28.January 2010, Punta Arenas, Chile

Punta Arenas, our last port of call in Chile,is the most southermost Chilean City on the Continent, located on the Strait of Magellan, who discovered it in 1520. The city reflects a broad cultural mix, from influences from English Sheep Ranching, Portugues Sailors, a large Croatian Community, remnants of WWII events, Panama Canal fortunes, California Goldrush. Punta Arenas took it all in. The city is located near Otway Sound, which harbours a huge Magellan Penguin colony, Tierra del Fuego National Park is nearby as well as Parques National Torres del Paine, many Antarctic Expeditions are mounted from here, and a number of ships go into Dry Dock here.

I just headed for town with a shuttle bus, there hailed a 'collectivo', a cheap taxi ($1.25 each way) with predetermined stops, which is shared by people jumping on and off during the route, and drove to the 'Sara Braun' cemetry close to town.

It is a true necropolis, filled with crypts, tombs, and ornate chapels, and accentuated with avenues of precisely trimmed cedars. The cemetery was opened in 1894, a few years after Punta Arenas was first settled in 1849, when colonists arriving from Fuerte Bulnes, a Spanish Colonial town 60km south of Punta Arenas, arrived under the command of Colonel Jose de los Santos Mardones.

The cemetry shows the international diversity of the pioneers, Spanish, Greek, German, English, Italian, Swiss, French and the native Chiloe.

There is even a large complex dedicated to the fallen sailors of many German war ships. An empty munition shell engraved with the name of one of them, the Berlin, stands guard beside a large plaque topped with the emblemic German Eagle. 

Back in town, it is Penguin Alley....every store sells penguins, stuffed penguins, lapis lazuli penguin statuettes, penguin jewelery, penguin mugs, penguin gloves, hats, sweaters, scarfs, wallhangings, posters, cards...one needs to drink one of the town's famous hot chocolates to get one's mind onto something non-penguin.

I bade Good Bye to Punta Arenas with a last stroll around Plaza de Armas (each city has one), and a look at the famous statue of a Selk'nam Indian (a depiction of ancient Tierra Fuegans) as well as rub his shiny bronze toe, the only thing bright on his entire bronze body. It is said, rubbing the toe guarantees a future return to Punta Arenas.

Made it back to the ship in good time for ''all aboard' deadline, which had to be extended by almost two hours, as two shore excursions were 'delayed'. One was an adventurous flight and landing to Antarctica, namely the Island of King George...flights to that part of the world are not exactly a paradigm of punctuality. The other was a fly and trek trip to Torres del Paine. Again, on board mechanics had to get their wrenches out to keep the planes going.

We finally cast off in typical Punta Arenas winds :forceful. Entered the Magellan Strait again during long lasting daylight and headed south towards Ushuaia.

27.January 2010 - Scenic Cruising through Chilean Fjords

Grey, foggy, raining, windy - an apt description for our deeper ingress into the Chilean Fjords. We snaked our convoluted way through Canal Messier and Canal Sarmiento, the inside route, and nosed into the screw (icy bits) strewn bay at the base of Amalia Glacier, one of the many glaciers descending from the Campos de Hielos (Ice Fields) which extend from Puerto Montt to the Torres Del Paine National Park, a distance of severeal hundred kilometers. This province of Chile is called Ultima Esperanca (Last Hope) for good reason.

Large shoals reach far into the bay, and our ship hovered a little distance off the face of the massive glacier to allow us to admiret - and of course photograph - our first real tidal glacier we encounter on this journey.

Despite pummelling winds and relentless rain, I spent most of the day out on deck. There was a small fishing boat, dwarfed by vertical cliffs, an old rusted wreck which must have taken the wrong turn around an island or became disabled and carried onto treacherous rocks by strong currents. But, no human habitation anywhere...the ancient Alakaluff nomads are long extinct.

