Oldies On Tour

This morning, when we woke we were docked in the port of Arica, “The City of Eternal Spring”.   This city nestles between the Pacific Ocean and the Atacamo Desert and is the northernmost tip of Chile, 12 miles from Peruvian border.

We didn’t rush; we let all the tour people clear before venturing out. A shuttle took us through this commercial port to the terminal, which was actually in this rather small gateway town. We hadn’t got great plans other than to mooch around and find Wi Fi to load pictures onto, oldiesontour.com. Unfortunately we don’t enjoy the unlimited Wi Fi we had on “Sirena”, instead, like most things aboard QV we have to buy an expensive package; this we did, but it is limited to around 10-minutes a day. Pictures take up too much time!!!!

Naturally the moment we were out of the terminal we bumped into

a church, this time build in wood and pretty, but small.

Although the Spanish only founded Arica in 1565, this coastal area of Northern Chile was inhabited for thousands of years before by the various Indian tribes around at that time. The settlement soon grew in importance, as Silver from the mines of Potosi was sent down on mules for shipment to Spain. Our friend, “Sir Francis Drake” heard of this valuable trade and in 1578 paid an un-expected visit and relieved the town of a considerable amount of their silver!!!

We wandered about and finally came across the main pedestrian shopping street where we soon found a suitable Café with Wi Fi. Christine managed to download all the necessary pictures in

preparation for when the script was written.Arica has suffered several disasters over the years; in the 17^th century there were many earthquakes that destroyed the city and in 1713 the population was decimated by an outbreak of Malaria.

Before the “War of the Pacific” (1879 – 1884) between Chile and the combined forces of Peru and Bolivia, Arica was part of Peru. After a major defeat of the Peruvian army by the Chilean forces at a battle in 1880, Arica became part of Chile but it wasn’t ‘till 1929 that this was legally accepted as part of Chile.

After we had completed the necessary work on the Internet, we meandered back to the ship.

Tonight we dined in the Lido and then went to the theatre to listen to a Liverpudlian comedian. He had a ¾hr slot but there were many pauses, and towards the end he had to pick on the audience to fill the time. Many of his jokes were funny but a ½hr slot would have been more appropriate.

It big band night; the Royal Court Theatre Band and the Queens Room Band joined forces with the “Clarinettist”; what an evening, excellent lively music and the Queens Room was heaving, as this was a very popular event.

Today we are at sea; sun, pool, and a lecture on the Panama Canal, followed by a formal night; nothing else to report other than the evening show. Tonight we enjoyed a musical spectacular with the resident Q V singers and dancers. They were very professional and we thoroughly enjoyed it, I’m afraid to say the dancers on the Sirena could take a leaf out of this troop..  Tomorrow we visit Callao.

Having managed to get the pickup time changed, we were determined not to keep the driver waiting, so were all breakfasted, packed up, and waiting in the lobby by 0945.

The driver arrived as arranged at 1000hrs, loaded and on our way soon after but still a tiny weeny apprehensive about going to the correct port, though we were re-assured through Harry this was correct. Our driver had his 15-year old son with him who, still on his summer holidays accompanied his Father. He spoke excellent English and was very chatty. His ambition after leaving full time education is to become a lawyer and like Spain, to enter that profession he has to have good grades all through his school career.   With a stop for fuel, the journey took a little over 1½-hrs and once we arrived in San Antonio and saw the red funnel of the Queen Victoria, we were very relieved.

We were deposited with our “very” heavy cases at the terminal and with formalities completed were on board and in our cabin well within half an hour; probably the best check-in

we have ever experienced.

Whilst waiting for our cases we walked around the ship to familiarise ourselves then back to the cabin to unpack “everything” for the first time. As the last ship didn’t have formal nights, all our “posh” gear stayed in the cases but now we had everything out.

As one would expect, the Queen Victoria follows the Cunard tradition; when you enter the interior, it is very elegant and it’s like walking back in time. The dress code aboard is also

traditional, shorts, tee shirts, jeans etc., are not to be worn after 1800hrs, after that time jackets have to be worn by the men, and ladies wear their appropriate smart clothes. Naturally some folk don’t want to conform, so they are “banished” to the buffet, and pool areas after 1800hrs.

