¿Where in the Fjord?

A lot has happened since our last update, and life is blustery and frigid here at the ends of the earth. When we last checked in we were embarking onto the Navimag ferry from Puerto Montt, Chile, to Purto Natales (it was the first time we had ever ´embarked' so it was pretty exciting). The boat trip itself was about 4 days through the canals, fjords, and the open sea of Chile´s southern stretch.

Although the trip itself was a little pricey it was a welcome change from our regular mode of tranportation. We stayed in a four person cabin, oddly enough our roomates were a great Isreali couple who we had met several weeks earlier in Argentina--small is the path of travellers. The quarers were tight with no privacy to speak of except a curtain that covered the small bunks.

Since the majority of the trip was through the fjords the water was calm, and for the most part the weather was relatively good--not sunny, but not pouring rain with zero visibility. The scenery from the deck of the boat was great, especially when it was navigating the narrow chanels (the smallest being only about 85 feet wide). Of course a good thing can´t go without a mishap, and on the second day as we glided past towering green mountains and an uncountable number of waterfalls, our camera decided to stop working. (We think the culprit may have been a grain of sand that started causing problems a month earlier when I dropped the camera in my pocket--which was full of beach sand. Woops.) Although the scenery on this day was amazing, for us, the beauty turned to tragedy as we were not able to take hundreds of photos like everyone else. After a relentless pity party full of scowling, moping, banging the camera on my hand and telling others of our misfurtune, it started working again. It was now 8:00 at night, but the problem, what ever it was, was now gone. Whew...anyway, back to the boat.

At percisely 2:15 pm on the second day the tour conductor on the boat makes an announcement in English, with her strong Chilean accent, ''Passengers, now is the exact time to take the sea sick pill.'' Which we did. Turns out I am not meant to be a sailor, or a pirate, or an old sea dog, because as soon as we hit the open ocean and the I could see the horizon through the windows of the boat turn from the gray of the sky to the gray of the sea, I had to retire to my small bunk and lay in the fetal position for the rest of the night, struggling to keep down my spaghetti dinner. Shanon, on the other hand, lazily read her book in the lounge and then watched a movie in the cafeteria.

The experience itself was nice overall, and a good change of pace. The food was good (Shanon ate fish), our friends from Isreal were great to hang out with, and like I mentioned, the scenery was great, and it feels REALLY good to go a few days without having to make any decisions about where to go, what to do or where to eat. That's as easy as it gets in South America.

Once again we are just ahead of the summer tourist mahem that's about to begin down here, and in case you were wondering, life is cold and blustery down here at the end of the earth where Antarctica is just a long stone throw away.