Tag Archives: History

Overwhelmed by Buenos Aires

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Thursday 14 March 2024 – Bloody hell, Buenos Aires!  We’ve had a whistle stop tour which took five hours and done a couple of other things and I am completely overwhelmed by the place, and not always in a good way.  We’ve seen a huge amount in a very short space of time and I’m struggling to piece together a coherent story, so please bear with me as I flit from topic to topic in a disorganised way.  For a city which has only been in existence for 200 years, there’s an awful lot of history and culture to take in, and I’m not sure my brain’s up to it.  This will be a loooong post, with lots of pictures. Be warned.

By the way, this is just the city tour.  We also did Other Stuff, which I shall expatiate upon, probably at length, in at least one separate post.

Our guide for our whistle-stop tour was Mariana, who (you remember, of course) had greeted us on our first arrival three weeks ago and who was looking after us for our time here.  We discussed our overall schedule for a few minutes and then went out – in the rain, which still hadn’t really abated after several days of persistent pissing down – to get in to our car with driver Eduardo.

The car had seen many, many better days. There was a crack from left to right across the windscreen, the fuel filler flap was missing, and the SERVICE light was illuminated on the dashboard. Every so often the car would make the special Citroën alarm noises with which I’m so familiar, since I own one at home.  However, mine only complains when there’s something legit to complain about; Eduardo’s would bleep away and he would fiddle with door locks and other controls to try to make it shut up.  However, it got us to where we needed to go, which felt like it was was all over the bloody place but was actually only in about four areas, while Mariana pointed out government buildings, university buildings, churches, embassies and other points of interest while maintaining a stream of comments about Buenos Aires’s history and culture which was very difficult to keep up with.  But now, for example, I know that most citizens in Buenos Aires are into psychoanalysis and most go to a therapist, to the point where if you don’t, people think you’re a bit odd.

Anyhoo….

The basic geography:  BA is divided into 48 neighbourhoods, or barrios.

Our hotel is in Recoleta, a nice neighbourhood.  We also spent a lot of time in Palermo, which is also nice – most countries appear to have their embassies there. We also visited San Telmo (there was no fire there) and La Boca, the last of which is jolly fun during the day but, we are told, is not a place to visit in the evenings. There is also a downtown area, around Retiro and San Nicolas, also Not Safe After Dark, reportedly.

The city is one of contrasts – fine buildings in Nice Areas and clearly griding poverty and homelessness in others. With the ridiculous levels of inflation that the country is undergoing it was never clear to me how to get any local currency (it’s best, apparently, to go to a money changer recommended by someone you respect) and so whenever I was Out And About I felt exposed. I had no clue about the geography or distances and would have been exceedingly reluctant to take a taxi anywhere for fear of being ripped off or worse. It’s a shame that I never really felt relaxed here, and that contributed to the overall sense of being overwhelmed by the place.

Our first stop, which kind of summed up my image of Buenos Aires and Argentina, was “Floralis Genérica“, a gift to the city by the Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano. Catalano once said that the flower “is a synthesis of all the flowers and, at the same time, a hope reborn every day at opening.” It was created in 2002. The aluminium sculpture, a thing of beauty, was designed to move, closing its petals in the evening and opening them in the morning.

Sadly, it’s fucked.

The electronics employed in opening and closing the flower were disabled in 2010 to prevent damaging the sculpture, and it remained permanently open until 2015. One of the petals was incorrectly installed during its assembly, as noted by Catalano himself. The company responsible for its construction, Lockheed Martin Aircraft Argentina, provided a 25-year warranty, but as the company was nationalised in 2009, its repair was delayed. The mechanism was functional again by June 2015. In the early hours of December 17, 2023, parts of the sculpture (including a main petal) fell due to a strong storm. And now there’s (a) no money, expertise or political will to repair it and (b) because of the parlous state of the area’s economy, people keep stealing bits of it to sell illegally. Such a shame; it must have been a thing of joy in its time – something once rich and fine, now in decline, matching my view of the city and country.

