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Well here it is ... another penguin post from Antarctica. It's the final post I'll make about penguins, and in fact the final post about my super phenomenal experience on our 12-day cruise to Antarctica, which I leave with you just as I depart for a very different southern environment -- back to Africa, back to elephants and lions and all the safari animals, whom I love dearly, but I think at the end of the day, I'm going to have to go with penguins as my number one all-time favorite animal to be around and to photograph. (even if an awful lot of my photos didn't turn out so well) (and even if I have to breathe through my mouth sometimes to block out the stench) So this last post is titled "For the Love of Penguins" in recognition of that. There's no theme to this selection. Just some more pics and depictions of penguin life that I like for one reason or another. Haven't seen my other penguins and can't get enough? See Part 1 and Part 2 of the Penguin Diaries

There's something special about lone penguins. There's something special about penguin pairs. There's something special about penguin clubs. Let's see ... is there some kind of penguin number that is not special? Maybe clusters of 13?? I don't know. There's even something special about hundreds of them trilling, commuting and pooping in their metropolis colonies.  

If I were forced upon some horrific pain to choose one of the above as the ultimate penguin number, I guess I'd have to say, "two." Because it's a compromise between the lone penguin and any other higher group number. So the charming individuality shines through comparably with the entertainment value of penguin interactions. I guess. I don't know. Honestly, I'm just making junk up to pretend I have a method to my posting mayhem and madness. haha. So here ... just please enjoy some penguin pairs. 

This chinstrap pair was making their way along the volcanic beach together, the one tagging along just behind the other like a little brother saying, "Hey, I'm coming, too!" On the appropriately named "Penguin Island."   

Penguin buddies at Mikkelsen Harbor. I always like a good reflection. 

Penguins, as I've already mentioned a bunch of times, are so caption-able. Clearly in this captured moment below, the one penguin is asking the other for directions, and he's pointing with his flipper where to make a right turn. 

I like it that the penguins are not species-ist. They all hang out together just fine ... such as this gentoo and adélie, interested in the same thing over their shoulders. Oh wait ... except the adélie seems to have spied me! 

But probably the most adorable penguin pairs are little twins in their parents' nest. Gentoo penguin females lay two eggs each time they breed. They're incubated for a little over a month before hatching. It was about as common to see a nest with two chick as with one in the colony of gentoo penguins at Yankee Harbor. Supposedly the two eggs hatch within only a few days of each other. There were clearly a number of chicks who were still awaiting the arrival of their sibling, but here are some more shots of sibling chicks. All I can say is, what a joyous treat our last day with penguins to find the colony brimming with little fuzzball babies. 

Here's another bird pair we had the privilege to see on Penguin Island ... the southern giant petrel. It's hard to get a sense of scale from the photos, but I assure you their wingspan is safely within the definition of "giant." I thought the white one looked somehow almost ethereal against the blue sky. 

I haven't yet talked about the skuas -- the sinister birds that stalk the penguin colonies looking for unattended penguin eggs and chicks to snatch and dine on.

Here you see one swooping in (on the right) toward the rocks to scan for a meal. 

Although penguins win the Oscar for anthropomorphic expressions and drama, this skua couple put on a good show. The one on the right is clearly getting a royal chewing-out by the one on the left and has had about enough, "Alright alright already! I get it; shut up! Leave me alone!" 

It was very difficult (at least for me) to catch any good photos of the penguins swimming. It was so fun when they swam around our kayaks, flying out of the water in little pods. Here's one I got from the ship deck.

Whenever they congregate in calm, quiet groups (i.e. not stretching their necks and calling loudly into the air), they often make me think of some kind of gentleman's club, haha, like they're smoking cigars and drinking brandy and discussing the latest in politics. Or that smaller groups have gotten together "to discuss this in committee ..." whatever "this" might be. I think in the first pic below, someone said, "Check out that broad over there." Half of them are gawking and the others are like, "Whatever. She's not my type." 

Some of the most charismatic penguins are those who stand out alone in a crowd. There is pretty much always one of them in any group -- somebody standing the opposite direction of everybody else, or looking straight at you when nobody else is, or like this adélie below standing alone. The look on its face is terribly funny to me ... kind of confused and quizzical.  