After dinner, we are on the early sitting, we went to the theatre and what a spectacular theatre it is. It seemed we had walked straight into a London theatre at turn of the century, beautifully decorated, comfortable and roomy seats, and numerous boxes along the sides of the circle; what a marked difference from our last ship. Tonight’s act was a finalist in the show, “Britain’s got talent”, and her speciality was singing “Judy Garland” numbers and I am told by Christine she had a nice voice.

After the show we retired, we were both tired and it seemed the appropriate thing to do, after all we are aboard for the next 29 days, lots of time to do things.

Today we arrived in “Conquimbo” (Chile) but not quite

as planed, we were running on emergency power and had to have two tugs push us onto the dock. The embarrassed Commodore, had to put out a series of apologies and up-dates as we finally arrived rather on the late side, which meant all the tours were late leaving etc., etc. To add to the embarrassment the toaster didn’t work in the restaurants.   We were told it was an electrical fault and that the ships safety wasn’t compromised.

We went ashore to look around and not too impressed

, though there were some interesting things to see.

Coquimbo is one of the best natural harbours on the coast and in 1550 when Pedro de Valdivia occupied the area for Spain; it became an important hub for the gold and copper industries within the area. Today it is still a busy port exporting amongst other things, Fruit, Copper and wine; it also has many fishing boats and a large fish market with restaurants along

the quay. Sitting on the rocks outside the fish market were the largest sea lions we have seen, obviously they have a plentiful supply of fish!

The “Cruz del Tercer Milenio”, the third millennium cross is a 93-mitre concrete cross, erected in 2001 and it dominates Coquimbo’s skyline from the top of El Vigia hill.

This monument is considered to be the tallest monument in South America.

Like all the cities we have visited we found the shopping mall, and once inside, couldn’t determine what country or city we were in.

As we were returning our ship we noticed a crowd had gathered around the bows and all looking down at the big bulb at the

front.   As we arrived we were greeted by a ‘sea lion’ lying on this bulb. He/she was sun bathing and ignored the attention: no doubt he/she would have a shock when the ship started to move!!!

Sail-a-way was delayed; although the necessary repairs had been carried out, the Chilean authorities wouldn’t let the Q V sail until “they” were satisfied the repairs were good. No doubt they were ensuring we left Chilean waters, as they wouldn’t want to have to rescue us, again!

Our Commodore announced that all was well and that the failure was due to trip switch that automatically sent everything into emergency mode; we’ll never know!!!

Tonight at dinner, we found out a little more about the couple we share our table with. The wife is Australian but the husband comes from the Portsmouth area and he and Christine had a lot of reminiscing to do. Who knows they may have been on the same bus or something all those years ago.

Tonight’s show was magical; he was a clarinettist and played

his socks off, which really got the audience going. What was nice was how much he appreciated the various members of the resident band. Many of them got to play solo, and a duet with him.

After the show we moved into the Queens Room, this is a very large room with a stage at one end and large dance floor surrounded with tables and chairs. We went along as it was sixties night, so looked forward to some good old fashion rock

‘n roll; but no, we were wrong. Yes they played 60‘s music, but not the rocking and rolling kind, so went for a walk around the ship’s promenade deck before retiring.

We now have a sea-day to relax and tonight we are donning our glad rags for this evening’s formal night. Not having tried them on for some considerable time, and having done a 35-day cruise earlier on tour, we were quite worried; will they fit, that’s the question!!!!

The day was for relaxing, pool, Jacuzzi and I went to a lecture on the engineering of the canal network in the UK; boring to Christine but I found it stimulating.

After a light lunch we rested until that “time” had come to get into our formal gear.

Wow it all fitted, there’s a surprise; our salads in B A obviously worked!!!! Tonight we met the other couple assigned to our table, Dave and Elaine, both ex Royal Navy. The six of us really “gelled” which is nice; it could have been so different.

After dinner we had our welcome invitation to the Commodore’s cocktail party where we all enjoy a few Champagnes at no extra charge, this was followed by tonight’s show.

