SATURDAY - We should have still been in Argentina but sailed at 7 am rather than the advertised time of 4 pm. Apparently, the Argentine navy planned maneuvers in the bay and our ship had a choice of sailing at 7 am or 11 pm. It was a head office decision (and not a popular one) to sail early morning. Had we left at 11 pm the next port would have been scratched. We certainly disagreed with this decision as we had hoped to see the city of Buenos Aires during the day. Because we had an extra 9 hours to make our next stop we sailed very slowly during the day. The Buenos Aires pilot disembarked the ship around 9:30 am, the 2 river pilots disembarked around 5:30 pm. All this time we were sailing down the Platte River which is a huge river that flows between Uruguay and Argentina. Again, this river looks a muddy brown color due to the soil but it is filtered and is the Buenos Aires drinking water.
New entertainers onboard and tonight's feature was someone playing the harmonica. Seems like quite a downgrade from a classical violinist but we didn't see the show so we shouldn't comment.
SUNDAY - A quiet day for us at sea. None of the seminars were of any interest to us and it seems all the movies they're playing are old. We did have a long discussion with a couple who did a city tour and tango show in Buenos Aires. She is a former dancer and one of the 2016 World Cruisers. She says she had never seen such a wonderful display of dancing. We're sorry to have missed that. Too bad that it's such a long trip down here.
There is a pickle ball court on board (a first for us) and even though it was windy and we didn't know what we were doing we gave it a shot. Len then shot a few hoops before going back to the gym.
A couple of acrobats were the entertainment. Donovan and Rebecca have 4 World Records and, if you watch reality shows, you may have seen them (we don't watch them but they appeared on whichever show had Howard Stern as a judge). We'll try to attach a picture but this Wi-Fi is balmy and we have trouble sending pictures.
PUERTO MADRYN - Pop. 59,000. Spanish spoken. Argentine peso.
Very windy and cool as we approached the port. We just wandered around the town. Most people did not speak English but I found a young girl in a wine shop who was quite fluent. I didn't know anything about Patagonia Malbec but she tried to educate me about it. I ended up buying a Mendoza Malbec but when we went back out we bought a couple bottles from Patagonia.
Entertainment at night was a comic from Toronto. He will perform again in the Explorers Lounge in a couple nights. I take back my earlier comment about the Harmonica player (another Canadian). Apparently, he was very good and has played on the Montreal Philharmonic.
We now have 2122 passengers on board, with 1301 US, 487 Canadians, 74 British and 51 Aussies. Argentina was the biggest loser going down to only 18 as a lot left the ship in Buenos Aires.
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