But the adélies often have the most comical expressions, in my estimation. Their stark eyes and sunken cheeks I think help form their unique expressions, accentuating their beaks and eyes. 

I've mentioned in the other two penguin posts how amusing the penguin highways are to watch. Just the fact that they're truly like little commuter roads similar to what people use is funny for these particularly anthropomorphic creatures. It's one of the most endearing aspects of their lives. So here are few more pics of their commuting life along the penguin highways. 

Gotta look closely to see the little penguin head just sticking up above the surface of the snow, carefully making its way past a seal waiting like a troll on the highway. I envision that the penguin is carrying a little briefcase with him. 

Off-roading. 

One thing particularly fun about holding my finger down on the shutter button on "continuous" shooting mode was seeing the sequences that emerged afterward like those flip-books we (people my age) had as kids or a stop-motion animation or something. Even if the photos come out unfocused and ill-framed, it doesn't matter, the event captured is still ... well, usually hilarious. Sorry, penguins, but everything you do just makes me laugh. For example, here is a sequence of a gentoo penguin biffing it as he's cruising a highway on Brown Bluff.

 And he's back up! Like nothing happened. 

And as we've already learned, all this commuting between their rocky nests inland and the ocean waters is to feed themselves so they can produce, incubate, hatch, feed and raise their chicks during the short summers in Antarctica. These little fuzzballs .....

..... will grow into these charismatic characters. I have to say I love the gentoos the most. They have a certain attitude about them that's just incomparable anywhere else in the animal kingdom with which I'm familiar.  This guy: "I'm a penguin!" I've posted some of these pics on my Facebook page and they've received some excellent captions ... have fun making up your own. :) 

Attitude! I got some good caption suggestions for these, but to me the first penguin is clearly scolding its spouse or child for messing up that rock somehow. "Look here, mister! Just look what you've done. I told you not to make a mess, now clean it up!" And the next penguin thinks he's a total bad-ass. 

But this chinstrap is looking pretty confident with his dapper look. The Sean Connery of penguins? 

The anatomical part of the various Antarctic penguin species that I love most is their feet. Why their feet? Well they do stand out for their size, and especially on the gentoos and adélies with their bright color. But their endearing quality is the sound they make slapping along on the snow or in the puddles of melted snow. I loved when I'd be looking one direction photographing, and then I would hear the pitter patter of penguin feet coming up behind me, I'd turn around and there they were, stopped behind me or carrying on walking beside me. I'll just never forget that special, unique sound. It fits their character so well. Here are a couple shots showing off those goofy floppy feet. 

Probably the most revealing thing I can say about Antarctica is that I typically do not travel to the same country more than once. There have been exceptions. It's not because I think I've tapped out any one country -- heavens, no, I'm not even close, not even my own country -- it's just that the planet is so huge and there's so much more to sample. I guess I'm a gal who seeks the big picture. So I spend a few weeks in this country and then that country, and then I look at a globe and see how many others there are, and just have a hard time going backward. And if I do revisit a country, I generally see different regions and sights than the first time. However, I would happily repeat this Antarctica trip, even the exact same itinerary. To many people, Antarctica sounds like just a frozen wasteland, but oh my goodness, what silly people. It's truly a remarkable place. 

Iconic Antarctica ... penguin on the floating ice. This fella looks rather forlorn, wondering what happened to his buddies. "Hey guys?" It's sad and comical at the same time. I just want to  pick him up and hug him. Goodbye Antarctica! 

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See more penguins in the Penguin Diaries Part 1

See more penguins in the Penguin Diaries Part 2

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In the little bit of research I did before landing in Buenos Aires to decide what we should do, one recommendation I consistently ran across was a day trip to Colonia del Sacramento a short ferry ride away in Uruguay. (Well, "short" depends on which ferry you take.) So after a couple days in the hustle and bustle of busy Buenos Aires, we took the early morning fast ferry from Puerto Madero to spend a very laid-back, relaxing day strolling the streets of Colonia del Sacramento. We didn't have a map to tell us where to go to see the old colonial town center, so we just kind of wandered around a bit, but it was not difficult to stumble upon. 

On our wandered-way winging it to the town center, we strolled down lovely tree-lined cobblestone streets in a kind of tree tunnel.