Our next stop was at a statue of General San Martin, who is regarded as a national hero of Argentina, Chile and Peru and one of the liberators of Spanish South America.  He (and a couple of his mates) liberated Argentina from Spanish rule in a war from 1810 to 1816. The British were involved in fighting around this time, too and I haven’t quite understood who was fighting whom and for what.  I think the French were probably angling for a fight, too, but I can’t honestly be sure.  The history of Argentina and Buenos Aires is hideously complicated.

Suffice it to say, though, that the practical upshot of all this buggering about is a city that is just 200 years old and with a rich heritage of European architecture.  As Jane and I noted in our first visit here before we went south, there are vast numbers of elegant 19th century European buildings here.  The embassies of foreign countries tend to be palaces, like the British Embassy

and many neighbourhoods (particularly Recoleta, where our hotel is), have a lot of buildings which would not look out of place in Paris.

So when someone wanted to build an art deco house

it was not welcomed among the neighbours.  But it got built anyway.

It could not possibly have been long before the name of Eva Perón cropped up; and we passed the Plaza Evita, where there is a monument to her.

Having never been to see the show or the film about her, I didn’t really know much about her except for the “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” thing.  Apparently, actresses in her day (1930s) were held in lowly regard, with most people lumping them in with prostitutes and other low-lifes.  So her and Juan becoming an item was pretty scandalous, but one has to admit she made a pretty good fist of things despite this. More on her later.

Next stop was the cultural centre of Recoleta, which included the Basilica Nuestra Senora del Pilar

which we popped into for a quiet moment to admire, among other things, the lovely tiling work there.

I was amused, as we walked out, to see the longest feather duster ever in my experience.

Nearby is a huge, and very old, fig tree.

It is so old that its branches reach out a considerable distance.  Someone had the bright idea of including one of them in an art installation.

Also nearby is a building which used to be a convent but its frontage been gussied up a little.

I think it’s wonderful, but apparently people are a bit sniffy about it.

We called in at a café in the area, called La Biela.

At one of its tables there’s another art installation; wax models of two famous writers and intellectuals who spent much time in La Biela,

Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares. Next, we visited the cemetery in Recoleta. I begin to wonder if you, my loyal reader, are worried about our preoccupation with cemeteries, which figure not infrequently in these pages.  This one, morbid fixation or not, is an SSSI – a site of significant sightseeing interest. It is vast,

 

covering 5.5 hectares, or 14 acres in old money, and packed – 4,691vaults, all topped with statuary and other mausoleum-type materials, You can see from the above shot that there is a central spot from which avenues radiate out.

and there are some astonishing mausolea there.  To spare you an endless litany of photos, I’ve put a set on Flickr for you to look at if your pro-cemetery inclinations match ours. Click below to view them, if you like.

Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Argentina

I will share one photo, though, which is the main reason for people to flock to this place.

“Duarte?” I hear you cry. “Who the actual?”.

Evita. Her full name was María Eva Duarte de Perón – Duarte was her maiden name. That’s why people come here.  Frankly, I’m buggered if I know how to find it, but Mariana led is there deftly, via some of the 94 other figures of national importance who are also buried there – and pointing out that some mausolea are abandoned, disused and in a poor state.  It’s not possible to cram any new sites in, and existing sites that are for sale fetch huge amounts of money; but the ownership of some of the abandoned sites has been lost and so they moulder away.

After the cemetery, the cathedral.  From the front, it doesn’t look much like a church.

but if you look carefully, you can see a dome just above the pediment, which is a clue. It looks large, and it is.

You can see the beautiful tiling in the photos above, and there’s lots  of it.

and it’s encouraging to note that there’s some restoration work going on in places which need it. There are many, many chapels (I lost count after six) but the main, suitably impressive, one is dedicated to that chap San Martin.

It’s guarded. By guards. Two of them.

but it’s utterly impossible to get a decent photo of the area because of the photographic feeding frenzy going on around it.

At least they weren’t taking selfies, which is the only redeeming feature of the scene.

One of the reasons for the vibrant and varied cultural scene in BA is the amount of immigrations that’s happened over the years – Russians, Polish, French, Italians and more.  A significant aspect of the Italian influence is visible in the bakeries.  We visited a posh one

which has a counter-intuitive name despite its very clear Italian heritage.

