There is no better introduction to Buenos Aires than a stay at the Palacio Duhau, or Park Hyatt, Buenos Aires. The 5-Star hotel is located in the Recoleta, an upper-end residential neighborhood known for its elegance, shopping, fine dining, and beautiful European style architecture. It is also known for the impressive Recoleta Cemetery, but more on that later!
[Read more…] about A Stay at the Fabulous Palacio Duhau-Park Hyatt in Buenos Aires!
In Antarctica there were incredible sightings of Orcas! Have you ever seen an Orca? I’m not talking about the poor captives of Sea World and other marine parks, but killer whales in the wild. I had seen Orcas off in the distance, but in Antarctica I had a bird’s eye view! We sighted Orcas a few times, but on the last day in the Antarctic Circle, in the Ross Sea, we ran into either several pods, or one large pod. They traveled alone, together, and we witnessed a hunt involving several at the same time. *( I did feel sorry for the penguin they caught, though!)
The Orca, or Killer Whale, is a member of the Cetacean Family. There are two types of Cetaceans, toothed and baleen. Dolphins, Killer Whales, and porpoises are toothed Cetaceans. They are a part of our family of mammals. Millions of years ago their ancestor lived on land, but eventually spent their entire lives in the water. They adapted to the marine environment, but they breathe oxygen, are warm blooded, and give live birth, and nurse, their young.
There are different types of Orca, and those populations are currently being studied. The scientists aboard the Lindblad NatGeo Explorer discussed types A, AA, and C. I have no idea which Type or Types I photographed, I only know it was wondrous to see them. Ever passenger on the ship was on the bow!
Did you know that no Orca has ever killed a human in the wild? In captivity, yes. They also do not display the fallen over dorsal fin that many of their brethren do in captivity, so well shown in the documentary, Blackfish. It has never been seen in the ocean. I watched these magnificent creatures, and felt such sorrow for captured Orcas like Tilikum, who must have been mad with grief, with claustrophobia, and with loneliness. Orcas are very social, have their own families with whom they spend their entire lives, their own language and forms of behavior. Orca sons often spend their entire lives in matriarchal pods, with their mothers. For an Orca to be separated from family, from hunting, from migrating…is absolute hell for the animal. Tilikum had had two years of life in the sea with his pod before his capture. I hate to say it, but I feel sure that Tilikum would rather have been dead than in a small pool, performing tricks for the amusement of humans, mourning for his family for his entire life. And yes, of course, I have seen dolphin and whale shows. But no more, and not for a very long time. Never again.
It is a quandary though, as we want appreciation for these magnificent animals, and how to do that for the majority of humans, who will never actually see one in the wild? I can’t say that I know the answer, for any animal. I just know in my heart, to cage a wild animal is surely wrong. But is it necessary? I’m not sure. What I do know is that I am so fortunate, and so privileged, to see animals in the wild, to see other cultures, to travel the world. I am grateful into my very marrow for the life and experiences I have had, and will have. Travel truly does gift one with new eyes, and new perspectives.
Fab Foto Friday and the March of the Adelies!
The March of the Adelies! Penguins are an absolute delight. ALL penguins. I must say, though, the Adelies were the most delightful of the delightfuls! They are one of three Brushtail Penguins species found in the Antarctic, and Adelies are not found anywhere else. The penguins were discovered in 1840 by scientists on a French Antarctic expedition led by Jules Dumont d’Urville. D’Urville named southern Antarctica, or a part of it, Adélie Land, after his wife, Adéle. Scientists Jacques Hombron and Charles Jacquinot also called the penguins “Adelies”.
[Read more…] about Day 6 in Antarctica and the March of the Adelies!
Part Two:
Antarctica is amazing in so many different ways Weddell Seals and Awesome Humpback Whales are a part of it. The trip felt breathlessly exciting…just going to Antarctica is a mind adventure in and of itself. The seventh continent for me, the mysterious White Continent! Seeing animals, is for me, the most incredible part of almost any trip and Antarctica has plentiful life both above, and below, the sea. On Day 5, when we were looking at the Blue Whale bones, I was made aware that two large Weddell Seals were snoozing nearby. I took a seat by the bones, as close to the seals as I could get without endangering myself or startling them, and just sat quietly, watching them. Of course, I photographed them as well, obviously!