I had read somewhere that green Austral parrots made some of these trees their home. I wondered if they would be easy to spot up in the green trees. But there was no doubt when we came upon them because of the racket they made with their voices! No, unfortunately, they're weren't speaking Spanish, like you might expect a parrot in Uruguay would be, they were speaking Portuguese. The town was, after all, established by the Portuguese in 1680 as a defensive outpost. I know very little of this language, so the only thing I could really understand from them was "bom dia" ("good day"). hahaha. Kidding, of course. Nah, just a lot of bird language. I didn't get pictures of them but I was excited to find them. (I did manage a couple shots later in Argentina, in Patagonia.) 

Eventually we saw signs on the road pointing us toward the historical central town square. Following those, along the way we walked through some interesting abandoned buildings. I like it when people take decay and turn it into an artistic canvas. Very common to see these days in my urban travels, and I approve of the evolution of graffiti.  

Of course evolution is a slow process ... The vines and bushes may get the last word on this building.

A street in transition ... further down on the left you can see it kind of alternates being traditional slogan-ist graffiti and colorful contributions. 

The historic colonial center is quite small, arranged outside a military fort around a central town square. There are a surprising number of houses (eight) that have been turned into little museums around this square, portraying the history of the area and the daily lives of early inhabitants with various artifacts on display. A visitor can buy a reasonably priced all-inclusive ticket to see all the ones that might be open that day. At the ruins of the old city fort, we climbed up a modern lighthouse for a nice view. 

A meandering walk through the streets is at least as entertaining as a careful tour of a museum. The old city center seems to have decided that antique cars will be the signature "statues" along their cobblestone streets. I don't know the history behind this, when or why people started putting antique cars out and either spiffing them up to run or re-purposing them into planters. But it's a unique feature that draws the tourists' attention. 

As we had left the dawn of winter in Colorado to come to South America, the profusion of brightly colored flowering bougainvillea trees was a delight that I particularly basked in. 

This spectacular beauty below was in the yard of a house that doubled as an art gallery. Can you spot the kitty on the tree roots near the back? (try opening pic in a new tab). The gallery appropriately had kitties lounging on the furniture. I think they belong in a gallery as much as they do in a bookshop. 

There are numerous cafes around the town square in which to enjoy a pleasant lunch and beer or the highly-caffeinated national drink, yerba maté. Erik was keen to try the traditional method of drinking it because he drinks maté chai and tea at home all the time, but in leafless mixes (like the chai or berry-flavored drinks, etc.)  We stepped into a cute little tea shop and sat on the back patio, where, similar to the antique cars on the streets, they had re-purposed old kitchen appliances into planters and surfaces for flower pots.

This is the traditional set-up for yerba maté tea -- a cup, which is typically made from a type of gourd or other natural material, full of loose tea leaves, which comes with a thermos of hot water and a long, metal kind of straw with a strainer in it to suck the water from the leaf-laden cup. And by laden, I mean literally full of leaves. You can only pour a little water in at a time because of the density of leaves, hence the thermos to keep the water hot. You let the water settle a bit down through the leaves and then stick the straw in and suck up yerba-infused water, and then pour in more. It is not something you can slam ... rather, a slow and ritualistic process. We saw people walking along the streets with this whole little kit in their hands, drinking as they walked. And every single souvenir shop in the city sells these kits, and the gourds are usually engraved with various designs. 

But we capped off our pleasant day in this town with a stop at a pub closer to the ferry terminal to kill time with some beer until our scheduled departure. We sat at a table on the sidewalk and made friends with the urban domestics. Erik made a particularly close pal with this sweet little dog. 

So, I would echo the sentiments that I read and pass on the recommendation to take a day trip to Colonia del Sacramento if you have the time while visiting Buenos Aires. There is a lot to do in Buenos Aires, but it makes for a pleasant interlude in city life and bustle.

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As I was putting together my previous post on ice in the Southern Ocean, I realized that half of my favorite photos depicting interesting icebergs and noteworthy landscapes came from this one zodiac cruise in Cierva Cove. So I decided to dedicate a full post just to this one experience. I don't really have much text to go with it, not a whole lot to say that isn't self-explanatory, or a pointless list of adjectives that add little-to-nothing to the photo. Therefore, pretty much just sit back and enjoy the virtual ride ... I present Cierva Cove.  

