After a good nights sleep and a decent breakfast, Barbara and I had a quick stroll around the town then checked out. We sat in the hotel bar until just before 13:00 when we went to the port. We joined the priority queue after having been questioned at length by Border Security, who asked me questions about the Chilean and Canadian stamps in my passport. We finally boarded around half past, dropped our bags off in the cabin and went to lunch in Alexandria. ...

Well I’ve picked up my hire car. I ordered an Astra and was given a Passat, so there will be plenty of room for my luggage. Everything is packed and I hope to leave about 13:00. The weather is awful! I arrived at the hotel at 14:45, having refuelled just before I arrived. While I was driving from the petrol station, Barbara rang. She arrived about 10 minutes before me. When I walked into the lobby, Phil and Yvonne were checking in. Our rooms are close ...

First it was a hard spin class and then a haircut. To liven things up, it’s snowing outside. I don’t think it will settle though and hopefully that’ll be it until after we’ve left on the cruise. Next thing to do is start raking out some tops and bottoms. Then a quick email to our tour guide in Callao. That’ll be it for today.

One week today and I set off for Southampton. As I’m not sending any cases down with the Baggage Handling Company this time, I’ve not got any clothes out yet. Well that’s a bit of a fib, there are some hankies and four bow ties sat on the spare bed. I will probably start putting out more stuff this afternoon. I have actually done cruise stuff this morning. Janet gave me some Brazilian reis for Christmas and until I knew how many, I couldn’t buy a...

Four weeks today and we set sail. Things are moving on. Barbara came up last week and we booked a few more trips. Everything has now been booked, any ports we haven’t got anything organised in, we’ll either stroll around or look and see what’s on offer at the dock. Usually there are hordes of people offering tours. Today I picked up Chilean, Colombian and US currencies. I’ve ordered Uruguayan which, hopefully, I can collect tomorrow. That only ...