When we were checking in at the port in San Antonio, we noticed an enormous black man also checking in. This big man turns out to be tonight’s act; he is an R & B and Soul singer. Christine thoroughly enjoyed the performance and could listen to him again; I on the other hand was not impressed, I couldn’t wait ‘till the end. Oh well we can’t agree on everything!!!!

After a wander around the deck we headed back to our cabin, time for bed.

Today is the tour of the winery but we are not being picked up ‘till 1345 so have the morning to ourselves. After breakfast Christine caught up with the ironing after which we went out for coffee. Across the road from our hotel is a café with cups of steaming coffee painted on the window and various good looking cakes inside; just the job, so sat down and waited, and waited and eventually I went in to order only to be told they don’t serve coffee, what!!!!!!!! We left and further down the road was another attractive place with cakes so this time, before sitting down ensured they served coffee, which they did. A nice young man who spoke very good English served us so we will probably go back.

After a short wander round we were collected from reception and went through the same process as we did for the Andes trip before heading out of town towards the winery.

Todays visit is to “Vin Undurraga” at Talagante, in the Maipo

Valley, 34 Km outside Santiago and is one of the oldest wineries in Chile, founded in 1885. Before we started we were greeted with a glass of their bubbly white wine, and very nice it was too.

The setting for this vineyard is quite breath taking, with the gardens beautifully set out with very mature trees dating back to the beginning of operations in the late 1800’s. The winery is of course state of the art though they have retained one original underground vault where they mature the Premium and Grand Reserva wine in oak barrels.

Before we went through to the important part of the tour, “the actual tasting” we passed through the museum displaying artefacts of the “Mapuche” the Indigenous inhabitants of Southern Chile and Southwest Argentina. This was the private collection of the original owners, collected over time. They also had a display of old coaches and a hansom cab.

We tasted 4 wines, a dry white Reserva that was very nice; in fact we bought some, a couple of indifferent reds and a desert wine. In the shop they had some rather better wines than ones we sampled, but naturally at a much higher cost.

Back on the bus and we headed to town and our hotel where we dropped off our purchases, and headed straight out again for the Costanera building.   We enjoyed a quick meal before

heading up to the top of the building, the 61^st floor to be exact. Our timing couldn’t have been better; we arrived about 5 minutes before the sunset over the statute of the Virgin Mary on Cristobal Hill and stayed ‘till it was dark. We had been wanting to go up in the evening all week but with one thing and another, didn’t quite make it but tonight is our last chance so we made sure we did it, and it was worth it. It may not be as tall or as grand as the Burj khalifa in Dubai but it does show how big Santiago is, with its population of 7 million.

Back to the hotel “in the dark”; a first for us, here in Santiago and to bed.

Today the big pack has to be done, but this time with no thought at all about weight in our cases, what a relief. Yes, its taxi and ship all the way back to Blighty. I have to say after we packed and reduced the number of cases/bags we had to a manageable number, our two big cases though, needed a crane to lift; still there are some very strong men out there.

The organisation of our overall tour has been fantastic, Harry O’Hara, our travel agent has done an excellent job, and nothing has been left to chance. But today we did have a bit of a blip and a slight panic, when I printed off our e tickets for boarding the Queen Victoria, the ticket said the ship would be docked in Valparaiso, to the north west of Santiago but our taxi voucher said we were being taken to San Antonio, some 70-Kms to the south of Valparaiso. When we originally booked Harry said the ship sailed from San Antonio but as Cunard don’t issue their e ticket ‘till about 1 month before, and when they did, and it said Valparaiso, I assumed they had made a change. It also stated embarkation was 1500hrs but on our taxi voucher it stated the ship left at midday which meant we would have to be picked up at 0530hrs. Anyway after a few e-mails and a couple of ‘phone calls it was all sorted out by Harry. He had been right all along it was Cunard that had caused this mild panic. Though the e ticket said Valparaiso it should have said San Antonio and the taxi company was re-scheduled to collect us at 1000hrs instead. Had we been independent travellers we would have most probably gone to Valparaiso and missed the ship. I think a complaint is called for.

After the “big pack” we killed time with coffee break and a wander around, followed by a nap as we are out tonight.