The Veendam, another Holland America ship, crossed our way, looking rather ugly after her recently completed 'enhancement renovation'. Her rear decks have been extended and built up almost vertical at her stern. This morphed her pleasingly designed aft end from pleasant open air platforms to a solid wall of stacked staterooms. The remodelling turned her into one more box like floating shopping mall look-alike. Her bow still retains the old Holland America elegance - but the rest - a crying shame! But, she now is able to carry an additional 100 paying guests, in somewhat lessened old world elegance and intimacy. The old aft swimming pool is gone, which was a pleasant oasis protected from the winds. Instead there is a lounge chair packed platform on the new top deck level, with a free form wading pool (which swaps over the edges when the ship tosses around). 

However, the Amsterdam has so far been spared that fate, and one can still 'get lost' in secret nooks somewhere on the ship, and watch the sea scape float by.

I did that, and more. Birds and animals abound, and I watched plenty of them frolicking around.

Cold feet, cold hands and cold everything finally convinced me to leave off gazing at the stark, almost lunar surroundings, and slip back inside the warm and rather quiet interior of the ship.

 

29. January 2010, Canal O'Brian & Brazo del Noroeste, Chilean Fjords

A few images from out 'auhentic' Chilean Fjord experience: gloom, mist, wind, cold, rain, snow in the upper mountain ranges, glaciers hanging from mountain sides and gushing forth giant waterfalls, or calving huge chunks of ice into the milky green glacial run off.

We passed the magnificient glaciers Romanche, Alemania, Francia, Italia, and Holandia - one more imposing than the next. The cloud cover hid most of the upper icefields, but now and again a hint of forbidding icy cliff walls high above sea level emerged from the thick gloomy mist.

A plethora of wild life makes the fjords home.Seals, sea lions, elephant seals, different albatrosses, gannets, cormorants, petrels, steamer ducks, minke whales - if one can stand the bracing cold on deck, there is hardly a moment when some animal or bird is not somewhere around the ship.

 

 

26. January 2010 - Darwin Channel in Chilean Fjords

After several days and nights of turbulent seas, night cruising through part of the Chilean Inside Passage brought a respite from clanging elevators, sloshing swimming pools, deck doors stuck from wind pressure, stairs  retreating downward from under one's feet, and the rising and falling of the entire ship passing over five meter waves. These don't sound like much, however, when they are spaced apart half a mile or more, it just causes a 900 feet long ship either point nose up or down by more than five meters, and of course the stern does the whole thing in reverse. Add a bit of broadside roll, and conditions are perfect banging into the sides of corridors and collide with anything in the way when proceeding ones wavy way. So, in the  Golfo de Ancud, south of Puerto Montt and protected by the Isla de Chiloe, and through the Canal Moraleda, equally protected by a labyrinthic archipelago of thousands of islands, the stateroom beds did not shake and shudder all night.

Around 07:00 on January 26th the ship turned west to return to the Pacific Ocean via Darwin Channel, a narrow passage between mountainous islands. Darwin passed through here on the H.M.S. Beagle in 1833 as a 'gentleman' naturalist, meaning he was free to pursue his own interests instead of heaving lines, pulling hawsers and performing regular sailor's work. 

M.S. Amsterdam carries two Chilean pilots aboard, who take turns helping the Captain guide our vessel through the intricate channels and passages of the fjords between Valparaiso and Punta Arenas, the last Chilean port on this journey.

To brave the elements, one grabs a coffee and a muffin, conveniently located just inside the promenade deck doors, which again were hard to push open to the outside. Then to the bow, fully exposed to the bone chilling apparent wind from dead ahead. The sea looked calm, no swells yet. Gloomy and beautiful, the mountains rose around us, hemming in Darwin Channel on both sides. No human habitation anywhere, except one lone floating fish-farm, a few strategically placed beacons on many shoals and rocky islets.

The scenic part of the cruise unfortunately finished at 09:00 and we headed back into the Pacific, and with it right back into swells which had built to even more impressive and powerful size since we had left the Pacific a day earlier.