(We visited another, less posh, one later, so stay tuned.)

Just nearby is Plaza Mayo. This is nothing to do with a spread, a clinic or an ageing radio DJ, but a place of much significance to the Argentinians; its name come from week-long series of events that took place from May 18 to 25, 1810, in Buenos Aires, The result was the removal of Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros and the establishment of a local government, the Primera Junta  on May 25. The May Revolution began the Argentine War of Independence. As similar events occurred in many other cities of the continent, the May Revolution is also considered one of the early events of the Spanish American wars of independence.

Several of the city’s major landmarks are located around the Plaza: the Casa Rosada (home of the executive branch of the federal government)

which features the famous balcony from where Evita gave her “don’t cry for me, Argentina” speech*;

the Cathedral, which you’ve already seen; the May Pyramid, the oldest national monument in the city, celebrating the first anniversary of the May Revolution.;

and the Equestrian monument to General Manuel Belgrano.

The stones surrounding the statue were placed in commemoration of Covid victims during the pandemic, as the people were dissatisfied with the government’s response to the pandemic.

Since 1977, the plaza is where the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have congregated with signs and pictures of desaparecidos, their menfolk (husbands, children, sometimes fathers), who were subject to forced disappearance by the Argentine military in the Dirty War, during the National Reorganization Process.  Their protest is permanently marked by the images of white headscarves in the black mosaic.

There’s  a lot of street art in Buenos Aires.  I took a photo of some

whose relevance will be revealed in due course – and lots and lots and lots later – stay with it.

Argentinians love their markets; that’s where they buy most of their food – there are no big supermarkets in BA. Mariana took us through the very considerable San Telmo market, where you can buy produce and also eat at the many establishments there.

Neighbouring San Telmo is La Boca, “The Mouth”, where the port is.

It’s also a place where the buildings become the street art.

It’s an extraordinary outpouring of colour. To save you having to scroll through dozens of photos, I’ve put them in a separate Flickr album, or you can click the image below.

Street Scenes at La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina

One building is a popular attraction; Caminito.

On (queueing up and) payment of the requisite sum, you can go upstairs and have your photo taken beside Lionel Messi.

(It’s not the real Messi; just another fine Messi you can get into.)

Other street art in La Boca is plentiful – it even extends to the sides of buildings

and a local football stadium.  When the builders were choosing the decor, they decided to use the colours of the next ship to arrive.  It was

Swedish.

La Boca is also where we visited the non-posh Italian bakery.

Among other things they offer “amarchistic” baked goods.  I’d show you them, but that would be a picture of food and therefore Not Allowed; but bakers slyly created items that mocked the police, education, church and other elements of society – pastries called “facturas”, the word means “bill”, so emphasising the need for crafts such as baking to be recognised at their full value.

The above hits the highlights of our five hours of touring Buenos Aires.  It’s not exhaustive, but I hope it gives an impression of how varied it is; we only covered a few areas, and there would be much more to see had we the time.

We did do a few other things in the city, and the narrative at this point turns non-linear; a couple of days later, we visited one of Buenos Aires’s most famous buildings – El Ateneo. It was only a 10-minute stroll from our hotel and on the way I took some snaps of a couple of the street kiosks which are everywhere in Recoleta

and one of the rather stylish poster stands that dot the place as well,

reminiscent of the sort of art nouveau street décor one might find in Paris.

El Ateneo is a remarkable place – a theatre which has been repurposed as a book shop – an enormous, enormously stylish bookshop.

Just entering it shows what a stylish place it is.

Then you go through to the main area and get hit by a simply awesome sight.

This is the view from the second floor over the main part of the building as you look towards the stage.

Isn’t that just – fantastic?

It is.

And yet people can’t set eyes on this vision of wonderfulness without thinking that it would look better with them in it.

Bloody hell, it annoys me. Not only is it vapid but it delays people who just want to capture the scene for its awesomeness.

The stage

is a café

where we had coffee and alfajores, served by a nice local lass called, counterintuitively, Brenda. The ceiling above is a thing of joy

and other theatreish areas are used for other bookshopish things.