Being our last night in Santiago we had booked to go to the “Bali hai,” a dinner and floor show venue. The tour company again arrived on time; the bus picked us up and apart from one other pick-up, dropped us at the door of the restaurant.

The décor of this place was a cross between Polynesia and what might be perceived as ancient Indian.

The food wasn’t too bad but the floorshow was well worth watching. It was split into two; the first half of the show was

about local, traditional Chilean dancing and the second was Polynesian dancing. The second part of the show was probably the most entertaining, it was certainly more vibrant, the energy and fitness, especially of the two male dancers was extraordinary, they didn’t stop cavorting, shaking, jumping for about ½ an hour; much of their activities, probably descended from ancient war dancers, was very similar to the New Zealand Hakka. Naturally, to add to the entertainment they drew members of the audience up to participate, fortunately they ignored us.

The other pick up we made on our way to the venue was a young lady from Buenos Aries, she spoke a little English and being on her own sat with us at the table. She was a Children’s Psychologist and a very confident person, demonstrated by travelling alone. From our point of view, and being poorly equipped to travel South America by not understanding their Spanish, she was very helpful. The Compare and everybody else in the Bali Hai only spoke Spanish; a poor show as not only were we sitting with Americans and Australian’s, more than 50% of the audience were English speakers.

After a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable last night in Santiago, we were brought back to our hotel for the last time.

 

We have nothing planned today, so after a leisurely breakfast and some household chores we decided to head out to the Plaza de Armas, the main square of Santiago, (stop 5 on the hop-on, hop-off bus). How to get there; taxi would have been the obvious choice but no, not for us. We always try and use local transport; it helps us get a fix on the local atmosphere, and

today was no exception so off we went to the local Metro station and after some “interesting Spanglais” we had a plastic “Pip” card, loaded with Pesos and we headed down to catch our train. Fortunately we had a metro map from the hotel, as there wasn’t a metro map anywhere to be seen.

The time line of this metro is quite interesting the original idea was discussed in 1944 but it wasn’t ‘till the early 60’s before things really started to take shape, and the approval

was finally given in 1968, 24 years later than was first muted, and in 1975 the first line was opened. Currently there are 6 lines, 118 stations and 74 miles though construction is on going. All the modern rolling stock has rubber tyres and is therefore quieter and more comfortable.

1-change and 7-stations later, we arrived at the Plaza de

Armas. It was coffee time, so went back to the same café we’d been to before and as soon as the waiter clapped his eyes on us, we were recognised; we had had such trouble getting our order sorted last time, he wasn’t going to forget “us” in a hurry!!!!

Somebody was telling us that they don’t teach English in schools as a mainstream 2^nd language, that’s why so few folk speak it. Portuguese is their 2^nd language and we can understand that, as only Spanish and Portuguese are spoken on the South American continent.

Today the temperature is about 40-degrees so siting in the shade was the best place to be and whilst enjoying our rest, got chatting to another English couple holidaying in Chile. He had been an RAF Hercules pilot at the time of the Falklands

war, so was very familiar with this part of the world, the history and politics of 1982; I would have loved to have been able to spend more time chatting and find out more but we had to get on.

We wandered around the square on this second visit, but had

more time today to enjoy it. We went into the “Cathedral Metropolitana de Santiago” and had a good look around the main body of the cathedral, we couldn’t visit the side chapel as there was a service going on. Building started on this Cathedral in 1748 but it wasn’t completed until 1800, with further alterations at the end of the 19th century giving it its present day appearance. We now decided to return “Donde Augusto” the restaurant in the Fish Market and give them a second chance, we couldn’t believe this very busy, and well patronised restaurant, was really that bad.   The first thing we did was to avoid the waiter we had on the previous occasion, as we didn’t think he brought anything to the party, he was grumpy. Today we had “Pedro”, an affable chap who wasn’t pushy and gave us lots of time to study the menu etc. Fortunately we knew which wine we wanted as I had taken a picture of the bottle, so we could enjoy this whilst we chose.

