So, folks, you will have noticed….only pix from a distance away, no pix wandering around on land with penguins, etc. Here’s the deal. Somewhere along the ~47 flights we took to get to Buenos Aires, Barbara caught a nasty cold. Generous soul that she is, she promptly shared it with me. And we’ve been hacking our guts out ever since. We pretty much just hang out in our room, coming and going to sit in the corner somewhere and eat meals. Seems really stubborn, which will probably mean that we’ll not get to set foot on the Antarctic peninsula this trip. Our lungs are already stressed from a week of coughing, and subjecting to the hyper-frigid Antarctic air could only be asking for trouble. So, we’re in stasis mode, nothing can really happen until something happens. So pardon the lack of substance on the blog. When I can post something about an actual new experience, y’all will be the first to know.

 

Pretty magnificent.

 

Gotta love the icebergs!

Well, we made it to the peninsula! And a light dusting of snow coming down - Merry Christmas….almost.

Last night the Drake bounced us around fairly forcefully, which made the evening toilette a little interesting. But this afternoon it settled down quite nicely. When it does that, people refer to it as the Drake Lake, and as you can see, this is a lot more Lakey than Drakey.

A little more than halfway through the Drake, it’s a 2+ day experience. Last night we bounced around pretty well, but this morning it has calmed down a bit.

On our way!

Our wonderful ship sailed out of Ushuaia last night around 11:00p, so we’re now in the Drake Passage for the next 18 hours or so.  Can be pretty rough, but we’re old hands at it.  Swells right now are less than 4 meters (12 feet), so not too bad…so far.  Here’s a site to tell you far more than you probably want to know, about current Drake conditions:

https://windy.app/forecast2/spot/498794/Drake+passage

This a new ship we’ve not sailed before, considerably smaller (capacity ~250), so the first few days will be spent exploring and getting to know where everything is.  Pix to come!

Stay tuned……adventure ahead!

Welp, we sailed into Barcelona, disembarked, hopped a plane for Washington DC, then on to San Francisco, spent a couple of hours in an airport hotel, and early the next morning we flew home. We are, of course, completely messed up as far as hours and "body-time", as for the previous several days, the time on the ship was just the reverse of the time at home, i.e., keep the same hour-number and just switch the AM and PM. So we'll need a few days to adjust, but....after exactly 5 months - it's really nice to be home. Thanks for coming along!

 

Our little dinghy, in between several monsters.

…and now that we’re in the Med, the seas are….glassy. Spain beckons.

Wish we could have gotten closer to the rock of Gibraltar, but…there it is, from a couple of different angles. We’re now in the Mediterranean.

Bahia Palace.

More Marrakech.

The drive to Marrakech was 3-4 hours each way. So we took advantage of the long drive, to utilize the highway signage to practice our Arabic and Berber.

Morocco. ❤️

We docked at Casablanca, in Morocco. We were here a few years ago, and did a wonderful excursion that included Rabat. But on that trip we were torn about doing Marrakesh instead - so that self-corrected today. Our guide started out saying that our tour bus was named the “Marrakesh Express”, thus grabbing the boomers right away.

I really want to ride one of these things. Not getting much cooperation from the ship.

The little village of Arucas was celebrating “Piedra y Flor” (stone and flower) with elaborate displays around town. It’s a late May festival and I think I’ve already forgotten our guide’s further explanation of it. 😳

The Opera House in Las Palmas, on Gran Canaria, with its view down the beach. (The last one’s for you Lynn, a bit of distance away, near the beach, is this statue of Alfredo Kraus).

Always welcome, for folks like us who try to be careful and count our kilojoules.

For the dog-people out there (you know who you are) the local street dogs in Cape Verde are skinny and could use better care, but they’re always waggy on approach to everyone, which is a good sign.

Went to a wonderful guitar maker’s shop (also violins, violas, etc) - beautiful stuff. Afterwards, he (and friends and father-in-law) gave us a great short, impromptu concert.

 

The usual markets, etc.

The Cape Verde islands remind me of up-country Galapagos - angular, basically barren, volcanic.

Btw, that enormous sculpture on the bluff above Dakar (you can see the stairway up to it, on the right) comes with a bit of local controversy - it had a $27+ million dollar price tag, and was apparently created in North Korea.

The ferry sailed by the Global Mercy, a huge floating hospital, which performs surgeries for local people of little means, who otherwise could never receive such care. Full disclosure - I’ve done the monthly donation thing to this organization for several years, but as this shouldn’t be a forum to blatantly solicit third-party endorsements, I’ll merely state that this organization……exists.

We took a local ferry from Dakar to the Île de Gorée, an island off the coast. It’s now a pretty island village (with no vehicles) but has, yet again, a sad history with the slave trade. The last photo is entitled “the Door of No Return”.

Traffic in Dakar is delightfully chaotic - with a few stoplights installed here and there, for no apparent reason.

 

The gentleman in the three-wheeler appeared to be giving either educational or religious studies to the kids on either side.

Now in Dakar, Senegal.