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Click the sun to see the
weather in Buenos Aires!

This is my first travelogue since our normal travels were halted at the beginning of 2020 because of Covid-19.  We were in Cabo San Lucas, and completely oblivious as to what was happening at the time.  We arrived home on the 15th of March, 2020 and on the 17th of March Argentina suspended all international flights.  That was way too close for comfort to becoming stranded for months away from our home.  We later read that thousands of Argentines were stranded and could not return home.  The trip we are going on this October, Tauck’s Romantic Rhine River Cruise was originally scheduled for May 2020.  Also, we have not been to Aruba since September of 2019.  We are definitely looking forward to boarding our flight to Aruba on 2 September.

In June I really wanted us to celebrate our 40th anniversary in Hawaii.  We normally stay at the Hale Koa Hotel when we visit Oahu, but it was 100% booked until August.  Hale Koa in Hawaiian  means House of the Warrior.  It is an Armed Forces Recreation Center resort hotel located on Waikiki Beach and is owned by the United States Department of Defense.  To book a room at the Hale Koa you must be currently in the military or retired.  I retired from the U. S Navy in 1983 after serving for 26 years.  Searching for an alternative to the Hale Koa we made a 2 week reservation at the Meliã Cozumel Vacation Club.  The warmth of the Caribbean was a much better choice than remaining in Buenos Aires in winter.  Plus, we were both ready for a vacation.

The reason for the big smiles above was because our upgrade to Business Class came through as we were boarding our flight from Ezeiza to Miami.  The agent walking us down the boarding tunnel asked us for our boarding passes and he exchanged them for new ones in Business Class.  We’ve been in the habit of purchasing Premium Economy seats and immediately requesting the $350/25,000 mile upgrade to Business.  We often get waitlisted, but we’ve been really fortunate on most flights we requested it due to our Platinum status on American Airlines.  Purchasing Business Class outright is just stupid expensive to us, but the cost of the upgrade makes it absolutely reasonable.  We were really happy to get it on this flight at the very last minute.

We almost always fly American Airlines or one of their partners, so we’ve had Platinum/Sapphire status for years, until Covid-19 came along and we couldn’t fly for a couple of years.  We had grown so accustomed to the perks.  I just learned that as of July 27th I now have Platinum Pro/Emerald status, mainly because I’ve been charging everything to our AAdvantage MasterCard, and we’ve had 2 trips since February 2021 and 2 more trips to go before the end of 2022.  By the end of October I figure I will have Platinum Executive status.  Yahoo!  Let the perks start rolling in again. ৷

Our room was huge.  Behind me and the camera is a kitchenette and a dining room table.

We even had a jacuzzi on the balcony.

For our first lunch Pete ordered tacos and I was in the mood for a hot dog.  Go figure!

It was mandatory All Inclusive and there were three restaurants:  One was simply called Fish, where you always needed a reservation and they were only open for dinner; 

The plate at upper right was my order of octopus, and when the chef knows what he is doing, octopus is a dish to die for, and this one was.  We had dinner here several times in our two week stay, and all the meals were excellent.

A Bistro or Mexican restaurant was very nice because it was open air, but they were only open for lunch and dinner. 

The Buffet Restaurant was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  We had breakfast there every day.  At home we very seldom have an “American” breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausages and potatoes.  I was in heaven because the person manning the grill maintained it at the perfect temperature for frying eggs sunny side up to perfection.  She also made some fantastic omelets.  I am generally not a fan of steam tables but here the food was actually quite good.  If only it could be maintained at the proper serving temperature.  Most of the time the dishes were not hot enough.  I thought a great addition would have been to have a few Microwaves available so guests could heat the food up before going to their table with it.

At lunchtime and dinner they had quite an elaborate dessert assortment.  Because of my limited mobility I would just sit at the table and Pete would make a plate for me after making a pass through and then telling me what the choices were.  He knows what I like in the dessert category so that was a no brainer.  Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.  ৼ

Pete spent a lot of time by the pool or at the beach reading and getting lots of sun.  I tried to lay by the pool but the lounge chairs were not at all comfortable to me, so I spent much of the time in our room, on my computer or napping.  It was very comfortable and very relaxing.

                                  A view of the beach from our balcony . .      . . and a few more views from the shore

I did try to enjoy reading in a lounge chair.                Margaritas were served in reusable cups.

The nachos and ceviche were great.                  There were a couple of very nice pools.

  For our romantic 40th Anniversary dinner on the beach we chose the Surf & Turf.

This is a selfie while waiting for our waiter to finish setting up our table in the sand.

Of course we had to start off with a martini.  It was a beautiful night, and very quiet except for the gentle sound to the surf.

                    A cruise ship sails by in the distance. I am so                   A huge cell is dumping millions of gallons of
                   happy to be here with Pete instead of on that            water and it appeared to be heading our way, but
                       mammoth ship with thousands of people.                       it instead viered off to the north sparing us.

The cream soup was very delicious, half cream             The Surf and Turf was absolutely fantastic. None
          of broccoli and half creamed corn.                         of our meals at the Fish Restaurant came close.

Our dessert was a heart shaped chocolate cake.  Yummy!

After a few nights of having a martini before dinner I decided to switch to a gin and tonic.  The martini was a little too strong for me.  Ice cream was not on any of the menus, but if I asked for it they were always able to come up with it.  I should have asked for a Don Pedro.

Vanilla ice cream, walnuts & Jack Daniels = 1 Don Pedro

We have two more trips scheduled this year; in September we will spend two weeks in Aruba at the Divi Phoenix.

In October we will fly to Amsterdam and board a Tauck river boat for 11 days on the Rhine to Milan.  That assumes of course that the drought in Europe has let up and the flow on the Rhine increases.  The Rhine has been hit pretty hard by the drought.

This is the boat we will be on and although its draft is quite shallow, there may be places on the Rhine where it cannot pass.  I do know that cargo ship have had to lighten their loads to navigate the Rhine.

Hopefully these trips will make up a little for not being able to travel for 2 years.  I’m sure that if the Rhine River cruise goes as scheduled there will be many more interesting things to write about and share than on a two week stay in a vacation resort where the highlights are 'what’s for dinner'.