The ship hit the swells with sounds of cannons going off, weird metallic noises emanate from the interior of the hull at each crashing plunge, the elevators groan and screech scraping against the shafts, the supply of sick bags at the elevator doors diminishes, spume flies past the promenade deck, curtains move rythmically from side to side, the lunch buffet is a little less popular (although the die hards eat as much as ever), the swimming pools are emptied out after they splashed half their contents onto the decks and turned them into ankle deep wading pools, the song and dance performance scheduled for tonight is cancelled (props would fall, and dancers as well), lectures and workshops are half empty, and the heaving and rolling and yawing of the ship on the confused and rough sea brings out 'storm stories' from all the seasoned travellers. The Captain warned everyone to store loose belongings safely in their staterooms, hold on and dress warm, if venturing outside at all. 

I participated in a watercolour class onc back on the high seas and produced a somewhat nature-inspired 'abstract'. Trying to guide a brush loaded with paint proved to be futile, the artwork turned out to resemble 'elephant' or 'gorilla' creations.

Our course would keep us in rough weather almost all night, when we pass by Golfo de Penas and Isla Wellington and finally return to the fjords through Trinity Passage.

Another bouncy ride until then... 

25. January 2010, Chilean Rodeo Tradition, Puerto Montt

Puerto Montt is located at the very northern end of the world reknown Chilean Fjords, in Seno Relonacvi, Reloncavi Sound. Two snow-capped Volcanoes, Volcan Osorno and Volcan Calbuco (hotlips?), dominate the majestic backdrop to the small town of about 180,000 inhabitants, many of which are of German descent. Gingerbread houses and Cafes, where Kuchen and Torte are served, dot the town, even the beer is brewed under the old German Reinheitsgebot (law of purity of ingredients)

Nearly 700 miles south of Santiago, it is the southern terminus for the continental portion of the Pan American Highway. This highway forms a continuous string (except for a short gravel interruption in Panama) of scenic highway, stretching from here to Lund, BC for Canadians (about 15,000 miles) or somewhere in Alaska (about 16,000 miles) for Americans.

Puerto Montt used to be the centre of an important salmon-farming industry. The salmon all sickened and died from an Aids like virus some time ago, and the industry has collapsed, and with it the major source of employment for a lot of local labour as well as labour imported from other parts of Chile. Extensive affordable housing developments ($35,000 for a house) had been constructed in the outskirts of Puerto Montt. With unemployment comes the ususal petty crime, graffiti and poverty. Some of the largest salmon farms have 'cleaned up', as it is described here, and slowly people are getting back to work.

People seem to be generally happy, the sea and surrounding country side provides an abundance of food, among it 85 different varieties of potato. There are crystal clear lakes with plenty of trout.

There are also extensive National Parks which delight the naturalist and adventure seeker. Spectacular waterfalls, rapids and majestic alerce trees. These trees grow about 1 centimeter a year, so take an awful long time to grow. Consequently historic deforestation of foot hills, to create vast cattle and sheep farms, is almost irreversible.

But, there are large forests with trees several thousand years old, and Chile is proud to protect it's natural beauty by designating a large proportion of it's landmass to Natural Parks.

I headed for 'the hills' somewhere between those mystic volcanoes, one of which is still active. And - by the way - Chile has at least one earthquake per day somewhere, luckily most are 'harmless'.

Tour destination: the 700 hectar hacienda Fogon Los Alerces, a breeding ranch of 'corralero' horses, Chilean Rodeo Horses. A breed that is similar to the American Quarter Horse, but with a distinctly Andalusian look and bearing.

The cowboys welcomed us astride their well fed, smooth and shiny little mounts in full regalia. Flat brimmed hat, short poncho, sash, tasselled black leggins, spurs with 42 spikes (softer on the horses than one sharp one) and wood carved stirrups on traditional farming saddles. The seven foot tall Chilean owner invited us into a clean equipment shed, to sit on bales of hay. Local musicians strummed their instruments, dancers started to swirl and stomp, and a team of attendants offered wine and empanadas, the latter fresh from a brick oven.

