DAYS 29 and 30, Sunday and Monday, February 10 and 11. Cruising the Chilean fjords
Saturday night the weather was extremely rough, and the rough waters lasted throughout the morning. We finally reached the calm waters of the fjords only around noon. The chef therefore was making pancakes in the terrace restaurant, and offering other breakfast food for the guests who slept late.
To my somewhat naive impression, judging just by what I’ve seen on this cruise, the Chilean fjords comprise an area of sheltered waterways lined with multiple islands, with distant hills or mountains beyond. In the north the islands are lush with vegetation. They are like a flock of green sheep, marching along in irregular rows.
Further south they become rockier, it seems, more varied.
Then in the Magellan Straits, the waterway is lined with looming gray, craggy mountaintops.
These fjords are not like the ones I’m used to. Think lower Hudson River, where it passes the Tappan Zee and then the Washington bridges, with high cliffs on both sides. Yes, here we cruised past a glacier as it met the sea, but there’s nothing here like Trollfjord, for example.
After a nice afternoon cruising through the fjords the captain went out to sea again, to capture a good satellite signal so people could watch the Superbowl. They threw a big party for it in the lounge.
In the wee hours of Monday the ship returned to the calm waters of the fjord. We passed by the first glacier of the cruise, and then the mountains lining the fjords became less green and more rocky, rougher.
Day 31, Tuesday, February 14. Punta Arenas, Chile
Mary gave me a Valentine card; I sent her a drawing of the two of us standing in front of the Old Man’s Beard waterfall.
It’s cold, but a nice day for a walk. There are two shuttles available, one for the town center, the other for the duty-free shopping center. We took the one to the town center, then walked to the shopping center, a long walk along a very long boulevard with a wide mall, trees along the whole way.
This is a modern post-colonial city with a blend of old and new buildings, all sturdy, sort of Northern-European looking. One of the on the town square is meticulously maintained. Victorian mansion with an orangery and everything, a social club, with part of it a hotel. Very grand.
In the city there are statues to political heroes—Magellan, O’Higgins. Punta Arenas was begun as a penal colony, but unlike the Australians, the Chileans don’t make much of this part of their past. However, along the boulevard, on a bit of raised ground, is a sculpture depicting/honoring the area’s agricultural past, an old shepherd with his sheep and a mule. Nice.
We ended our walk at the duty-free shopping area and bought some Remy Martin and Bombay Sapphire.