South America is an overlooked cruise destination, but nowhere gives you the chance to sail to more varied destinations.
Day one on the cruise ship Viking Jupiter in Buenos Aires and the atmosphere quivers with passion. Tango Cervila dance company has come on board. The music moans, high heels rattle the stage of the ship’s theatre, long legs extend from red dresses. I’m electrified out of my jet lag. A short pause, like the sigh of the unrequited, and then the audience stands to applaud.
This Viking cruise connects disparate places: big cities, windblown ports, isolated islands. It opens on the warm, sluggish, muddy River Plate but culminates in frozen Patagonia. It sails out into the Atlantic and finishes in the Pacific. I’ve been on many cruises, but none quite like this one for variety and unexpectedness.
I detect passion in the subjects of our onboard lectures: working-class heroine and president’s wife Eva Peron, legendary tango singer Carlos Gardel, former revolutionary and prisoner turned Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica. Patagonia is nipping at my ears and sneaking under my jacket as I pace the deck on our way back to continental South America. Viking Jupiter’s relaxed spa – a retreat of style without fuss – is the place to warm up with a plunge into its Scandinavian-style hot tub or a session in its sauna. Then I flop into the warm-water swimming pool.
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