The adjacent stables were squeaky clean, horses standing in deep aromatic straw, munching happily on hay. One row of stables for the brood mares, one for the stallions, the rest of the herd was out grazing in the million dollar view country-side, horizon to horizon flowering meadows, tall alerce trees...and the local Mount Fuji setting the scene.

We ambled through the park like setting to the private rodeo ring where the ranch hands would show off their and their mount's skills. A placid black bull, fat and happy, waited inside the corral to help 'train the horses'. He had no other work to do, except run around at great speed for short interval whenever the need arose.

The rodeo corral forms a full circle, however part of it is blocked off for the bull, and the working ring forms almost a curved half moon. The riders (especially in competitions) work in pairs.

The old purpose was to separate and pin cattle, hold them still long enough for branding, and release them again into the herd. Today a lot of that work is aided by vehicles or even helicopters, and horsemanship has been relegated to the level of sport.

The bull is released from his pen, runs through a gate and runs hellbent for leather into the ring. One rider, his horse in body contact parrallell with the bull, gallops flat out to steer the bull in the desired direction. The second rider literally gallops sideways - also flat out - with his horse's chest pressed against the body of the bull to cause him to stop. Two padded areas in the barrier of the ring are designated 'stops', and the idea is to pin the pull somewhere against the barrier. Time and accuracy are of prime importance. A rider pinning and stopping the bull at the bull's shoulder level gains most points. Riders pinning the bull further back, i.e. at his mid-riff, hips, or rear end receives less and less points the further back he manages to stop the animal. Our ranch hands performed like champions, as indeed they were. The dining hall next to the ring was filled with trophies, ribbons and prizes for both, success as one of the most important breeding establishments as well as mastery in the national sport of Chilean Rodeo. Old Paolo, the bull, performed his role perfectly, as he knew exactly that he had to run like mad, and then stand like a lamb after the riders cornered him. Nevertheless, he did not look anywhere close to a family pet, and the riders led him away by a long strong rope, attached to a thick chain fastened around the bulls head and hooked around his sharply pointed horns.

The real hacienda family pets, a large San Bernhard and a small Poodle, joined the group for lunch, though. Succulent meat, the famed potatoes, freshly picked fruit, wine and a couple of pisco sours and home concocted fruit liqueurs added to the general feeling of well being, enough that the whole bunch of us fell asleep on the bus driving back to the port.

Spectacular anchors aweigh, leaving the mountain-fringed shores of Puerto Montt behind and entering the northern fringes of the Chilean Fjords...inland waters, giving everyone a bit of a break from the seasickness inducing Pacific swells out in the open ocean.

23. January 2010 - Isla Robinson Crusoe, Chile

Four meter swells all night, and the ship was still rolling and pitching when we closed in on Isla Robinson Crusoe. Would it be sufficiently calm in small Bahia Cumberland for Amsterdam to drop anchor, and more importantly, launch tenders to take us ashore?

The rugged mountainous island certainly looked forbidding smack bang in the middle of heaving seas and whipped by howling 60 knot winds, which kept all but our hard-pressed seamen (ready to launch tenders anyway) away from the outside decks.

A we drew closer we entered the lee of the vulcanic peaks and magically the seas calmed. Nothing much there, a small pier, some houses, a red and white light house, a little fleet of fishing dories and a couple of sailboats riding at anchor, breakers crashing into steep cliffs behind them. High ridges and deep valleys covered mostly in lush green forest surround the little settlement of San Juan Bautista.

About 600 souls live there now, but in 1708 there were no settlers. That was the year, when a Scotish sailor named Alexander Selkirk, left the unseaworthy pirate vessel on which he worked and subsequently spent a solitary four years and four months stranded on this island. He had nothing but a musket, gunpowder, carpenter's tools, a knife, a bible and some clothing. Selkirk's adventure inspired Daniel Defoe to write his world famous novel 'Robinson Crusoe' in 1719.

Swiss Baron Alfred von Roth, the first official settler arrivng in 1877, is buried here. Surprisingly, a WW1 sea battle took place offshore, and one of the combating ships, the German warship Dresden, sank near the northcoast. One sailor, Hugo Weber, survived and built a house on one of the peaks, some of the perished sailors are buried on the idsland.