The only thing that we really enjoyed last time was one of our starters; a shredded king crab, with cream, breadcrumbs and cheese dish and it was delicious, so we ordered two, as these were to be our meal. We thoroughly enjoyed it, but after a

little persuasion from Pedro, ordered a mixed shellfish platter to share, oh dear, diet out of the window again. We enjoyed this platter with another bottle of wine, again superb, and we were very glad we had come back for a second time. One of the local dishes here is whole King Crab and we had wondered whether we should indulge, but were not too keen of having to fight the claws etc., we then spotted another table having one delivered and watched as the waiter very professionally extracted all the meat for the diners, who then tucked in; I think we may go back and have one!!!!

Eventually we left but today we avoided the street where Christine was robbed, just in case they came back for seconds though there were mounted police around watching over things.

Back into the subway system and with no fuss arrived back at our local station.

One issue we have had whilst staying at this hotel are the electronic keys, we have had to change them several times and we kept telling them the door lock itself was faulty. The receptionist kept blaming us, saying we were keeping the cards near our ‘phones and credit cards, and this was causing the issue. Anyway today we couldn’t get in, and this time managed to get one of the cards stuck in the door lock mechanism. We went down to reception and gave them a few well-chosen “Anglo Saxon” words.   It worked, they sent a man up and guess what, he confirmed it was the door lock was faulty. We not only got an apology but we were moved and upgraded, and to make things even better for Christine, there is a kettle in the room as well; a result.

Again tonight, not only were we tired but extremely full so sat up playing crib ‘till we could go to bed!!!

 

We were waiting in the hotel lobby as instructed at 0815hrs for our pick-up driver to arrive, we got ourselves a cuppa as we presumed we would have time to drink it, assuming we would have to wait. No, we were wrong, the pick-up driver arrived within a couple of minutes of the specified time. We then visited a number of other hotels before arriving at the “sorting” stop. Here there were a number of feeder buses bringing tourists for the various coach trips.

Our coach was much smaller than the rest but as we were only 12 in our group, this was the reason.   Well that’s what we thought, once we had left the city and started heading into the mountains, the roads were narrow and full of hairpin bends, in fact over 60 our guide told us, hence this small size coach.

Including a shortstop en-route, the trip took about 1½hrs and we travelled through some stunning mountain scenery. When we arrived at the ski resort, “Valle Nevada”, being high summer here there was no snow!!! This resort, which is a little over 3,000 meters, was started 1987, but it wasn’t until 2008/2010 that important building projects were undertaken to offer more beds for tourists. Today it looked deserted, but one could see what it must be like in their high season, June/July. We were also told to look out for Condors; though en route we were disappointed we didn’t spot any.

When we booked, it was suggested we could take an additional

trip in a cable car, travelling higher towards the glaciers but unfortunately none were running due to annual maintenance. Though 3,000-meters isn’t particularly high, I found the thin air affected me today and I wasn’t up to walking higher. We therefore made do with coffee, tea and some very enjoyable Prawn and cheese Empanados whilst sitting in the sun and admiring the views.

Travelling up into these mountains, the coach passed numerous

cyclists peddling their way up; I suspect we all had the same thoughts, “why put yourself through all this pain”, still, soon after we had arrived the first few cyclists also got there and we asked them how long it took to get up the mountain, 3-hours they replied; no doubt they will get down much quicker.

The younger members of our tour went walking further up, but we suspect they didn’t see much more than we did.

As we headed back to the coach we spotted them, a pair of

Condors circulating above which was exciting. It would have been a bitter pill to swallow, going into the Andes and not seeing a Condor. What we didn’t realise was just how big they are, they have a wingspan of around 3-metres and can weigh in the region of 12Kg and they live for up to 60 years. Anyway, everyone piled out of the coach to watch and photograph them, and as we were watching the first pair, a third Condor joined them, quite a sight as they all circled above us.

Eventually Dieter, our tour guide, called everyone back and we started the twisty downhill descent and we passed a number of

giant snow clearing machines. Going down was naturally quicker than going up and in no time we were back in the city, dropping people off as required, and we were soon back at our hotel as well.

We thoroughly enjoyed the trip, glad we went and it was nice to have some clean, fresh air to breath. Before we went we debated what to wear, should we don warm clothes or not; what will the weather be like, hot or cold; anyway we compromised and went mid way but we needn’t have bothered, the sun shone and it was lovely and warm.

