The Vagabond Adventure Daily Journal
Where Are We Now?
Good to see you! Hope you’re enjoying the journey!
This journal provides you snapshots of our journey as we work our way around the world, never traveling by jet. It’s a chance to get a close-up view of the planet as we explore it the way people did 120 years ago.
Day 567 - On Our Way to Vigo, Spain and (We Hope) Madrid
We make it out of our B&B and onboard our Portuguese CP Rail train passing through acres of vineyards, villages, and white-washed homes piled on hillsides crammed with pine and swaying birch. Through each small town the loud blare of the train’s horn split the morning air and corrals of goats and horses would raise their heads in alarm and then return to the stolid joys of munching their cud.
Day 566 - Porto, Portugal
We awakened to the sounds of squabbling seagulls outside our window. Apparently they had swept up the Douro River from the seaside for a conversation.
The night had banished the rain and the cobbled streets were bustling with sanitation workers emptying trash cans, students working their phones, a scattered tourist or two and locals traveling this way and that to work or errands. Cyndy was jonesing for some American style coffee and Starbucks, it turned out, was right across the street. Feeling a little guilty, we bought two old-fashioned, big cups of coffee, not the smaller espresso's or cappuccinos we had been drinking throughout Chile, Argentina, and Lisbon, and sat outside in the bright, chilly air at a small table to people watch.
Day 565 - Porto, Portugal
Our train from Lisbon took us along the Portuguese coast to Porto, Portugal’s oldest city and the nation’s namesake. This was a local train so many stops were necessary: Pombal, Nazarré, Granja do Ulmiero Alfarellos and Coimbra. It sometimes rattled and screeched on unsure rails, and at other times rolled so seamlessly you wouldn't know rails existed at all.
Prosperous and scrubbed is the way you would describe some towns, others were crowded with trash, unkept parklets and warehouses; some are industrial, others pastoral. Mostly the views from any train passing through urban areas are notoriously devoid of beauty. It's the green open spaces that catch your eye: the sleepy sheep that seem drunk in their corrals or great swaths of green farm lands, or, far off, the sea and it's crashing surf.
Day 564 - Lisbon, Portugal
Beyond the Square and we passed a through slender archway and entered Rua Áurea (Golden Street). Among the retail shops, small mercado's and bakeries sat a stone archway hung with slick, black, rubber curtains, with big white letters that read: "Girls! Dancers! Peep show!" Within I could make out the strains of "I'm never going to love again."
Day 561 - Goodbye L’Austral
It was dawn Easter morning when the L'Austral turned to enter the wide mouth of the Tagus River (Rio Tejo) and dock in Lisbon. The city's mercury vapor lights winked in the dawn as we drifted beneath the sprawling Bridge of April 25th (the name memorializes a military coup that changed Portugal in 1974). Then the ship pivoted neatly into its berth.
For the first time in 21 days we listened to the roar of overhead jets, rumbling trucks, and the urban thrum of the city beyond. The bow breaks of the sea and the high pitched calls of brown boobies were gone. Lisbon's white, low buildings burst bright as the sun rose, and their ubiquitous terra-cotta roofs seemed to open like flowers.
Day 559 - The Worlds Best Travel Experiences
Each passing day, the voyage grows more languorous. L'Austral's dwellers have long slipped into their routines by now: reading in the observatory on deck six; walking the treadmill on deck five; lounging outside by the saltwater pool; maybe catching up with a movie in a stateroom; or dozing by the bar with a cappuccino or cocktail on deck seven as the ship seesaws over the broad wind-tossed sea. Each lives, as we all do, in the mind of his or her own language and culture, thoughts and memories in French, Aussie, Kiwi, German, Malagasy, Swiss, Irish, American.
Day 557 - Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
After the red and black tugs haul us into the port of Las Palmas, the largest city in the Canary Islands (100,000 people), we find a city alive with long rows of tall hotels and apartment buildings gleaming in the morning sun.
This is the first time we’ve planted our seagoing feet on solid ground since Montevideo. We have half a day. Not much time, while the ship replenishes its stores. Everyone, including members of the crew, are excited to visit.
Day 556 - The Denizens of L’Austral
After sailing 11 ships and ferries since Cyn and I began this odyssey, we continue to marvel at the people we have met. Each of its denizens are there because they are slightly different. Navimaggers (Patagonia) are not the same Australis (Tierra del Fuego) passengers. Australis was entirely different from Cunard’s Queen Mary II (transatlantic New York to London). Our voyage to Antarctica attracted one sort of passenger and the Hurtigruten trip through the Panama Canal still another. And now there was Ponant’s transatlantic voyage. Yet another breed of inveterate traveler; another take on the world.
Day 553 - An Excess of Luxury
On our Vagabond Adventure so far, Cyn and I have sailed on six ships, each one different from the others: the Queen Mary II (Cunard), the Roald Amudsen (Hurtigruten); Navimag’s Esperanza, Austalis’s Ventus; the Ocean Diamond by Quark and now Ponant's L’Austral steaming, or rather dieseling, us across the Atlantic. Each plows the world's waters in different ways, ranging from 1930’s style cruise ships to expedition ships, to hybrids in between.
Ponant’s L’Austral is a handsome craft, part expedition and part cruise; 7 decks, holding about 225 passengers with a crew of 125 or so. It is nothing like the immensities of Carnival or Disney or Princess, yet provides everything you could want: library, theater, several bars, lounges, restaurants, gym, spa, desks for lounging. I only missed having an outdoor deck that would let me walk the full circuit of the ship.
