South America Blog: Day 3

Sunday, January 17 (Embarkation)

Somehow, my BlackBerry alarm got set for low volume, and Shelley and I both slept through the 6:15 alarm. When I miraculously awoke on my own, it was 7:43, and we had 17 minutes to be down at the lobby ready to leave in the tour bus! Shelley hadn’t even packed the night before. Somehow we made it with a few minutes to spare, but I fear we are already branded as the habitually late people! We’ll have to work on that perception throughout this cruise.

It was national election day in Chile, which means virtually everything was closed, with the metal shutters drawn down over the windows. The park we were supposed to visit was also closed, so our tour guide had to improvise. He took us to see the 14^th century Santiago Cathedral (huge!), and the Manera (government HQ), where a marching band was performing. Stray dogs and cats are rampant throughout the city. Most didn’t seem mangy, so we welcomed the accompaniment. In Santiago, it’s often difficult to determine where the sidewalk ends and the street starts, as they are paved in the same manner, and there is usually little or no demarcation. I almost blithely walked into oncoming traffic a couple of times.

With little to do, we headed off early for the 2 hour bus ride to Valparaiso. The drive was fairly uneventful, and the scenery was OK. There were plenty of large hills/little mountains on the way. Eventually, scrub brush gave way to trees, most of which were evergreen. It was a little bizarre to see the odd palm tree interspersed with the conifers. 

To fill time, our tour guide Carlo just started talking about the country in general, and took any questions we had. Per Carlo, Chile has a wide gap between the upper class and lower class. Peruvians come to Chile to work as labourers. Cubans come to Chile to work as doctors. Easter Islanders disparage all non-natives, and restrict travel to the island, which is OK because the island is boring and has no trees. The Chilean public education system sucks, but the subway is nice. Apparently, Chileans work the 3^rd most of any country in the world (which I kind of doubt), but the most enlightening revelation of all was why. “You would think we Chileans could accomplish more given how many hours we work, but unfortunately we are incompetent.”

To kill some more time, we had a quick informal bus tour of Valparaiso before heading to the pier. There is very little flat land in the city, so most of the buildings are built on uneven ground, often seemingly hanging from the sides of hills. If there is ever a serious earthquake, these guys are probably SOL.   The city has already been rebuilt 4 times! I was deeply disappointed to discover that a ferreteria sells hardware, not ferrets.

Finally, we embarked on the Celebrity Infinity in mid-afternoon. It is one big-ass boat. Since this is our belated honeymoon, we splurged for a nice cabin on the uppermost Sky Deck with a balcony, complimentary daily fruit and hors d'oeuvres, and a little extra space. 2 bottles of champagne were waiting for us (read: Shelley) on arrival, one of them courtesy of our hosts, Larry Rand and Barbara Van Alen. 

After grabbing a quick buffet lunch, we did some exploring of the ship. Since we are big kids, the first thing we checked out was the arcade. We were disappointed to find just a handful of video games and no pinball machines. I was also disappointed to find that there was no Lido Deck. Doesn’t every cruise ship have to have one of those? We also met our stateroom attendant for the cruise, who is appropriately named... Cruz. 

I found Mark Berg and Verna Richards Berg in the small games room playing table tennis. I obliged Mark for some rallying practice. Despite his unassuming appearance, Mark is an expert table tennis player, officially rated around 2000, which is roughly equivalent to 1600 in Scrabble. To help even things out, Mark played with his right hand (he normally plays lefthanded). Even with his opposite hand, he probably would’ve beat me handily if we were keeping score.   I had never talked much to Mark in the past, and also found out he’s a huge sports fan, with deep trivia knowledge in a variety of sports. He’s even been to CFL football games and AHL hockey games!

After dinner, we hung out for a while in one of the ship's lounges where a live band (Vital Sign) was playing. We were literally the only people there, so we chatted them up a bit. One of the guys is from Calgary. We'll surely be back a few times during the cruise. Afterwards, we went to the bar and Shelley purchased a water package and frozen drinks package for the duration of the cruise. You pay a flat amount per day for unlimited beverages within the particular category. The water package was a good idea, but Shelley is already regretting the frozen drinks package. You basically have to drink at least 3 frozen drinks per day to make it worthwhile. Fortunately, non-alcoholic frozen drinks are included, so she can sneak a few to me here and there. The total damage for both packages was about US$500, but since Shelley spent about US$1,500 on drinks the last time she went on a cruise, she says it is still a good deal. I remain skeptical...

The ship left port at 9:00 p.m., and our journey began!