To our surprise, and that of the islanders (as we later found out), we tendered to shore. Sleepy little village consisting of scattered colourful wood and tin houses, some paved roads, a few sell-it-all shops, a postcard and souvenir shop (open), a few restaurants (still closed), a museum cum library (half open) a soccer/baseball field; a couple of tiny churches, a cemetry, and trails leading into the amphitheatre of the scraggy mountains. Electricity wires overhead, internet satellite dishes and wireless communication antennas, a few mules resting beside a generator plant, pretty 'public gardens' where endemic sunflower-like bushes grew in profusion, fishing skiffs ready for maintenance on shore, and baffled locals looking at us as if we had arrived from Mars. It appeared that neither the local 'authorities' (harbour master) nor Holland America had warned the tiny population about this influx of tourists, almost tripling the population for the duration of our stay. But, last night the storm raged on the island as much as on the sea, and communications had been interrupted.

Line ups grew in front of the post card shop, and a second line up formed at the tiny post office.

I explored the short walk (signage absolutely perfect with hand carved stained wood street signs at every pavement/dirt road intersection) and chatted to a young man, who carried a skinned carcass of an animal.

What is that, I asked him in Spanish.

My dog, he smiled back at me.

A few chuckled words later, he confessed that it was a dead goat....still looked like a dog to me...

A few children skipped up to us strange visitors, and wanted to have their picture taken together with their (very much alive) dog; a local youth mounted on small horse rode by, another led a mule hung with two baskets and a boy perched on top; a fisherman was scraping ther bottom of his boat clean; some sleepy shop keepers watched the lengthening stream of visitors take photos of everything from their small church to their wind swept little cemetry.

We climbed a few of the surrounding hills, enjoying the stunning scenery, now bathed in brilliant sunshine. After exhausting literally every 'avenue' and not having time to climb the mountains to Selkirk's Peak (that would take at least five hours of strenuous hiking) I discovered a little bistro hidden behind some thick hedges amongst a delightful flower garden. Sitting on a wooden porch, open to sun, wind and sea with a million dollar vista, I enjoyed a fish carpaccio, so fresh, the poor fish was still wiggling in it the lime marinade. Absolutely superb food, especially when accompanied by a subtle San Emilion Chilean white vino.

Getting away was a little problematic, as the rustic wooden bench I sat on, was so freshly cut, that I was now stuck to a whole seam of fragrant sticky resin. I finally got unstuck without having to leave my white slacks behind; the rear part of them marked inedibly with amber coloured resin droplets. But I walked away enveloped in a cloud of aromatic scent of pine.

The line up at the souvenir shop had disappeared, so had most of the post cards in it, but I garnered a couple. The one-man post office shack was deserted as well and for good reason. The good Correo Chile postman had collected stacks of post cards written by tourists wishing to send Robinson Crusoe stamps back home to their families. But, he had long since ran out of stamps, and was piling up the cards and promised they would be sent out, as soon as the mail brought him a new supply of stamps from the 'continent' as he called it.

Tendering back to the ship just got us there before pretty stiff winds flowing from the high mountains and funneling into the sea through the precipitous valleys whipped the little bay into a lively chop covered with white-caps and chasing little curtains of spray across the surface.

Everyone would have loved to remain another day. A delightful spot, not yet discovered by commercial tourist interest, so the atmosphere is that of an outpost almost forgotten by the rest of the world.

22. January 2010 - Valparaiso, Chile

We arrived in Valparaiso, about 120 km northwest of Santiago, Capital of Chile, early in the morning under a cover of chilling fog and drizzle.