Day 550 - Voyaging Life the Right Way
Francis is 82-years-old and suffers from a rare disease that has destroyed his vestibular system. "Eet eeze in my sheenes," he explains in his thick French. (Meaning it's a genetic affliction.) Even with perfect balance, navigating your way from place to place on an undulating ship can be a challenge, but Francis does this with a smile and perseverance, and occasionally a cane.
Day 549 Crossing the Equator
Today is a big day as we continue across the Atlantic. At 5 PM we will sail from the southern portion of the planet into the northern hemisphere. The captain here insists that anyone who is on the ship and hasn’t yet crossed the equator must be initiated into a right of passage that goes back hundreds of years. (Paying passengers may volunteer but aren’t required. Many did. I was spared because I already crossed by ship last fall on my way to Lima.)
Day 548 - The Doldrums of the South Atlantic
The doldrums were a serious concern for sailors until the end of the 19th century because in these waters sailing ships (especially the slower ones) could be caught for days or even weeks in torrential rains, thunderous squalls, wild seas or flat calm. All of this could demoralize a crew and that could make them feel powerless and frustrated. (This the likely source of the Equatorial Crossing Ceremony which you will learn about soon.)
Days 546 - Tropic of Capricorn
We are traveling at a speed of 5 knots, a little less than top speed) and we have crossed roughly 800 miles of the Atlantic as we head to Lisbon. I always wondered where the term “knot” came from. Here’s the story from the United States Ocean Service and NOAA: “Knots are used to measure (nautical) speed. One knot equals one nautical mile per hour, or roughly 1.15 statute mph.
Day 543 - Cruising Comfortably
Sunset. Day 4 of our transatlantic Vagabond-Adventure. The captain informed us that as of noon today we had traveled a total of 800 miles, were somewhere west of Rio de Janeiro, and we’re looking at 4000 miles of the Atlantic ahead before we arrived in Lisbon. This put us roughly at the same latitude as Johannesburg, South Africa, and floating over water nearly 6000 feet deep.
Day 541 The Open Ocean Beckons
When sitting down to dinner we are met with table linen, beaten stainless steel charger plates, enough utensils for a platoon. The mostly Indonesian and Philippino waiters are kind and outgoing and move from the kitchen to table with broad smiles wearing white pants and snazzy jackets with gold epaulets on their shoulders. They all speak multiple languages. The evening menu is simple: carrot soup, carpaccio with onion and parsley, steak or halibut or salmon or chicken. And, of course, a wide variety of two many desserts. Restraint is in order.
Day 540 - Departure for Lisbon
We waited by the dock in a tiny store 100 yards from the our transatlantic ship, and checked in with Annie, child #4 before heading out to sea. We had spoken to all of the other children to remind them that we would be off the grid for 21 days, though Cyndy did provide each with a ship-to-shore phone number so they could call in an emergency.
At 1 PM a security guard at the docks informed us that we could head to the ship. We expected inspections, routines for getting bags tagged, various cross country paperwork, before we boarded, but there were no lines on this voyage.
Day 538 - Buenos Aires to Montevideo, Uruguay
We burst out of the canyon of tall apartment buildings in Recoleta onto a broad boulevard, Ubering to the Colonia Express ferry. It will take four hours to get to Montevideo - one hour to cross the bay to Colonia and three more by bus. We swing along a spectacular causeway within the city. On either side you can see the evidence of great wealth when Argentina’s GDP was the 7th greatest in the world – architecture of every kind on a lordly scale: Italianate, ornamental French Colonial, Spanish style balustrades, renaissance sculpture atop miles of buildings 12 to 15 stories high in Rose and White with rich façades of marble and stone.
Day 537 - Buenos Aires, Argentina
The next morning we walk out of our hotel onto Lavalle Street in search of a place to clean our clothes. We roll around the corner and walk into Esmeralda Street where we pass one young man, then another, quite filthy, too thin, curled on cardboard sleeping soundly. Farther along in front of a bakery we pass a woman squatting and urinating. Later, after we find the laundry, another woman from the bakery is furiously but not angrily scrubbing the offending sidewalk with soap and hot water.
Day 536 - Buenos Aires, Argentina
It’s after 8 PM by the time we arrive in Buenos Aires – another 10 hour bus ride that brought us from Bahia Blanca and the lovely Hotel Victoria. We book Uber and the Uber climbs into the thick traffic. This is a big city (16 million people) and it looks and acts like it: eight lane highways, cars and trucks and buses everywhere and not a few angry drivers. One jams his car into the one in front, frustrated because he’s not happy with how things are moving along. He simply bangs into it. Our Uber driver moves on. Finally we break through and make it to our hotel exhausted, and hungry.
Day 536 - Bahia Blanca, Argentina
Our Andes Mar bus pulls into the Bahía Blanca bus terminal at 12:07 AM, two minutes late. We stumble into the darkness, grab our bags and find Uber. It takes through the dark and quiet streets to the Hotel Victoria. This turns out to be a less than perfect choice. The street is dark, the entrance tiny and tired. The moment we walk in I have the uneasy feeling that we had arrived at the Argentine version of the Bates Motel in Psycho. Dilapidated cushions on the couches are mashed and worn across two couches and a decrepit chair; the red paint makes the lobby dark and cheerless above the wooden floors which are worn as the oriental throw rugs that lay upon them. I whisper to Cyn, “What have I gotten you into?“ Because it was me who booked this hotel when in Mi Refugio. We walk to the big, mahogany reservations desk to arrange for our room.