What better way to show you just how fun a South America cruise can be then to hear it straight from Carnival Splendor's social host Jaime? You get to cruise vicariously as she details her trip from one beautiful port to another. Here is her sixteenth post.

Dear John,

I was right for the first time ever… today was most certainly a brighter, more pleasant day than the previous one! With perfect weather, clear skies and a beautiful port area to explore what could be better (besides Maccu Picchu?) We arrived in our last Chilean port of call, Arica, at 1 pm – our new expected arrival time. Our guests were extremely understanding about the delay.

Their tours had been refunded or changed and our wonderful captain was kind enough to allow our new back on board time to be pushed back to 7 pm to allow the most possible time in this port. Everyone was pleased because not only did this port contain a unique downtown area, also each time one exclaimed the name of this travel destination it seemed as if they unearthed some sort of great discovery!

Since the original plan of taking a flight to Cusco was foiled because of the previous day’s extremely unfortunate incident and change of course, none of us would allow this change of plans to affect our day. We were fortunate to see the city highlights such as the Tutelar figures that were in the middle of the extremely hot desert. Only a few short days ago we were shivering in the chilly glaciers of Ushuaia, and today we had sweat marks the size of Alaska! We did not find and camels or cacti in the desert but we did find some perfect photo opportunities. After our vast exploration of sand and pebbles, the group headed up to El Morro which is none other than a big rock! Here we found the mini version of Christ the Redeemer… I guess this one performed slightly less impressive miracles than the one we saw in Rio earlier in the cruise. Rather than turning water into wine, he astoundingly changed Coke into Diet Coke.

This location was actually the perfect spot to take beautiful pictures of the entire city and gave a perfect view Carnival Splendor. This big rock was just like Meecchy Peachy – only it was about 10,000 feet closer to sea level!

Upon returning to the ship, the 25 crew members were informed that the dream of visiting Mitzubishi Picachu may still indeed come true if we disembark from our next port of call: Lima, and return to the ship in Manta. After deciding if I could spend the increased amount of money, asking to my father for advice, I decided that if indeed it was a possibility that I would still visit Miss Piggy if it was an option.

As my dad, who visited South America just 40 short years ago put it “it is just a bunch of rocks… but it is an important bunch of rocks!’’ And even though I would be spending almost all of my acting cruise director money on this excursion, the extremely emotional highs and lows of the past day still made me to want to go on this trip.

After a full day of negotiation and extremely hard work, Paul the shore excursion manager said that their simply was not room on the train to accommodate the crew members. The guests who had originally booked the trip still had the opportunity to go on this trip, departing from Lima if they decided. Forty-one of the 47 originally scheduled guests will still be visiting this amazing wonder of the world. One of our guests, Queen Susan is going to bring us back pictures, magnets and hope that we can visit this location later in life!

Still smiling… only 12 more days until we return to the States… And yes Mach, I can see California, it just looks a little wetter and bluer than I remember.

Have a wonderful day… Next stop, Lima, Peru!