floating in the water. Our tour guide said these didn’t sting. You can just about make out the blobby white shape just under the water.

Back on the beach, I managed to climb down from the boat onto the sand without hurting myself!

On the dock was this monument.

Andy took a few minutes to run into a souvenir shop, but the stores were all closing early for New Years.

The dessert at dinner was baked Alaska, and also this fabulous chocolate macaron.

We didn’t participate in any of the ship’s New Years activities – we were both very tired, and I felt a cold coming on. I think I woke up long enough to see the countdown on the TV flip to 12:00.

Happy 2026!

Tomorrow: last day at sea.

January 2: Punta del Este, Uruguay – more sea lions!

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World: PENGUINS

December 29 2025: Stanley, Falkland Islands

By all reports, today was going to be a challenging day. We were taking an excursion to Bluff Cove, a privately owned beach cove known to be the home of two penguin species: King and Gento.

We were warned that the weather might be windy, raining, and very cold (max 45F). Port Stanley was a tender port, meaning that we have to climb into a smaller boat to take us to shore. We were warned that the wait for a tender to return to the ship might take up to two hours.

So we bundled up in many layers. The forecast didn’t call for rain at all, so we took the chance and left the rain gear behind in the room.

The sky was very overcast and it was a bit chilly when we arrived at the tender dock in Port Stanley.

Our “bus” was a large van. The driver provided a two-step up into the van making it easy to climb in. She drove us directly to the Bluff Cove within 20 feet of the penguins.

The first thing we noticed: it wasn’t cold, rainy or windy. It felt a lot warmer than 45F. The sky cleared up and the sun was out. It was quite a beautiful day!

We first walked over to the King penguins. This group was away from the beach up on a small hill. Some of them were incubating eggs – you can tell by the way their feet are hidden by a pouch of skin. Some were just staring into space. These birds are huge. They are close to 3ft tall. They wander wherever they want at their own pace, completely oblivious to what these silly humans are doing.

This guy was initiating the mating ritual

The second group of King penguins were all the way down on the beach of the cove. A ranger said in previous years the beach cove is where all the King penguins lived. For some unknown reason this year a group split off and moved inland to the top of the small hill.

The penguins ignored us completely. We had white flag markers to show us how close we could get to them, but we were able to walk within just a few feet. Three king penguins nonchalantly toddled up from the beach and passed right by us to join the others.

Right next door were the gentoos in a much larger and noisier group.

Andy found this sad remainder of a gentoo egg. The ranger said it probably had been snatched by a predator.

Other birds we saw on the beach:

Andy went to explore more of the beach while I caught a ride with a ranger dow to the cafe and gift shop.

I had heard from a couple of sources that the bathrooms were absolutely gorgeous and worth a visit just to see them.

Nice wall paper and wall art? I’ve seen more beautiful bathrooms….

I bought a bunch of stuff at the gift shop and then caught up with Andy. We went into the cafe for our free treats.

Hot chocolate, chocolate cookie, and a mini-scone with clotted cream and homemade jam. YUM

I loved the old stoves used to heat the buildings.

Clarke Buckingham II 5.1kW Cast Iron Multi-Fuel Stove.

Here I am all bundled up and a bit overheated standing next to…not sure what this collection of objects is supposed to be:

This is a photo of “sea cabbage” – the vegetation that lives in the sand by the beach. The name of the cafe is the “Sea Cabbage Cafe”.

Our driver returned right on time to take us back to the port. We saw some random sheep wandering around.

Local sheep that get to wander around wherever they want

Back at the port, we decided to wander around for a bit. Before we went anywhere, I found a bathroom where I took off 3 of the 4 layers. The air temperature felt very close to 60F, no matter what the weather app said.

We went to a gift shop and bought more souvenirs. The next block down was the Christ Church Cathedral, the southernmost cathedral in the world. Andy went inside to take a look.

After this we decided to return to the ship. We walked right onto a waiting tender – no wait at all.

What a fantastic day, far exceeding all expectations!

Tomorrow: A day at sea.

Day after tomorrow: Puerto Madryn, where we will go on another wildlife cruise, and the temperatures will be back into the mid 70s.

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World

December 25 and 26

A Visit From Santa and We Visit The Almost Bottom Of The World

December 25

Having Christmas Day being Day 3 of 3 sea days worked out well for all the little kids on board ship. Lots of games and a visit from Santa, who had a little something for every kid under the age of 17.

December 26 – Ushuaia

At long last, we are docked again!

View from our veranda. The other side of the ship saw the town itself.

We have a multi-hour excursion booked – a combo of a bus tour of the national park in Tierra Del Fuego plus a boat ride on a catamaran through the Beagle Channel. The tour groups were split into two parts – one part took the bus tour first, the other half took the boat ride first. We were assigned to the bus ride first.