The place is simply stunning, and a decent way to end a post about what we’d seen in touring around this remarkable, scruffy, stylish, imposing, disorganised city.

We also did a couple of evening things in BA, since we had three days here. I will write about them in my valedictory post from this trip. But the middle day of our three in the area held the prospect of another Thing To Do in Buenos Aires, which is – to leave it.

Come back later and find out what that means, eh?

 

  • No, she didn’t.  That speech is a fiction from the show and the film, based upon the fact that in her latter days, before she dies very young from cancer, her speeches ran high in emotional content.  I found it very educational to read her Wiki entry. The balcony of the Casa Rosada was used for a powerful speech in front of a quarter of a million people; but the appearance was by Juan Perón, being released after 6 days in prison, in front of the gathered throng, who had demanded his freedom.

Stanley – nice.

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Saturday 9 March 2024­ – One of our guides on Hondius, Martin, once lived in Stanley, and served as a policeman in the Royal Falkland Police Force for a couple of years.  I was looking forward to visiting Stanley even before he gave a lecture about his time there; his talk added more background, describing it as a very close, honest and welcoming community.  We arrived in Stanley at about midday, and that morning Martin, who is also the main birder and photographer among the guides, also gave us a talk about the birds we could expect to see.  Our unusually fine weather stayed with us during the morning, and there were birds around the ship so I could get more practice at photographing them in flight.

Black-browed albatrosses predominated, but (first picture) there was a wandering albatross to photograph, too.

The entrance to Stanley Harbour is through a narrow passage called, imaginatively, The Narrows,

where one catches the first glimpse of Stanley itself.  It takes some navigational skill to get a ship like Hondius through. Our captain managed it, and on the way in we passed a couple of instances which were less successful.

I heard a comment from another of our guides that the Falklands was used in bygone days as an area for dumping ships in order to collect on the insurance; whether that was the case for either of these hulks, I don’t know.

Remaining outside The Narrows was a Viking cruise liner which was too big to go in; we learned later that the windy conditions also meant that its passengers couldn’t go ashore because of the difficulty of navigation of their tenders – they use the ship’s lifeboats, apparently, and previous experience teaches me that it’s very difficult to steer those things with any great accuracy.  One wonders how impressed the passengers were to get this far and not be able to visit; but overall, of course, it played in our favour, since it meant that there were 800 fewer punters wandering the streets of Stanley at the same time as us.

We did, however, pass one other expedition-style ship which had made it in,

and we were soon parked up a short Zodiac ride from the shore.

One could see Tumbledown Hill, the site of one of the final battles in the Falklands War of 1982.

We had a swift lunch on board and then were ferried in so that we could have a look round.

Stanley has a population of around 2,500 (the Falklands Islands overall about 3,50), so you can imagine that that 800 extra punters would have made quite an impact; as it was it was fairly quiet as we walked around.

It’s a nice place.

It helped that the sun shone, something that always makes a place look nicer; and the wind blew as is, we were told, almost always the case. (I had heard, well before we even envisaged going on this trip, that the wind always blows in the Falklands, and I can now vouch for this; I found the constant wind wherever we were to be quite oppressive, actually, although I suppose one might get used to it eventually.)

Immediately we landed, we got to see some of the local bird life.

Black-browed night heron
Male (flightless) steamer duck
Turkey vulture in flight
Turkey vulture doing yoga
Female uplands gose
Male Uplands goose

Kelp gulls, imperial cormorants, rock shags (aka magellanic cormorants)

 

Practically the first thing one passes in wandering along the front is the cathedral, Christ Church, with a very distinctive whalebone arch outside it.

The whalebone arch dates from 1933 and commemorates the centenary of the colony as a British possession.  It remains a British Overseas Territory to this day, despite the efforts of Argentina, who lay claim to Las Islas Malvinas, as they call them.

The bricks to build the cathedral were on a boat which sank on arrival, apparently.  The bricks were retrieved and the cathedral built, but salt water and bricks don’t necessarily go together well, as can be seen in places inside.

It’s a handsome building, outside and inside,

with nice stained glass

and a serious nod to the military history of the islands.

