The 7th Continent

 I had always pictured Rio as the Goa of South America, only much bigger and much better known globally. As the largest city in Brazil,  and lovely beaches ,it didnt disappoint. We flew in from Iguacu  as the Brazilians spell it, on the evening of the 5th March. We were to be there for  3 full days  from 6th to 8th March and board our return flight to the US on the 9th March. The carnival winners parade was on the 8th march evening. We thought it tied in very well with the rest of our program. We had prebooked a city tour on the 6th and a backstage peek at the carnival preparations on the 7th, giving us some time to explore Rio. We had booked a hotel right on the Copacabana beach. Frankly we may have been better off staying a lane or two away, for the price we paid for a  beach facing room. More so, during carnival time. And we were on the city trip the next day. On the agenda, was the Sugar Loaf mountain, Christ the Redeemer, lunch and few other sundry sig...

 Iguazzu Falls , a UNESCO world heritage sight, is the largest waterfall system in the world. It has 275 separate cascades ranging from 69 meters to 82 meters. It is on the border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. but the waters fall on the Brazil and the Argentinian side.  The water flows from the Brazil side, mainly from the rainforest area and the falls into the 2 countries. Iguazzu has a flow rate of 61600 cu.ft of water per second. We did have a rough time reaching Iguazzu due to bad weather in BA. The waiting area was overflowing and we had no idea about the flight delays. They had only one display board for about 20 gates  and with everyone crammed around it , it was a tough  time I have seen Niagara too ,and even though Niagara is supposed to have a higher water flow rate, the spectacle here is quite majestic. Argentina , from where we approached first, is a bus ride away. We had to walk a fair distance and they had walkways over the falls , giving us a a gr...

 We left the Antarctic area on the evening of 26th Feb and were scheduled to dock on the 28th Feb in Ushuaia by 6 pm. The 26th night was the worst of the Drakes. On the forward journey we were going in and out of troughs and highs, but the return was a but different. We were being being buffeted sideways and  and we could feel this. I am usually a sound sleeper but I  woke up a few times in the night by the ship yawing sideways. I had no means of knowing what the Beaufort scale showed in the night but the morning was at 6. I am pretty sure it must have been close to 8 in the night. Everyone was experienced by now and had patched up and taken tablets  the evening before and the morning  showed reasonable attendence at breakfast. But we could see all the balconies to passenger cabins on our deck 3 was wet and slippery.  This was on 27th night after the worst of Drakes was over. You van see Beaufort reading at 6. Wind speed at 65 kmph The day was spent in retu...