Sunday, Januar y 21 -- I am now proud to say that I was almost born in Antofagasta, Chile. (That was the other choice besides Butte, Montana when my father went to work for Anaconda Copper back in 1939.) Antofagasta is a fascinating city. While it has mostly mining and shipping for industry, and while it is about the driest city in the world (it only rained one day last year), and while the surroundings are virtually devoid of any blade of grass, much less tree or bush, that isn’t watered and cared for, it is an attractive and clean city full of very friendly people. It’s population is about 300,000 and it has several universities, the usual complement of cultural venues, and several very new gigantic shopping malls in addition to its historical areas. The photo is of a formation called La Portada with Antofagasta in the background.

We arrived around 1:00 pm this afternoon to be greeted by a huge crowd of waving spectators on the breakwater to watch us come in, and then at the pier by an excellent brass band and spectacularly costumed dancers. The tour I took was excellent, our guide was very fluent in English, proud of her city and happy to show it off. This is the first time that Holland America has stopped here, and in fact they only had 2 cruise ships stop last year and 2 before us this year, so their tourist industry is relatively new, but they are really working at it and doing a fine job.

Monday, January 22 -- At sea today–overcast and cooler than it has been. Team Trivia in the morning, then Jill and I got together to plan some future skulduggery in relation to Harvey. He is, of course, the pookah who occupies the apparently vacant seat at our table.