Looking over the water from the front, one can see further evidence of this, in the form of the names, picked out in stones, of naval protection vessels which have served in the Falklands.

Near the cathedral is the supermarket

which also demonstrates the islands’ UK heritage.

Inside, much of the clothing is actually under the F&F label used by Tesco in the UK, and the fresh produce is, as one would expect, very expensive, since it all has to be imported, and not from Argentina.

As I had expected, there were many more reminders of the UK heritage

and the whole place has the air of a well-maintained English seaside town of a few decades ago.


(The mast is from SS Great Britain, Brunel’s boat, by the way)

There are pubs, one of which, the Victory Bar, is a pretty convincing replica of an English pub on the inside

although less so from the outside.

There’s a local newspaper

and a determination to observe British roots.

The Dockyard Museum

is thoroughly worth a visit.  Some exhibits are emphatically drawing, once again, on British roots

while others show that it’s a more exotic location,

with a unique history, which, of course, includes the 1982 war against Argentina.

Ah, yes; the war.

The Falkland Islands have had a disputatious history ever since the uninhabited islands were first discovered in the late 18th Century.  France, Spain, Argentina and Britain have all claimed the islands, but there’s been a British colony here since 1833.

The latest dispute ran from April – June 1982; or March – June 1982 if you include South Georgia.  In March 1982, some 50 Argentinians landed unannounced on South Georgia, ostensibly to collect scrap metal. But on April 2, the same day as Argentina attacked Stanley, Argentine ships sailed into Cumberland Bay (where Grytviken and the HQ of the British Antarctic Survey are, you’ll remember, of course).  By 25 April, the Royal Navy had turned up to South Georgia and their bombardment forced an Argentinian surrender; following that, South Georgia was used as a base to support the British recapture of the Falklands.  Reading about this reminds me that both Canberra (on which I have sailed) and Queen Elizabeth 2 (on which I have not) were pressed into service during the war.

In the museum there’s a short film consisting of narrative from residents who were children during the period describing how it felt from their point of view.  It’s quite moving.  It’s all too easy for us Brits to brag that we gave those Argies a bloody nose; but for the inhabitants at the time it was terrifying, and there’s a feeling that there are still emotional problems among some residents hanging over from those times.

And, of course, there’s a war memorial

with, beside it, a bust of the UK Prime Minister in 1982, Margaret Thatcher.

It’s somewhat ironic that a war which, some say, was started as a vehicle for the Argentinian president, Galtieri, to shore up his public image, ended up as one which did just that for Thatcher.

Anyhoo.

It was pleasant to wander about for a couple of hours, although I was disappointed that the island’s infrastructure was unable to provide any meaningful internet access.  The local provider, Sure, has enabled some hotspots, but only at glacial speeds; even Hondius gives faster access.

Most people know that Stanley is the capital of the Falkland Islands. Perhaps fewer would know that it is on the eastern side of the more easterly of the two major islands in the group: East Falklands and a more western major island, called, yes, you guessed it, West Falklands.  Fewer still, and that number would have included me before this trip, will know that there are some 750 islands in the Falklands, although many of these are smallish bits of uninhabited rock.

What we did know was that, weather permitting, we had two further days to explore some of the lesser islands in the archipelago before we had to head off back to Ushuaia and the end of our trip.  The forecast was – yes, you’ll probably have guessed this, too – windy.  We would find out in due course what this meant for our passage and the possibility of further expeditions.

True Gryt

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Tuesday March 5 2024 – Even as we were leaving Pippa’s recap yesterday, we could feel the sea getting rougher.  During the night there was quite a lot of pitching and rolling; talk this morning was of gusts of 50-knot winds, which, if memory serves (because it has to; our expensive internet has given way to an entirely non-available one, which means Googling is now impossible) is bordering Storm Force 10.  There were no injuries, but suffice it to say that the rocking and rolling was sufficient to a) cause a slightly mysterious but weighty de-ioniser device to jump off its shelf in our cabin with a considerable thump at 3 in the morning; and b) tip over the cup of milk we had kept in our fridge for the purpose of making tea. A slightly disturbed night, then, but not too uncomfortable otherwise – we both managed to get a reasonable amount of sleep.