Ever heard of a Weddell Seal? I think they are the prettiest of the Antarctic seals…at least, the ones I saw, which were Crabeaters (who don’t eat crab), Elephant Seals (huge!), Leopard Seals and Weddells. I know there are fur seals, but I didn’t see any of them. Seals are different from sea lions though they are related…seals do not have ear flaps, they can’t “walk” around on their flippers like sea lions can, but the most beautiful difference is their vocalizations. Sea Lions bark, Weddell seals almost sing. Their vocalizations are very pretty, almost like song. A sweet difference. Check out some sea lions!
After Port Lockroy the expedition headed toward Wilhelmina Bay, named for Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands, who reigned from 1890 to 1948. It is a 15 mile wide bay located between Reclus Peninsula and Cape Anna, along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. It was discovered by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-99 led by Adrien de Gerlache. To say this bay has spectacular scenery is an understatement. It is a popular destination for humpback whales because of its rich plankton rich upwells. We were not disappointed! We saw them quite a few times, but in the Bay, they came very close to the ship. I was on the bow, photographing them, and they actually went under the bow, coming up on the other side. This was the closest I’d ever seen their blowholes, their throats, and their blows! It was truly magical.
Two of the Humpbacks stayed very close together as you can see from the photographs! The whole ship seemed to be on the bow, either taking photographs or making loud “oooooo” and “ahhhh” sounds. Dinner that evening was loud with chatter about the Humpbacks and people running around showing off their photos. A very exciting day for the entire ship.
PART ONE:
Yes, day 5 was the most exciting yet! On the fifth morning we visited Port Lockroy, used as an anchorage by whalers and known as secret Base A as the British used it to monitor German shipping movements during WWII. Operation Tabarin, named for a famous Paris nightclub, for reasons I don’t really know. Maybe the group who named it loved the nightclub? The “base” is now a museum, and four people reside there for the four months of summer. The museum was interesting, and the store was a pretty standard souvenir store, but the two amazing reasons to stop here are the whale bones, and the Gentoo Penguin colonies.
Whaling was one of the main reasons countries sent expeditions to the Southern Ocean, and the remnants of this cruel practice are very evident. The bones are bigger than one can imagine…we saw Blue Whale bones and were just stunned into silence. Did you know Japan still hunts in this ocean? They hunt Minke Whales, who are very endangered, and they say it is for “scientific research”. Bullshit, of course. An International Court of Justice ordered Japan to stop the practice of hunting whales, and they stopped for one year. Japan is back at it. (Sea Shepherd is an organization trying to stop it.) I want to stress that whales are very, very intelligent mammals with languages and social interactions. Some whale groups have culture, it is not only humans who transmit norms and behaviors and language. Having a social culture is a sign of extremely high intelligence and depth of emotion. Hunting these animals is criminal.
Gentoo Penguins have a lot of personality and since summer is nesting season, there are a lot of them! Moms, Dads, chicks and fledglings are everywhere. Note the nests of stone, built by the dad. If his nest isn’t pretty awesome, a female won’t want to mate with him. Male penguins have to work hard, but sometimes they cheat, taking stones from another nest! Then the squawking begins!
The perfect ending to a perfect day was kayaking with my friend Annie, watching penguins “porpoising” and seeing gigantic leopard seals.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of Day 5!
Guest Post by Christine Heenan, Clarendon Group Inc.
I met Christine on my trip to Antarctica in January 2017, and she certainly fits the description of an Amazing Woman! A Communications and Public Relations Expert who has worked in the White House, at Harvard University, is a Huffington Post Contributor, and an adviser to the Gates Foundation, her accomplishments are extraordinary. I am thrilled to have her as a guest contributor on Travels with Tam!
Sea water doesn’t freeze at 32 degrees like fresh water, so can remain liquid while even colder, and the Southern Ocean in Antarctica is often colder than any other body of water humans normally encounter. These little facts from our naturalist guide were chilling to contemplate – literally – as I stood freezing in a bikini top and borrowed boxers in the mud room of the National Geographic Explorer, near the front of the line with my best friend Lynn as we prepared to walk out of the ship, onto a platform, and then plunge into the icy waters off Antarctica.
I love to swim, especially in the ocean, and as a New Englander I swim in water many Floridians wouldn’t dip a toe in. But still. The Antarctic? Really?
Really. Lynn and I met 27 years ago, at ages 22 and 23, logging too-long hours at a management consulting firm where we’d both gone to work right out of college. Staring at slide presentations and crunching numbers at the office til 2 AM, we’d do cartwheels in the hallways to keep ourselves awake and amused, punch drunk from too much data and too little sleep. We were both hard working and good humored and independent, and became friends as well as colleagues.
