Spring Moon of the Southern Cross
Outside our room and down at the deck just above the waterlines, refueling is again underway. The promenade deck in front of our room and for about a hundred feet toward the stern of the ship has red cloth barriers over it, preventing other passengers from getting close to the refueling. We, however, can just open our door and go see. Which we did. Then, being the good northern European adults we are we turned around and came back inside. After all.
Way back in Santa Marta, after paying for our lunch at a bayside restaurant, I turned to go next door and follow Kate into the souvenir shop. When I put my foot out, only open air was available. There was a step, in the same white tile as the floor, and I didn’t notice it.
At the time I was proud of my ability to react quickly, turning back and onto the upper floor where my other foot already resided.
However. In so doing I wrenched my back. That’s how I got the foot back on the same surface as my other one, whipping my back around while my planted foot remained steady.
Since that afternoon, our first port in South America and our first one of this trip, I’ve had a sore back. It’s gone up and down in inflammation, mostly background noise, but today I torqued it again. This time I can’t move easily, even with some significant pain meds Kate has along. That means that, though Buenos Aires is within walking distance, I can’t walk the distance. So. No wandering around here, which I had very much wanted to do. Mark O. gave me a neighborhood, San Telmo, and it sounds wonderful. Maybe next circumnavigation of South America.
As Evita said, don’t cry for me, Argentina.
Tomorrow we head out onto to the pampas by bus so I’ll see some of it on the way there. Also, we’re here overnight again tomorrow night, so perhaps I’ll have a shot then. Gauchos and boleros.
Even so, the travel malaise I spoke about in recent blogs has abated and I’m eager to get outside.
We watched cormorants or grebes today, flying between our ship and the Log-In Pantanal, a cargo ship being loaded just across the way. These birds are fish eaters, with the ability, like loons, to turn and suddenly disappear under the water. When one comes up with a silvery, squiggly catch, the race is on to get it eaten. The others flock to the successful bird, flail around, trying to knock the fish out and eat it themselves. In one scrum I watched the fish passed among five different birds until one of them got that long neck pointed skyward and let the fish slide in.
We are in shirt sleeve weather here, perhaps 80-82 and sunny, a change from the cloudy jacket weather of the Chilean fjords and Ushuaia.
Got good news today. We discovered that our checked bags going home have a 70 pound weight limit. That means we should be able to check bags without penalties and carry our fragile treasures on board.
