Pat and Tom's Trip to South America, January, 2003

We Flew to LA, then boarded a Lan Chile A330 to Santiago. Very nice weather -- got a sunburn. Instead of taking the city tour included in our package, we paid about $100 for a tour to the Andes, going to Portillo , a ski area at 9,000 feet just 4KM from the Argentine border. On the way we saw the highest mountain in the western hemisphere, Mt. Aconagua, at 22,830 feet. Had a wonderful lunch of lox and salmon, with wine.

Salmon: All the salmon in Chile is farm salmon. The salmon species is not native to South America. We think the Chilean salmon is superior to northwest farm salmon.
Fish: Lots of fish in Chile. The one we liked best is Congrio or Conger eel. Very tasty.
Beef: Don't think there is any good beef in Chile. The cows get a lot of exercise.
Wine: All good. Beer: Not so good.

Traveled to Valparaiso (Val-par-ee-so) to board the ship, the Norwegian Dream. Had lunch (congrio) at Vina del Mar,a resort type town. There is a rock covered with seal and bird dung in the bay and is all white. Our guide said the local name is the Michael Jackson Rock because it was black but is now white.
Also visited a museum with Easter Island artifacts.
We boarded the ship near the end of the day -- it had gone through a pretty bad storm on the way up from Punta Arenas and had to clean up and restock. The next day we were in Puerto Mont, a town at the northern end of the Chilean fjords. Lots of Germans there, the area is a lake country, with rivers coming down from the Andes. Mount Orsono is nearby, considered to be one of the most beautiful volcanic mountains, similar to Mt. Fuji.
The ship then started down the fjords to Chacabuco, where we arrived the next morning. Chacabuco is primarily a salmon farming town. We traveled by bus across the Andes to Coihaique, where the country there is a little like Eastern Washington.

Fjords: Very steep, heavily forested, almost nowhere to land. A pretty forbidding country.
Then left going through a passage in the islands to the open ocean. Pretty impressive, big wind, waves,and lots of albatrosses. Spent all day at sea. We reentered the Fjords the next day, and traveled through glacier country.

An overnight passage had us arriving at Punta Arenas, the southernmost town in mainland Chile. Punta Arenas is situated in a wide portion of the Straits of Magellan. We went to a penguin colony, seeing rheas,foxes, and condors on the way. Penguins are cute. These were Magellan Penguins, sort of a small species. We had a wonderful lunch -- pisco sours, empenadas, and fish, then toured the town. Lots of Chechs in Punta Arenas as they were encouraged to come and settle.

We left that evening for Ushuaia, Argentia, on the Beagle Canal, Ushuaia is the southern most city in the world, not counting Puerto William, Chile, which is a military station. We saw the end of the Pan Am highway at the edge of Beagle Canal. (Ruta 3). Saw some of the inland forest and bays. There are no conifers there. The woods are very thick, hard to travel through because of all the fallen stuff on the ground.

Birds: We did not see many birds in Patagonia, although our guide in Ushuaia said she takes bird groups out now and then. They must be dedicated birders. Two species of Caracara (acts something like a crow, but is a member of the falcon family), condors, and waterfowl, including steamer ducks, one specie of which is flightless.

CAPE HORN!
The next day we traveled southwest, around the Wollaston group of islands, then around Cape Horn (Cabo Hornos). We outran the squalls following us and had a great view of the Horn. The ship had a ceremony of pouring sea water on the passengers heads through a hole in a viking helmet.

After leaving the Horn, we traveled by the southernmost tip of Teirra Del Fuego on our way to Stanley, Falkland Islands. Why would you fight over a place like that? Barren, windy, not many good harbors -- we had to ferry by ships tenders a couple miles into Stanley. We were lucky to have good enough weather to get in.

Our Group: We booked our trip with Uniworld, and the trip included all shore excursions (unlike the Norwegian Cruise Line packages). There were about 30 people in our group and we had a great guide, Guido Bauer. We also had local guides here and there. Alexandro was our Santiago/Valparaiso guide. We didn't have an asshole in the group. By the way, most of the people on the ship were well over 60.

From the Falklands, we traveled back across the South Atlantic to Puerto Madryn, Agentina. This section of Argentina was settled by many Welsh people. We traveled across the Pampas, seeing a herd of guanacos to Trelew and Gaiman, by the Chubut River. Interesting museum in Trelew, lots of dinosaur stuff. We also traveled by the site of the Argentine Omega radio navigation transmitter,since deactivated. (I used to work with the Omega system).

Then to Montevideo, Uruguay, a flat country on the Rio de La Plata. Not terribly interesting. Had lunch at Punta del Esta yacht club. Then up the river to Buenos Aires (Bwaynos Iris). This is a very large city, a lot of wealth and a lot of poverty. A lot of wealth had disappeared due to the devaluation of the Argentine peso, which had been tied to the dollar. We saw Evita's balcony and also her tomb. Also went to the poor Italian section La Boca, touristy by day, dangerous at night. Tom bought a leather hat there for $20. We saw a wonderful Tango show that evening. The Tango is more of a play set to music (sort of). It is considered music that came from the lower, predominately Italian class.

The next day, we boarded a Lan Chile (nice airline) flight to Santiago, to LA, then back to Seattle.

We had a great time. Days on the ship were a little boring, but most days we were doing something. Our tour guide and our local guides were very good.