Honeymoon Cruise - Falkland Islands

Monday, August 23, 2010 Anya 0 Comments

It's kind of awkward... I started blogging about our amazing honeymoon cruise around Cape Horn and somehow got distracted after Montevideo, Uruguay. I'ts not like our cruise ended after that, I guess I was just on to something new already and forgot to tell you about the rest of the trip. It was the most wonderful trip ever and we pretty much on a daily basis wish we could go back to just cruising around the world (but who doesn't).

The next stop on our cruise schedule were the Falkland Islands, which interestingly enough was something that really tempted us to take this cruise. I mean, who makes it to the Falkland Islands? With the seas turning rough for a couple of days the captain announced that we might not be able to actually stop at the Falklands as they can't hold the ship around in the rough seas. The Falkland Islands don't have a harbor like all the other stops, where you can just kind of step from the boat and walk into an annoying crowd of foreign sales people. No, the Falklands are different. You'll be taxied with one of the emergency boats to the coastline as the cruise ship has to stay pretty much in the open ocean. The people working on the cruise told us that lately they weren't able to stop there a lot and on the way to pick us up in Rio they couldn't stop there either. This got us really anxious as we were hoping that we could stop there and set foot on this Island so far far out there in the ocean.

We were so excited that we made it. The ocean was calm enough to let us shuttle to the Island and we were excited. Questions about how people get their furniture to the island ran through my head. How do these people get anything? Like the stuff that I don't think I can live without? Covergirl Mascara, Glamour Magazine, Martha Stewart Magazine, Ben and Jerry's.. How do they get Ben and Jerry Icecream to the Island??? (Panic attack..)

The shuttle could be so great if not everybody wanted to leave the cruise ship at once. Thousands of people want to go NOW and somehow it seemed like that could have been organized better - however we made it and we were just marveling. At everything....how small it was...how nice everything looked....how small it was....that they had ONE post office...that the bar was closed....that we made it around town (Stanley) in a matter of minutes....that there are locals.....and where are those sheep they promised us?

It looks so english.....very english was what came to mind first. Cute - adorable - wonderful island in the middle of the ocean. There might not be a lot to see out there, but it is still so impressive. That people live here and how it must be for them, that everybody knows everybody and that tourists come here all the time staring at their houses and taking pictures of EVERYTHING.


This tree is impressive. It really caught my attention how it grew with the wind which is something that you notice right when you step of the ship. It is windy! Very windy. Our jackets were superb though and we didn't worry about it one second.

All islands together have around 2000 residents, most of them born on the islands. There are more sheep than people!!! Can you believe that we didn't see a single sheep during our stay? I guess they are keeping them away from the 'city', haha.



A sunken ship in the port area of the Falklands. It looks very mysterious. Another really nice sight-seeing spot is this sign post with directions to all kinds of destinations around the globe and distance measurements.

                                             

Stanley itself is so small that we kept running into the same tourists from the ship again and again and you can imagine the interesting characters on that boat.... At the cafe we encountered who I later named "Robin Williams" due to his looks and behavior. He seemed to travel alone and was mostly confused or dare I say interesting?

So our postcards from here actually made it to their destinations it seems and all mail from the Falkland goes to England first.

What a great adventure this was..the island was so peaceful it almost makes you think this is what they ask you about when they say: "What would you take to a deserted island?" It's very doubtful that we'll make it back here, but we are so thankful that we got to experience a little of the mystery of the Falkland Islands.

To be continued.....



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