This was a place with whom my wide-angle lens made particularly good friends. Yet again we had glassy mirror waters and beautiful weather for this expedition. I'm so in love with the dynamic nature of the scenery in terms of color and "mood" -- look one direction and the skies are blue, reflecting on the mirror waters; look the opposite and it's a dark cloud-covered sky whose waters are subsequently that beautiful gray and even black that compliments the ice so splendidly. I have to say, the black waters were my favorite.  

While the photo just above is one of my very favorites from the trip, I think this photo below is pretty cool because it shows simultaneously both the bright blue water underneath the blue sky on the right and the dark water underneath the clouds on the left, as well as the beautiful aqua color that icebergs usually have just beneath the water's surface. Actually, the more I write about it, the more I like it. Add the snow-covered peaks and you've got pretty much the iconic colors of Antarctica. (missing just the yellow glow as I described in Wilhelmina Bay)

A member of the crew told us that the Norwegian polar explorer, Captain Fridtjof Nansen, could navigate through an ice field by studying the clouds because they reflect the surface below them differently depending on whether they are over open water or over snow and ice. As an explorer in the era of the "Golden Age of Discovery" in the late 19th century, there of course were no GPS or radar instruments to help him. Men admirably navigated the globe using the tools provided by nature herself.  

Cruising around through the ice fields, whether the water be blue or black, often evoked a sense of adventure such as the early explorers must have felt when everything was a vast mystery, so uncharted, and their vessels were so vulnerable to the forces of ice and weather. Little corridors and alleys like these always made me smile with the excitement of wondering what lay on the other side of the corridor. 

 Although the black waters were my favorite, the blue waters, especially when cradling the reflection of a white landscape, were stunning. Especially on the mirror-smooth surface. 

This one is a little difficult to parse at first; I like the scene for its chaotic composition of color and shape, the glassy reflections broken by the bits of ice in the water. 

In spite of the dazzling glassy reflections, the fields of ice in the black water, and all the magical formations, probably my two favorite photos are the two below because I really like the icicles hanging down like a little forest of crystals. (and upside down forest, I guess)

Entering the slush zone!

The different textures of the individual icebergs were perpetually fascinating. And I love that deep, vibrant blue found specially in glacial snow. 

And finally we head back to the Sea Spirit, where a hot towel and cup of hot tea awaits us as we re-board the ship, my eyes still wide with residual wonder.

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Although it's a true statement, it kind of cracks me up. The first sentence in the Eyewitness travel guide for Buenos Aires about the Recoleta Cemetery begins:  "One of the world's great necropolises ..." I just have never really thought of a necropolis as something that would be put on a Top 10 type list of the "world's greatest," even though I love cemeteries, and I have my own favorites. And now Recoleta has vaulted into my undisputed "Number One" slot.

This is a monster article, I'll just confess up front. I cringed while I excluded a lot of photos of mausoleums I liked, and yet, this article contains more photos than any other I've posted in the entire history of my blog. There is so much history and information that could be shared about the cemetery and the people entombed therein, about the structures themselves, etc. I will try to leave most of that to the whim of your own curiosity ... you can look up more information on any of these things on your own if you're interested via the almighty Google. Though I'll try to be slender in text, as I slimmed down the number of candidate photos, you're still left with a rather portly post all the way around. I love photographing doors and locks, so this was a paradise for indulging that love. I can only offer my sympathy for how long it might take you to scroll through, but I hope earnestly that you will take that time, because I really want to share all these photos with you, my dear reader. :) 

We visited the cemetery twice in the one-week span of our visit to Buenos Aires, and after spending several hours each time, we still have not seen the whole cemetery. That might make sense for a place like Highgate in London, which spreads out across 37 acres. But Recoleta is a tightly-packed condensed cemetery in the middle of the city, covering an area of only 14 acres, but with a capacity twice the size of the number of graves in Highgate. How do they pack in so many bodies? 

The "city streets" are lined with above-ground mausoleums shoulder to shoulder, just like the streets of any traditional European city are lined with houses shoulder to shoulder. Many of the mausoleums look just like little houses, with doors and windows. Inside, there can be up to three levels underground to hold caskets that fit into slots on each floor. There can be as many as 30 coffins in a single mausoleum. There are very simple, small ones, and huge ostentatious ones that looks like miniature Greek temples or castles; some made out of stones or bricks, and some out of shiny marble. There are statues of stone and bronze. The interiors of large or wealthy family mausoleums have large sitting rooms with offering tables, stained-glass windows, flower vases, statues, etc., like a mini chapel. 

