After visiting Antarctica our next stop was the Falkland Islands and then Puerto Madryn, Argentina. We had a day at sea before reaching the Falklands as well a day at sea between there and Puerto Madryn. This gave us time to research both ports as well relax a bit from the craziness of Antarctica.
Emma and I went to the lecture on the Falkland Islands which was very informative, teaching us things like
1.there are penguins everywhere!
2. they are British (no matter what an Argentine will tell you), and they use Falkland notes (which are almost identical to British notes except have a penguin where the queen should be), as well except British notes and US dollars.
3. there is no ATM on the island however almost everywhere only accepts cash.... They told us to go to the grocery store which accepts card and to get cash back and they have only one wifi line on the whole island which is down when cruise ships are in town.
4. there is one restaurant a British Pub, whose menu includes fish and chips or chips and fish.
5. their total populaton is less then that of the cruise ship (counting passengers and crew).
We landed in port on Valentine's Day and the four of us took the 11km "walk" to the penguin beaches and old defense cannon and the walk back because we didn't want to pay 10 pounds to take the shuttle bus each way. However, it was beautiful and so much fun. Everyone even speaks with little British accents and the houses look and feel as if you are in the country side of England, Emma felt at home. The Penguins were so adorable although we couldn't get too close to them. The island also has old telephone booths which I used to call home to Seattle for 5 minutes, and we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Port Stanly and soaking in the sun before being tendered back to the cruise.
On the walk to the Penguins we found a beach covered in abandoned ship wrecks which we of course took the opportunity to climb all over them which had incredible views although some of the wooden boards were so rotten that they fell through to the water when we stepped on them, but we all survived! One of the shuttle buses even stopped as a photo opp of us climbing all over the wrecks.
The Falkland Islands still have lots of land mines left over from the war with Argentina, and so it is HIGHLY advisable to stay on the trails and not tread anywhere that isnt marked clear because they are still working on extractng all the left over mines. This means we didnt get as close to the penguins as we had hoped but we still go to see what is potentailly the cutest animal known to man in the wild just chilling on their beaches.
1.there are penguins everywhere!
2. they are British (no matter what an Argentine will tell you), and they use Falkland notes (which are almost identical to British notes except have a penguin where the queen should be), as well except British notes and US dollars.
3. there is no ATM on the island however almost everywhere only accepts cash.... They told us to go to the grocery store which accepts card and to get cash back and they have only one wifi line on the whole island which is down when cruise ships are in town.
4. there is one restaurant a British Pub, whose menu includes fish and chips or chips and fish.
5. their total populaton is less then that of the cruise ship (counting passengers and crew).
We landed in port on Valentine's Day and the four of us took the 11km "walk" to the penguin beaches and old defense cannon and the walk back because we didn't want to pay 10 pounds to take the shuttle bus each way. However, it was beautiful and so much fun. Everyone even speaks with little British accents and the houses look and feel as if you are in the country side of England, Emma felt at home. The Penguins were so adorable although we couldn't get too close to them. The island also has old telephone booths which I used to call home to Seattle for 5 minutes, and we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Port Stanly and soaking in the sun before being tendered back to the cruise.
On the walk to the Penguins we found a beach covered in abandoned ship wrecks which we of course took the opportunity to climb all over them which had incredible views although some of the wooden boards were so rotten that they fell through to the water when we stepped on them, but we all survived! One of the shuttle buses even stopped as a photo opp of us climbing all over the wrecks.
The Falkland Islands still have lots of land mines left over from the war with Argentina, and so it is HIGHLY advisable to stay on the trails and not tread anywhere that isnt marked clear because they are still working on extractng all the left over mines. This means we didnt get as close to the penguins as we had hoped but we still go to see what is potentailly the cutest animal known to man in the wild just chilling on their beaches.
Puerto Madryn was incredible. The best day of the entire cruise (minus actually being in Antarctica). Puerto Madryn Argentina is famous for its wildlife park and our plan was to get to the shore, and rent a car so that we could drive our selfs out there because the tours they were offering on board were rediculously expensive. However, when we got to shore we started looking for a place to rent a car and after being told no by 4 different agencies and walking almost 3 kilometers we had to change our plan because we were running out of time. The problem was some were out of cars, some required us to return it the next day, some were out to lunch and wouldn't be back for a few hours, some wouldn't rent to a non-argentine license. But while Emma had been traveling in Central America the earlier year she met two guys who lived in Puerto Madryn and we happened to run into them in the street! They gave us the idea of renting bikes and hitting the beach. Which is great except I don't know how to ride a bike. I told them maybe we could find a tricycle, because I have tried to learn many times and I just can't quite do it, but tricycles I can! Well that wasn't happening I even asked in Spanish if the rental places could give me training wheels. They also had paddle boards for rent, so we thought about renting two bikes and two paddle boards for the afternoon and trading off throughout the day.
However, Roeland, Gilad and Emma wouldn't give up that they didn't want to leave me out (I told them I would just sit on a beach with a beer and wait for them) and they were insistent that I could learn. So after persuading the opener of the rental place to let us "borrow" the bike for 10 minutes so that I could try and learn to ride a bike, beacause I told him I wasn't going to rent it for an hour if I couldn't ride it. We took it to the sidewalk and somehow with minor tears and lots of frekaing out, I DID IT. We went back and forth on the side walk with Roeland or Emma holding onto me and me trying to peddle but I couldn't do it on my own, so after our 10 minutes were up, I gave up and told that there would be no way that I could do it on my own without someone holding on to me which would be no fun for any of them to ride with, we turned around to head back to the beach and on the way there, they let go of me and I just did it! I rode back and forth all by my self and I was so excited I started screaming and crying with excitement, I learned to ride a bike! So we rented 4 and went our for over an hour of riding up to the top point of Puerto Madyrn, there we had another problem, I couldn't quite get down the hill. After almost 20 different Argentinean people proceeded to get out of their cars while driving and attempt to help Emma coax me down the hill I finally made it back to flat ground to finish our bike rides. While we were riding around the city a dog followed us for almost the whole time and hung out with us at the top of the "mountain" too. 
From there we had a great lunch on the beach and laid our in the sun with the dancers and singers form the ship, as well playing in the waves. We didn't have any beach towels with us so Emma and I went in search of someone who might be selling sarongs or scarfs that we could use as sargons and as towels. Someone no one was selling anything like a towel. However we did find someone selling complete linen sets, comforters, sheets and pillow cases and so we bought it which actually worked amazingly well and we got it for 200 pesos which is like 7 dollars.
It was the perfect day with my misfit family. That night we had an amazing dinner too.
