The Volendam

This ship is the same class as the Amsterdam, but with a few more passengers (1432) and this ship and the Zaandam are now the only two left in the fleet of this size.

 
The Lido pool deck area...

The Sea View pool, on the aft deck of the ship, decorated for a sail-away party.

The Lido cafeteria/dining area where we eat except if we are invited to dinner by guests. Note: When we're working on a ship we wear our guest presenter name tags

The Showroom at Sea is where I give my presentations. When I give presentations here, the images on the screen are not projected, but are shown on a series of LED screens mounted as a wall that rolls onto the stage. The images are beautifully crisp.

A large mural on the wall of a public area.

A sculpture of Bacchus, the god of wine, on one of the staircases.

 
The atrium sculpture that extends three decks. Our captain pouring champagne on a fun block party.

The crossing of the equator ceremony used an arapaima fish from the Amazon. I pointed this out before my lecture that day since I'd covered these interesting fish in one of my Amazon presentations.

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Buenos Aires

Our first port on the Volendam was not far away--just across the Rio de La Plata to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

We headed to the city botanic garden, which included this wonderfully ornate glass conservatory.

 
We found some maté shrubs. These hollies (Ilex paraguariensis) contain caffeine. It's a popular drink, which is why many South Americans carry their maté cups and thermoses of hot water around with them.

 
A huge and gnarly cactus with fruit.

 
A lady of the leaves and large, drooping flowers of an angel trumpet tree.

This sculpture is called "Saturnalia."

A crowd waiting for opening time of the Eco-Park.

We loved the wildflower meadows in the park.

 
From goldenrod to baobab trees the park had a wide variety of plants.

The Patagonian mara or dillaby (Dolichotis patagonum) is a relatively large rodent that had free range in this park.
Visitors were instructed not to walk on the grass.

 
A nursing baby dillaby. Look at all that down in this ground nesting duck's nest.

  
This building was built as a shelter for nursing mothers and is apparently not used for this purpose any more. We decided it was a good place to have our lunch since picnic tables and benches were not common in this park.

Feeding flamingos...

 
A resting Pea Hen and a Southern Screamer (Chauna torquata) (We saw a horned screamer, a related bird, in Paratins, Brazil in our 2019 Amazon cruise assignment.)

This is an eco-hut.