Ahead lies the vault of a wealthy Argentinian family, Dorrego Ortiz Basualdo, designed by a famous dude in the style of a French chapel. It's considered by some to be one of the highlights of the cemetery, and has even been pronounced "the greatest" (or "grandest") in the cemetery. I don't think it's the largest, but perhaps the most elegant. 

Mausoleums and statues represent a vast spectrum of styles, tastes, traditionalism, and modernism. It's a wonderful feature of the place, that here is absolutely no homogenizing of styles, each family has its unique expression in their eternal resting place.  

I often felt like I was in a fake city such as you'd be walking through in an amusement park or in a movie set. There are even "street signs" to point to some of the most famous mausoleums. And just like you would read on a webpage or book page about the highlights of a city, you'll find lists about Recoleta titled, "outstanding mausoleums," "greatest mausoleums," "top ten features," "famous tombs," etc. Within the cemetery, there are directions to the most famous sights. The street sign below, for example, is pointing toward the mausoleum and obelisk erected for the 7th president of Argentina, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. The following pics are more examples of how it looks to me like a quaint European city, just kind of miniature scale. Notice the modern high-rise in the background ... so you see you the cemetery is literally smack-dab in the middle of the (living) city.

Several presidents lie commemorated here as well as the overwhelmingly beloved "Evita," wife to President Juan Perón from 1946 until her death at the very unfortunate age of 33 in 1952, and who the popular musical, "Evita," is about. She was proclaimed the spiritual leader the nation shortly before her death. But such a saintly titled belies her controversial role. Recoleta was not actually her first resting place, but her remains were eventually moved to her family's mausoleum and now it is perpetually adorned with flowers from admirers. Many visitors to the cemetery beeline straight to her tomb as the only thing they really want to see. It's a very humble mausoleum, walking past it you would never suspect what a famous figure lay resting inside. Many, many famous politicians, military men, writers, scientists, musicians, etc., rest here in coffins inside a mausoleum.

I like it that there are both heroes and villains to modern-day Argentina resting here. Below is the tomb of General Juan Lavalle, who spent a brief and rather ignominious period as governor of Buenos Aires province in 1829. He executed the reigning governor to obtain his post. Later on (after his governorship) he planned a military attack against Buenos Aires with the French until they retracted their support and made peace with the Federalists instead. As a Unitarian, the Federalists were Lavalle's arch enemy. I hate quoting Wikipedia, but this is kind of interesting regarding his death north of Buenos Aires:  "Afraid that his body would be desecrated by the Federales, his followers fled to Bolivia carrying Lavalle's decomposing remains with them. Hurrying over the Humahuaca pass, they finally decided to strip the skeleton by boiling it and, after burying the flesh in an unmarked grave, carry the bones, which are today buried at the Recoleta Cemetery."

The green pillar belongs to one of Argentina's national heroes, Admiral William Brown, the founder of the Argentine Navy. He was actually born in Ireland and grew up in Philadelphia and had quite the action-packed and interesting life. He immigrated to Argentina after being held prisoner of the French in the Napoleonic Wars and retired from maritime life. Then re-entered, endured a series of wars and created the navy in Argentina (also being its first admiral). But, what caught my photographic interest was not the national hero's monument, but the humble stone mausoleum beside it. It belongs to a war veteran as well, General Tomas Guido, who served in the war of independence from Spain. I read that Brown's monument was built partially from the metal of melted down cannons from ships Brown once commanded, and that Guido's stone tomb was built by the hand of his son. 

So I'm bouncing around kind of haphazardly here in organizing (? ummm perhaps not a relevant term) or at least in presenting the photos. Here are a bunch that I like specifically for their doors. Some of them could certainly be mistaken for the doors to a house if you didn't know they belonged instead to a mausoleum. 

I like the next photo (which is simply a zoom in on the one above) for the reflection. It's a little chaotic to figure out. I like the Celtic crosses at the top of the mausoleums poking into the blue sky. There are two reflections of me, one on each side of the doors. The second photo I took as a conscious selfie. 