It was clear that the captain had had to do a lot of careful navigation; there were a lot of very large icebergs around.

However, as we entered Cumberland Bay, at the back of which the settlement of Grytviken lurks, the waters reverted to millpond stillness, and we could start to see the Grytviken government buildings on King Edward Point

and the settlement itself.

As I’ve said before, Grytviken is the centre of government for the island of South Georgia, which was the first whaling station on the island, established in 1904 by Carl Anton Larsen, a Norwegian who realised there was an enormous fortune to be made from whaling.  Up to that point, the island, which was claimed for King George III in 1775 by James Cook, had been a centre for sealing – fur seals were killed for their pelts, and elephant seals for their blubber.

As I’ve already mentioned, South Georgia operates a very stringent biosecurity policy, and Grytviken is the centre of government for the island; the already-high focus on biosecurity is particularly keen here.  So we experienced an iron fist in a velvet glove.  The glove was operated by Deidre

a nice Scottish lady from the South Georgia Heritage Trust who spent 15 minutes extolling the wonders of South Georgia and particularly the work of the Heritage Trust, whose fundraising has been critical to transforming the area from an ecological disaster to an ecosystem in recovery. And it was, indeed, fundraising for this very worthwhile charity which was clearly to the fore in her messages to us. We took away a sponsorship form from her colleague Bodil (also Scottish) and a determination to support the Trust in some way or other (see later).  The iron fist was the inspection we underwent before we were allowed on to the Zodiacs.  To be as sure as possible that this would not reveal any shortcomings in Hondius’s biosecurity measures, there were staff performing extra checks on people before the inspector got to them.

All of us disembarking on the first Zodiac were checked (we don’t know if those disembarking from the second shell door were also checked). The inspector was cheerful, but brisk, and raised no alarms in checking us over as we went through (and in fact, Pippa revealed later that we had had a 100% clear record, meaning that future inspections would need only to check a smaller sample of passengers).

Off we went to the shore where we were able to wander around some areas of the settlement – not all; some areas were closed to us because of the risk of avian influenza. But we were able to see a lot, and to note the extent to which nature was Taking Back Control over the years.

One had to be careful in walking around, as there were fur seals everywhere, including on the paths.  I nearly stepped on one little one as I was taking a photo; vigilance was very necessary.

So, what’s in the settlement?  As you can see from the above, there’s an old whaling ship, and, on the right is the museum, which used to be the station manager’s villa, with its fragments of whalebone and other items on the lawn outside.

Just behind the flagpole are some pots.

These are the old “trying” pots which were used for boiling up seal blubber, and were what Larsen first saw when he made ground here. It is these pots which give the place its name; Grytviken is the Norwegian for “Pot Cove”.

This nugget, and many others, were provided on our short but informative guided tour, which was led by yet another Scottish lady, whose name, shamefully, I have forgotten. (It seems that there’s some kind of a morphic resonance between South Georgia and Scotland, possibly because of similarity of climate?)

The old machinery used for processing the whales is a major presence across the site,

but regrettably we weren’t allowed to wander around amongst it.  Our guide pointed out that originally these machines would have been housed in buildings, but the preservation work on the site had them removed, as they were (a) unsafe and (b) toxic, particularly riddled with asbestos.

Other surviving buildings include the post office and shop

where one could buy all sorts of things, including, unsurprisingly, stamps, both ornamental, such as Platinum Jubilee or Coronation sets, or functional, to be put on the postcards that one can also buy there to send home or wherever. (“Next post”, a sign proudly announced, “March”).

The museum

has all sorts of items of interest, both historical, to do with whaling and that Shackleton chappie, and also the wildlife.

Above you can see an example of a leopard seal’s skull with its canines and filtering molars.  There was also a pleasing variation on the “Do Not Touch” you see so often in museums the world over:

a seal skin, stroking which gives a very good idea of why they were so sought after.

There were also some quirky exhibits in the museum’s retail area

and both post office and museum gave us the chance to donate to the island and its trust by buying a couple of things as well as making an explicit donation on the “Tap to Donate” pad so thoughtfully placed by the exit.