One of the things I noticed right away was the way the tour guide pronounced the word “Ushuaia”. I was pronouncing it “oooshhh-why-yah”. Apparently, it’s really “OOOS-why-yah”. Learn something new every day.

Living up to its reputation for a rainy place, it drizzled the whole morning. Never really reached soaking rain status, but enough to be annoying and make the ground muddy.

We drove through the forest and stopped at several scenic spots. Because of the misty rain and humidity, it was almost impossible to see anything through the windows.

Our first stop was at Ensenada Zaratiegui

The ground was quite muddy and slippery. And when I came back from a bathroom break, the bus was no longer in the spot where it had been 5 minutes previously. I am inordinately proud of myself for being able to say “I am looking for bus 15” in Spanish and was actually understood! Apparently the bus driver pulled our bus into the exit queue. Getting to the bus required scrambling over a muddy embankment.

This was the second stop, which looked pretty similar to the first. I was too busy watching my feet in the mud to remember what the tour guide said the name of this place was. Possibly Senda Costera

Next stop was a pit stop in Alakush.

Upland geese mated pair male with white head and female with brown head

Next was Lago Roca, a lake that has three names. It’s Lago Roca on the Argentinian side, Lago Errazuriz on the Chilean side, and Lago Acigami – the indigenous name.

Our bus tour was coming to and end. The next and final stop was at the meeting point for the catamaran. The tour guide said it would be a “5 minute walk”, which of course turned out to at least feel a lot longer than that.

I couldn’t find a name for this mountain

It was now noon. The excursion description had said nothing about what was happening with lunch. There was a little food stand on the catamaran, but the choices were ham and cheese or some dessert-something. I chose a giant chocolate cookie with a caramel center and a hot chocolate.

We had some scenic sailing in the Beagle Channel until we reached The Lighthouse At The End Of The World

And here we are at The Lighthouse At The End Of The World!

The Lighthouse is fully automated. The sea lions just lie there. So many sea lions

Cormorants and more cormorants, everywhere are cormorants, a mixed colony of two different species. The more the merrier.

And so many sea lions! Doing absolutely nothing.

We had another 30 minutes or so to get back to the port by 2:00 p.m. We found out afterwards that there was supposed to be a catamaran only excursion at 2:10 p.m., but it was canceled, because the winds picked up to a dangerous level.

I thought I was prepared for the winds – I had many layers on under my winter coat plus my favorite ancient neck gater. I should have been good to go. Unfortunately, the catamaran had docked at the furthest end of the dock away from the ship. I started walking, got about maybe 1/4 of the way there and just stopped. I was almost walking backwards.

We decided it would be better for me to stay put while Andy went ahead and got a wheelchair to wheel me back to the ship. While I waited, I took some photos

the Bark Europa, a classic sailing ship that operates globally

ARA Puerto Argentino, a ship equipped to sail to Antarctica.

Watching Andy attempting to push the empty wheelchair in the fierce winds was amusing. The chair kept going everywhere but straight. He eventually gave up and picked it up to carry it. At least the wheelchair did the job – we were back on board the ship in just a couple of minutes.

The high winds delayed the ship’s departure by several hours. We were supposed to leave by 5:00 p.m., but didn’t get underway until sometime after 9:00 p.m. The wind conditions will determine exactly when we’ll arrive at Cape Horn in the morning.

Tomorrow: Scenic sailing to Almost the Bottom of the World!

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World

December 22, Where We Finally Make It To Montevideo, Go Bird Watching, And Meet A New (To Me) Family Member

The ship docked in Montevideo some time after 10:00 p.m. on December 21. Our cruise director, Manuel, encouraged people to go out and enjoy the Montevideo nightlife! We decided to wait until the next morning for our bird-watching excursion.

Because of the delayed arrival in Montevideo, we were now playing the time honored cruise game of “Itinerary Shuffle”: the entire itinerary had to be adjusted. Port Stanley (Falklands) was now scheduled for December 25. Unfortunately, the scenic sailing of Cape Horn was canceled to give us enough time to make to Ushuaia on time. Ok, well, a little disappointing, but out of our control.

The next morning, for our excursion there were maybe eight of us in our group, including a family of 4, and a couple from England who were obviously avid birders. Our guide handed out paper check lists for us to mark off the birds we saw that day. He said the record was 97 or so different species. We did luck out with the weather, because it was warm (but not hot) and overcast (but not raining).

The photo quality is not the best, because we were using our phones, but here are some of the birds we saw:

My absolute favorite was a Burrowing owl, though we were unable to snap a photo because we were driving around a round-about and had to keep moving. My next favorite is this scary guy – a giant pigeon the size of a raven. As one of our group members said: This is South America where everything is bigger!

I have to boast that I was able to hold a very, very short conversation in Spanish (dredged up from the nether regions of my brain) with our bus driver. Of course, I was asking about where our bathroom might be and how soon – he understood what I said, and even more importantly, I understood him back!