The port used to be a major stop-off point for maritime commerce prior to the opening of the Panaman Canal. It is still a major port in Chile, however now it is mainly used for export of raw copper ore. Copper makes up 45 % of the country's product, leading grapes, other fruit and vegetable in quantity. China buys most of the copper ore. Actually China not only attempted to buy and extract all the resources, but also wanted to import cheap Chinese labour to do it. Commone sense prevailed, and the mine workers are Chileans. Not a bad idea, as the economic crisis has elevated unemployment to about 15% in Valparaiso, an especially bad situation as the country has no welfare system. Poor people have 'free' healthcare, but that is not much good if a body has nothing to eat. Petty crime is rife in Valparaiso, even the bus drivers warned of thieves, who grab cameras and jewellery swiftly and run. One woman had her camera snatched when she was taking a shot of some scenery. And - one still gets the die-hard 'upper-classers' amongst the tourists, dressed in shorts, sneakers and heavy make up, who cannot - ever - walk about without being fully decorated with expensive jewels and watches like a inviting treasure chest.

Well, the main customer for the famed Chilean wine - one of the biggest exports - is: the United Kingdom.

Valparaiso means 'Paradise Valley', and was declared a World Heritage Site in 2003, when the city still looked like a nostalgic leftover from Victorian times. Now it hides its beautiful facades under layers of international style graffiti. Buildings seem to be falling apart, roofs have caved in, windows are covered in delaminating plywood. Of the 15 funiculars, connecting the upper city (built on 41 hills) to the narrow stretch on the coastal plain, only three are in working order. There are still some old electrical trolley buses, but 'collectivos' (shared taxi vans) carry most of the city traffic around the labyrinthic streets.

Chile has a relatively large army, said to be neccessary to protect itself against land hungry Peru. Arms are supplied by Israel, submarines by Holland. Service is not mandatory, as it was under Pinochet.

Chile has just elected a new President, the third richest man in the country, a Chilean version of the Italian Berlusconi. The President elect brings a 'right' leaning government to the country, which breaks a long stretch of leftist rulers who ran the country since Pinochet's fall. His election platform promised 1.000.000 new jobs within 4 years...the country holds its breath.

Together with a few 'privileged' Vacation.com members I was whisket away by luxurious airconditioned tour bus towards Vina del Mar, a small resort town just north of Valparaiso. It draws visitors from all over South America, who want to spend their summer vacations by the sea. It is overshadowed by an immense Casino (which are illegal in the Capital City) and a few Grand Hotels, whose walls are also - without exception - covered in humongous graffiti 'art'. The famous Swiss Flower Clock has been spared from that improvement, as flowers don't lend themselves to that kind of creative expression.

We drove through town in haste, and headed for the Casablanca Valley, one of 15 wide valleys, which naturally lend themselves to the art of wine growing. From hillside to beautiful semi-arid hillside, the valley floors are covered in thousands of verdant rows of vine stocks. There are no lofty Andean peaks in this region, but softly rounded sparsely forrested foot-hills reaching form the edge of the Andes to the agricultural plains. Sandy soils, moderate climate, sunshine...all help to grow wine, wine and more wine.

We visited two wineries in the Casablanca Valley, Bosques del Mar and Vina del Mar. 

Surrounded by scenery straight out of a dream of Tuscany, we were treated to samples of Chardonnay and Souvignon Blanc, as well as Syrah and Pinot Noir, and some Champanoise. Needless to say, they were worthy of the displayed medals of honour which they had garnered on international wine competitions.

As is the norm, we filed through the wine making rooms, and paid reasonable attention to proud and accented description of the growing and production processes.

A couple of German woman bringing up the rear of the group, and somewhat jaded from too many winery visits, discussed their own priorities:

"I vill be so glat to be home, I haff my own thinks zer. And my Miele washing machine works much better zan ze Amerikan ones. One has to vash ze clozes tvice as offen zan on a real Sherman vashing mashine. And ze American dryers always shrinks ze clozes. I am counting ze days now, so much nicer  to be at home. And ze wine cellars here are really nocink ven one kompars zem to the real old wincassels back home."

Well, whatever....I enjoyed the ersatz wineries tremendeously. Especially as the REALLY good private selections cost a fraction of what a REALLY good wine anywhere else would set one back.

Salud!