Another important building is this

which houses a replica of the James Caird, the little boat that you’ll have read about in previous posts, so I won’t bore you again with its story; it also, importantly, houses

the only public toilets on the island.

Inside the James Caird hut

gives an impactful insight into the stuff of which Shackleton and his men were made.  Remember, there were six men on this boat, which means that five had to be below decks

alongside ballast rocks and other supplies.  On the wall are Shackleton’s makeshift crampons

amid a plethora of other items pertinent to the momentous journey this little boat undertook.

Finally, there is the church

constructed in Norway, then dis-assembled, transported and reconstructed here.  It wasn’t apparently, used so much as a church as a cinema.  Inside

it’s well-maintained, and includes the lending library that was in use at the time.

It has two bells, which punters can ring.  I did (I have the video) and it gave me quite an insight into the skill of church bell ringing.

Outside the church, the guides from Hondius were organising a toast to “The Boss” (yes, Shackleton – difficult to get away from the man), led by Saskia

using his own blend of whisky (now made by Mackinlay’s according to an original recipe specified by the man himself, apparently).  Normally, this toast would have been conducted at his grave in the cemetery, but we were not allowed to go there.  Instead, we took a look from the shore as part of the Zodiac ride back to Hondius.

Shackleton’s headstone is the big grey one in the centre of the cemetery.

For all its dark past, the Grytviken settlement makes for an emotional visit, possibly because it shows that humans are beginning to pay more respect not only to the past but to the environment.  In any case, it was an absorbing morning, and we feel privileged to have been able to visit the site.

In the afternoon, the skipper took Hondius gingerly towards the afternoon’s site – gingerly because of the care with which he had to navigate.

The location for the afternoon was a nearby cove called Godthul.  Ursula was our guide for a cruise which was to be followed by a landing.

The cruise took us by more thundering great lumps of ice

some of which had penguins on.

It was engaging watching them leap out of the water on to the ice – not always, it has to be said, successfully. (Yes, I have video.)

The cruise didn’t reveal too much in the way of new wildlife, except for one fur seal which was leucistic – a very pale colour, but not albino. They’re apparently known as “blondies”.

After the cruise, we landed at a cove whence we could wander along the beach and/or take a hike to either a penguin colony or a freshwater lake.  The hike was through tussock grass. The lower part of it was up a steep bank (for an idea of scale, the tussocks are 2-3 feet in diameter and rather taller than they are wide).

It was at times difficult to see where to put one’s feet, the tussocks concealed some unsuspected deep gaps and holes, and there were some large steps to be scrambled up. Once you’d conquered the first, tough, part, the going got easier as it went across mossy ground.

We eschewed the penguin colony on the basis that we’d already seen quite a few gentoos by now, and instead headed to the glacial lake

where there were just a couple of penguins loitering nearby.

I’m not quite sure what penguins make of fresh water, but there they were.  On the way down, we got a decent view over the cove and Hondius.

As usual we were enjoined to follow the track laid down by the guides, who set up red poles to guide visitors.  Even so, to avoid stressing the local wildlife, one still had to extemporise occasionally.

And so ended the day’s entertainment, apart from the usual daily recap from Pippa, which was, as ever, well-attended by everyone, agog to see what was planned for the next day.

That plan turned out to be a bit of a gamble, since the lack of an internet meant that even she and the ship’s crew didn’t have an up-to-date wind forecast.  The dice were loaded in favour of decent weather, but, as with all random events like weather and dice, there was the chance of an unexpected outcome. But the plan was to go to Fortuna Bay, the place where (him again) Shackleton actually reached the coast after crossing the island from Peggotty Bluff – it’s next to Stromness so he could hear the whistle from the whaling station there to guide him to what passed for civilisation in those days in these parts. In order to reduce the chance of birds choosing to land on the ship, something which requires a special procedure to be followed to ensure that they take off safely again, we headed out to sea to make the short hop northwards along the coast from Godthul. There is the chance of rougher seas, therefore; with luck, it won’t be too rough, the conditions will stay calm and we’ll have a good final day on South Georgia at Fortuna Bay.