We were back in the city by about 12:30 p.m. and we were off on our afternoon’s adventure.

Many weeks ago I received a ping through Ancestry.com from a DNA match. I knew who they were as soon as I saw the last name: a cousin from a branch of my father’s family that we had lost contact will over 40 years ago.

My father’s mother came to the US from what was “the Ukraine” around 1913. Her brother left the Ukraine in the 1920’s. By then the US has started instituting stricter immigration laws; he did not make it into the US, so he went to Argentina (a common trajectory), eventually making his way to Montevideo, Uruguay. The two branches kept in touch – I have some of the correspondence my parents saved, including an invitation to a bar mitzvah. The last letter I have from the Uruguayan cousins is from 1983.

It was exciting to reconnect with the next generation of cousins! It was a wild shot asking to meet one of them in person on The One Day we would be in Montevideo, but there was nothing to lose. And behold! One of them did. Since this cousin is not on social media, I won’t be revealing their name to protect their privacy, but I was super excited to hear that they would be willing to meet us!

We had set up everything on Sunday, December 21, but, of course, that did not happen because of the change in arrival date. But, they were willing to take their lunch time with us! They gave us a specific time and place to meet in downtown Montevideo.

Our excursions desk had given us expectations that there would be a big cruise terminal with shops and restaurants right outside the ship, with a taxi stand. When we came back from our bird watching trip, we saw no such thing. Our tour guide told us to follow the “green line” out of the port area and into the city. Still no port terminal building.

We walked into what turned out to be an government office building. The front desk people gave us instructions to an ATM (cajera automatica) – in Spanish – which clicked in my mind once we were back outside and looking across the street. It was not an ATM, but a money exchange kiosk. The people inside did not understand what we needed – we wanted to exchange some US dollars for Uruguayan pesos, but not a lot. Just enough for a couple of cab rides.

We finally gave up on that and found a cabbie who would take credit cards. I showed him the spot on google maps, but he seemed to not understand or know what I was talking about (even though my cousin had given me all the commonly used names for the square). Plus I couldn’t figure out what he was asking me, until he put it into Google translate – he was asking if this was the only place we wanted to go.

And then it occurred to me he wanted to give us a “tour” of Montevideo – for an undetermined fee. Yeah, no. The last time I fell for that I was 19 years old, visiting Mexico City for the first time. Finally I was able to put the sentence together: “I’m going to meet my cousin at this <place>”. That ended the conversation.

After all this fuss and bother, it turned out to be a 5 minute drive. And there they were, wearing the red shirt as they had told me earlier in the day. I took one look at their face and I saw my father’s features. The Adler genes run strong on that side of the family!

We had lunch and chatted for about 45 minutes, reviewing what we knew about our grandparents – unfortunately, not much. In particular, neither of us knew for sure why our grandparents left Europe. Our assumption: pogroms were increasing in frequency, and it just wasn’t safe anymore.

Apparently, their children are trying to obtain EU citizenship based on previous generations’ citizenship. They were targeting Poland, because 100 years ago “the Ukraine” was a part of Poland. Poland used to accept evidence of grandparents’ citizenship, but now was requiring proof of great-grandparents’ citizenship, which was why my cousin was asking me what I knew about her grandfather. Unfortunately, I knew nothing that could help them.

Eventually my cousin needed to get back to work. We were so ecstatic to reconnect! Hopefully we will be able to maintain the connection going forward.

Andy and I wandered around for a bit afterwards. There were vendors in the square and on the street, but we didn’t have any cash to buy anything.

**Gateway of the Citadel** (Puerta de la Ciudadela) on the Peatonal Sarandí pedestrian walkway in Montevideo, with the historic **Palacio Salvo** visible in the background

We walked back to the spot where we had met my cousin to hail a cab back to the port – and we lucked out! A cab pulled up to let out passengers, and we grabbed it. I told the driver: “Puerto Crucero de Montevideo” and he knew exactly where that was. Five minutes later, we were back at the ship.

A highly successful day!

Right before dinner, the captain came on the loudspeaker to announce the next round of Itinerary Shuffle. Apparently, Port Stanley didn’t have any room for our ship on December 25 (or maybe short staffed because of the holiday?), so we had a new shuffle: we lost Port Stanley as a port and we were now heading straight to Ushuaia.

But wait! There was yet another round of Itinerary shuffle: Port Stanley is back (yay!) somewhere near the end of the cruise, but we’ve lost Puntas Arenas (boo!). Andy had a penguin expedition booked for Puntas Arenas, but not anymore! And we regained Cape Horn, but sailing the Magellan Straits is now gone. This is dizzying.

AND – we now have 3 contiguous days at sea, instead of two.

The itinerary is now completely unrecognizable. We were provided a written update, which helps. We will be refunded the cost of the Puntas Arenas excursions – first as onboard credit, and then a refund of whatever we don’t spend onboard.

Tomorrow: Day 1 of 3 days at sea.