In March of 1992, seven months after she turned 25 and two months before I did, we took a three-week adventure vacation to Australia. 25 years later, our “Thelma and Louise, Australia” tour remains one of my most memorable vacations ever. We were fueled by fun and fearlessness in a country that could adopt “fun and fearless” as its motto: we snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef, rode horses bareback in Brisbane, climbed Ayers Rock, drove our four-wheel drive jeep through rivers thick with estuarian crocodiles, bungee jumped in the Daintree Rainforest. We kept a shared journal, taking turns capturing our various escapades, laughing aloud and reading to each other as we wrote. We had a blast.
Five years later, as I was cutting up chicken nuggets for my two-year-old and battling fatigue and morning sickness with my second pregnancy, I’d often relive various aspects of our trip in my mind, reminding myself that I was once young and worldly and brave, while no longer feeling I was any of those things. Lynn was still single and traveling the world, and we no longer worked together nor lived near one another, so our visits were reduced to once or twice a year, almost always including a December visit to join me and my growing family in picking out and decorating our Christmas tree. I remember distinctly the year Lynn brought with her a dozen beautiful woven basket ornaments she had gotten us while trekking in Nepal. I looked at those mysterious red baskets on our tree and thought: I used to travel and hike and explore. I loved my family and home, and wasn’t looking to trade places, but I did feel wistful for the adventurer in me I feared I’d lost.
Fast forward twenty more years, to January of 2017. Lynn has turned 50 in August, I am staring down 50 six months from now, in May. We’d decided a few years back that we’d celebrate our 50th birthdays by reprising our adventure from a quarter century before by joining a NatGeo expedition to Antarctica. Why Antarctica? When we’d planned it, we assumed it would be our seventh continent: I’d already been to five and she’d been to six, so touching down on our final unexplored continent seemed a fun and fitting way to welcome 50 (as it happens, I’ve yet to go to Africa, so I still have one to go).
The 12-day trip has been remarkable in a number of ways, but mostly as a reinforcer of three important life lessons:
First, nothing connects you to your essential self like getting out of your element.
On this trip to the bottom of the world I have been largely disconnected from the Internet, and in a part of the world wholly different than anywhere I have ever been. The result? Vivid and memorable dreams, thought provoking conversations, and lots of self-exploration. It’s hard to get that at home. It just is.
Second, true friendships don’t fade.
Women’s lives have distinct chapters, and each chapter can tax you and fortify you in different ways. Families and careers can immerse you in ways that leave too little time to nurture friendships, but when you come up for air, your true friends will be there, and you won’t have missed a beat. My life and Lynn’s have flipped since the days of her Nepalese trekking – I am now an empty nester with a job requiring lots of travel, and she runs her growing non-profit alongside raising Kyra and Eliot, 8 and 6, with her husband Brian. Remarkably, we once again live in the same area, but weeks and occasionally months can pass without us managing in person, unhurried time. Yet from the minute we connected at the Miami airport for our flight to Buenos Aires, we were the same closely connected adventure-seeking duo we’d been a quarter century before, tasting Malbec and taking tango lessons during our 24 hours in Buenos Aires, and doing polar yoga and penguin filled treks aboard a ship full of naturalists, expedition leaders, and fascinating fellow passengers on our expedition. If anything, the intervening years and their ups and downs have only deepened our friendship, even though there were years we saw very little of each other. True friendships don’t fade.
And the final lesson: age really is a mindset.
We’ve met people on this trip in their eighties who say they are doing Antarctica now since it would likely be harder “once they get old.” One morning over breakfast, an expedition leader named Jimmy was telling us about his 93-year-old grandfather, who was teaching himself to Skype so he could keep up with his world traveling, deep diving, shark tagging grandson. It led to a discussion about what keeps people young, and another guide named Katie said there is a Hindu word that translates roughly to “beginner’s mindset” – the notion of approaching life as new and unexplored, and adopting the humility and eagerness of a beginner even as you gain years and mastery. I love that notion: beginner’s mindset.
As I sat there shivering on the platform, I noticed that behind us in line were Marylin and Larry, a couple from Dallas we’d met on our first day. Marylin was 70, and Larry 67. She’d had some trouble with sea sickness on the route out across the Drake’s Passage, but it kept her down for less than a day, and here they were, bathing suit clad, ready to jump in with the rest of us crazies. Age is a mindset.
When our turn came, Lynn and I clasped hands, smiled for the cameras, and jumped in. It seems a fitting way to face 50: plunging in with a smile, seasoned, but also a beginner.