Are you curious yet about what the inside of these house-like mausoleums looks like? The photo below captures only the ground level and the first below-ground level, but there are stairs leading down to two more levels further down. Each level has several layers of shelves/niches for coffins. Some of the mausoleums were run down and decaying, no longer kept up by family (who may be all dead or moved away by now) nor by the cemetery itself, whose resources help maintain some of the mausoleums ... and the insides could be just as ruined as the outside, with coffins sliding out of their niches. We saw one coffin where the lid had slid partially open and we could see the human bones inside it!! 

Many of the interiors were gorgeous. I especially liked the ones with stained-glass windows. All the photos I took of the interiors were shot through the locked gates protecting open-air mausoleums (no solid doors) or through the bars of glass-less windows in doors. But a lot of the mausoleums you could not see inside at all or else only through glass. Here are some of the stained glass interiors I liked. 

 And here are some examples of statues and carvings and offering tables inside. Some of the items are so beautiful and elaborate, I'm glad this is a tourist destination so they can be seen by a lot of people. 

I like this one, which seems somehow particularly creepy with its door ajar as if to say, "Welcome ..." in a James Earl Jones-type voice. "Won't you come inside." And then of course it's all over: the door slams shut behind you, the coffin lids open and the bones rise up to strangle you. Though, it is Buenos Aires ... I suppose they could simply offer you a glass of malbec. 

I like the following two for how they depict layers of construction and decay. Notice the small cross still in tact in the middle of the first wall? 

I like the plaque below to commemorate the "artista de la guitarra." Such a more musical title for a "guitarist." Many mausoleums have multiple plaques on the outside walls to commemorate the individual inhabitants of the coffins inside. 

I think Recoleta would be one of the best places on earth to have a scavenger hunt! Confined in a relatively small space, yet countless details to which clues could point -- in the plaques, in the doors, in the statues. I wonder how many statues there are in the cemetery, if you were to go count them! 

I like the skyline in this photo below. This is what you see everywhere when you look up in the cemetery -- crosses, angels, men and women, temple tops, minarets and other fanciful adornments. So an important note if you visit the cemetery, always look up! (In addition to every other direction, of course.) 

But stone is not the only statue material. I would venture to guess it might be the most common, but there are loads and loads of bronze sculptures and statues as well. 

Liliana Crociati de Szaszak is not a famous person, but her tomb is one of the most popular in the cemetery. Outside of the mausoleum, she's represented in a life-size bronze statue wearing her wedding dress. After her dog followed her in death, a statue of him was added beneath her hand. That's what I read, anyway. But it's curious that her statue was made with one hand outstretched into the air like that. I think it would have looked a little strange with nothing under it, so maybe the sculptor had planned for the dog from the beginning.  

I like the clash of simple and opulent, functional and ostentatious. One of the things that makes Recoleta so interesting is a lack of codes -- no right or wrong design. Even though it's like a city, there are no neighborhood code-enforcement officers monitoring it to restrict creativity to a homogeneous row of buildings. 

I like pretty much every facet you could think to mention about the cemetery. I like every style of mausoleum and tomb, including the simple, the decaying, the shiny and new, the grand and the elaborate. I like the free-standing ones in the middle of the city streets, often at a crossroads, like little castles or temples. This one is like a miniature European cathedral. 

If I were to have sought out a particular tomb, it would have been that of one of my all-time favorite writers, Jorge Borges (I didn't find it). He is one of the most celebrated authors in the world, and surely the most famous Argentinian author. But he was vehemently opposed to the presidential Peróns, and the nationally beloved Evita. From him:  "Perón was a humbug, and he knew it, and everybody knew it. But Perón could be very cruel. I mean, he had people tortured, killed. And his wife was a common prostitute."

Of course I couldn't leave without some photos of the locks and keyholes. Many keyholes had small dried flowers stuck into them. 

A feature that often lent some artistry to locks, keyholes, statues, window corners, etc., was the cobwebs. Weird as it sounds, the cobwebs seems particularly nicely designed, geometrical, symmetrical, and artistically placed as if someone conscientiously added them  with a brush ... not a paintbrush but a cobweb brush. 

 And finally, what would a photo essay from a cemetery be without the obligatory cemetery cat? Seems cemeteries are always a peaceful haven for the strays. 

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