Later we trundled over to the Costanera building and enjoyed a

Parrilla in the food hall; it was a fast food “steak chain” called DonBife, and not only excellent value, the various meats were tasty and tender. We then went silly; walking back we spotted a “crêpes” outlet so before returning to the hotel for the evening, we indulged, lovely!!!!

 

Out a little early today hoping to catch the first bus of the

day as we are going to stop at “San Cristóbel Hill” in the Santiago Metropolitan Park which we have been advised is both, “a must do”, and “will take some time”.

The bus arrived promptly at 0940 and we were on our way; the stop we needed was No 2, the 5^th one we came to. The stop was actually called the “Hotel Sheraton and Teleférico” so we didn’t rush to get off as yesterday we saw the queues to get into the park and this certainly wasn’t the same place, but just in case, we asked the bus conductor who said, yes it was and we need to change to the other bus that was waiting for us in front. Good job we asked, anyway we were off in an instant and onto the other bus in a flash, which set off to the entrance where the gondolas leave, immediately after, phew!!!!!

The tickets we purchased were premium ones which included the

entrance, gondola, zoo and funicular fees, so we didn’t have to queue to pay, we were straight onto the first available gondola. The first part was up the smaller of the two hills, which were mainly parkland with neatly kept grass verges and manicured trees, nothing particularly spectacular, but peaceful. We decided to get out at the first stop for a look around and this was a pleasant area with views over Santiago, a very large swimming pool shaped to blend in with the natural surroundings of the Mapulemu Botanic Garden that we were in, with its well maintained gardens.

This “Santiago cable car” was opened in 1980 though in 2012 it closed due to mechanical failures and was only re-opened in 2016, after a 9.5 million US Dollars was spent to

bring it up to satisfactory condition. The trip takes about 20-minutes.

Off we went on the next stage of this gondola trip to the top, the second and highest of the

two mountains, 300-meters high, not quite Mount Everest but this time the terrain we travelled over was left more to nature. On arrival we spotted a coffee shop but more importantly a “Crêpe” place; this was a must have of course!!!

Now for the trek up 350 steps to reach the summit where there

is a sanctuary dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, with a 22-meter statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an amphitheater and a chapel. This statue measures 14 meters tall, and the pedestal on which it rests is 8.3 meters high. It weighs over 36-tons and within the pedestal there is a small chapel in which Pope John Paul prayed on his visit to Santiago in 1987.  I am sure this is quite something to behold in many peoples eyes but after being up to “Christ the Redeemer” in Rio, well something seemed to be missing.

The views of Santiago should have been very spectacular from up

here but there was a cloud hanging over the city, we thought it was a heat haze at first, but on closer inspection realised it was pollution, like a haze of traffic and other fumes rising up from the streets; what a shame.

After wandering around for some considerable time we headed for the funicular; yes it is a one way system, up on the gondola and down on the funicular; still a change is as good as a rest. This funicular dates back to 1925 and one of the two carriages has a memorial plaque commemorating the Pope’s visit in 1987.   In 2012 this mode of transport was re-furbished as part of the Chilean bicentenary.   On our decent we passed the stop for the Chilean National Zoo but not being too interested we carried on down.

Back on the bus for a well earned rest until we arrived at stop-6 the “Plaza de la Constitución”. This plaza was the hub of Chile’s Executive power and was originally constructed between 1784 and 1805. The “Palacio de la Moneda” the main building dominating this square was

originally designed to be the Royal Mint but from 1846 it was used as the presidential Palace right up to 1958.   This square is surrounded with government buildings such as the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of foreign affairs, Ministry of Justice Central bank of Chile etc., but since 1987 Congress operates in the port city of Valparaiso, about 65 miles northwest of the capital.

Whilst wandering about, hunger pains came to the fore so we popped into the first place we could find and we enjoyed Chilean “Fish and Chips” and they were wonderful, far better fish than we had had in the specialty market yesterday, and as a bonus, about ¼ of the price.

Back onto the bus for the final leg back to our home stop, and then a stroll to our hotel for a chance to put our feet up. After a suitable time we emerged again for a drink at the bar which then led into a snack in the hotel restaurant. At last we managed to get away from our room in the early evening!!!