Enroute Montevideo to Puerto Madryn

Viking Jupiter. Day at Sea.

A “sleep in” day, had breakfast and then a walk on the promenade on Deck 2. Very windy especially at the bow on the port side. Don decided he would go up to the 8th deck to see how it was up there, but it was far too windy, and they had all the furniture tied down.

At 11:00 we went to the lecture about the tours to Puerto Madryn for tomorrow. We learned that the tour we had booked for tomorrow to see Magellan penguins, was 8 hours long and that 5 of those hours would be on a bus on gravel roads and very bumpy, with no toilettes on board. The penguins are named after Ferdinand Magellan who originally founded this area. There were supposed to be over 1000 with new chicks, however we decided to cancel. We booked instead a 5-hour tour out in the country to a Welsh town called Gaiman to have a Welsh Tea and then a tour of Puerto Madryn on the way back. We decided to go for lunch to the bar/restaurant, “Aquavit”, at the rear of the ship on Deck 7. It was a lovely sunny day and they were serving Caesar salad with shrimp and salmon, with a delicious barbeque and the deck was packed. We ended up eating inside the sliding glass door as there were no tables available outside. We sat with a couple from Washington DC. And had a lovely chat.

After lunch we spent some time out on the pool deck and then at 6:30pm we went to a lecture about “The Sun “which was very confusing even though the lecturer tried to simplify it for us. It was all about the atoms in the sun and how it produces Earth’s lifegiving energy.

For dinner we met up with Gordon and Vicky in The Restaurant and had another lovely dinner. With glasses of wine in hand plus a plate of cheese that Lee assembled from our dessert, we headed for the evening entertainment at 9:15 by a “classical cross-over pianist”, Reuel, who played his arrangements of popular songs from Adele, Frank Sinatra, Bon Jovi and many more. Partway through the performance he played a rather romantic tune and suggested that we reach out and touch the leg of our loved one sitting next to us, which Don did…… and promptly stuck his finger into the plate of cheese in Lee’s lap. We sure had a laugh over that.

Since we didn’t have to get up so early the next morning, we decided to go to the late-night bar called Torshavn to see what it was like. A very cozy room with a small dance floor. When we arrived, there was a girl rather quietly singing folk music. Then at 10:00 the Viking band and Resident vocalists Judith and Arvin took over. They played some popular tunes and then they livened it up to play 60’and 70’s music. Great dancing and then back to some slower tunes. We left around 11:30 and by then there was just one other couple there.Read more