Armao checks off another continent
Capital District professor and journalist makes travel an adventure
By Ken Tingley
It doesn’t say “world traveler” on Rosemary Armao’s resume, but it probably should, especially after her latest trip.
Maybe, it should be say adventurer, too.
Planning a trip overseas, give Rosemary a shout.
Reaching into her memory vault, Armao tells you about visiting Warsaw. She tells you how it was completely destroyed during World War II and how the Poles rebuilt it just as it was before the war. She appreciates the commitment to its past, to a culture that goes back centuries. She tells you of sitting in lovely park and hearing classical music wafting across the grounds while gazing up at the statue of the composer Chopin. It was nearly destroyed during the war.
Her favorite place is not Paris, nor Rome, but Sarajevo, Bosnia.
The place we know for a 1990s war and atrocities.
Armao first lived there after the war and worked for the Center for Investigative Reporting there.
“It is an extraordinary place,” Armao said. “Its physical beauty, tragic history. Other than the Covid year, I’ve been there every year since the war.”
Armao has had a long career in journalism for such newspapers as the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Baltimore Sun and South Florida Sun-Sentinel before turning to teaching at SUNY Albany and RPI. You may also know her for her regular appearances on the WAMC Roundtable.
I suspect that background as a reporter, that curiosity about the wild and wonderful world is revealed in through her travel choices.
Ten years ago she visited Argentina and saw penguins up close and began planning for perhaps the greatest adventure of all - a trip to Antarctica.
“I had to save for 10 years,” Armao said. This past Thanksgiving, she made the trip to her sixth continent - only Australia remains.
The Viking cruise ship tour she selected was a smaller cruise ship sailing out of Ushuaia, Argentina through one of the most dangerous waterways in the world - the Drake Passage.
“It’s either the `Drake Lake’ or the `Drake Shake,’” Armao said.
“I really didn’t realize how dangerous it was,” Armao said. “You pay as a tourist for that illusion of excitement and adventure. But going through the Drake Passage is in fact extremely dangerous.”
At the last minute, Armao changed her itinerary from the Viking Polaris cruise ship to its sister ship.
The trip through the Drake Passage is 600 miles between Cape Horn at the southern tip of Chili and South Shetland Island in Antarctica.
In early December, the 665-foot long Viking Polaris was returning to Ushuaia from Antarctica when it was hit by a massive rogue wave that shattered the glass in some of the passenger cabins and killed one 62-year-old woman. Four others were injured.
Armao says the location of those cabins were the same she originally booked. While the trip through the Drake Passage was without incident for Armao, the during the return trip the ship experienced hurricane-force winds and 20-foot high waves.
“Coming back, I was a little bit nervous,” Armao admitted.
“They were not very forthright about what was going on,” Armao said about the accident. “We only found out about it online. All they told us was that Viking regrets the loss of life and it is under investigation. When we got back to Ushuaia people were telling us about all kinds of accidents in the Drake Passage.”
It doesn’t appear to have dampened her enthusiasm.
Armao’s itinerary included a week-long stay in Antarctica with daily excursions onto the ice and land and a chance to see the penguins and seals up close.
“It was Antarctica that attracted me,” Armao said. “But the penguins were clearly the highlight. They had no fear of humans. They come right up to you.”
Each day, the passengers would be shuttled to land on small rubber boats that held 10 to 20 passengers while loaded with equipment.
Even in its summer season in December, the conditions were brutally cold. Armao said she felt like Ralphie’s little brother in the movie “A Christmas Story” wrapped up in a snowsuit.
The temperature ranged from 0 to 20 degrees with a brutal wind chill.
“The boots they gave us were amazing,” Armao said. “My feet were never cold, but I hands did get cold.”
Ultimately, it was the natural beauty that Armao remembers.
“We know what big snowstorms are here,” Armao said. “It doesn’t snow much there, but the snow just never goes away. Figure the biggest mound of snow in a shopping center parking and lot and increase it by 10 times, but make the snow perfectly white. It’s just pristine white. It’s the biggest pillow you ever saw. Just stunningly beautiful. And icebergs everywhere, blue and white. They are just stunning.”
Armao had already read about the earlier explorations by Earnest Shackleton and Robert Scott in the early 1900s. She learned how early whaling fleets harvested some 2.5 million whales for the oil to drive the early industrial revolution.
Her mind runs wild at what the Drake Passage must have been like back then.
There was talk of climate change, the number of icebergs adrift in the sea and how the migration patterns of penguins had changed.
Armao says she feels lucky to have seen it all while it still exists.
In a couple weeks, Armao is heading across the world to Australia. It will be her seventh continent.
But I suspect, when she thinks about her past travels, she will find herself back in that park in Warsaw or her favorite cafe in Sarajevo.
Hudson Falls event
I will be speaking at the Kingsbury-Fort Edward Senior Center on Tuesday at 11 a.m. about the future of newspapers, journalism and my latest book “The Last American Newspaper.”
The senior center is located at 78 Oak St. in Hudson Falls.
AAUW luncheon Saturday
I will also be the luncheon speaker for the Adirondack chapter of the American Association of University Women on Saturday at noon. Anyone attending the lunch needs to RSVP Connie Bosse before Jan. 11 at aauw@adirondackny@gmail.com. The lunch is $20.
I confess I just envy adventurers like her. Hope she took many photographs.
The early explorers that we have learned about certainly paved the way!
I can't imagine that they made it through the Drake Passage in those times, say nothing about today!
Rosemary is remarkable in many ways!!
Thank you for sharing this article!