Puerto Natales, Última Esperanza, Región Magallanes, Chile: I headed south from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales on a Navimag Ferry.



I had never been on a cruise before but this was pretty stripped down with no frills. It is part cruise ship, part cargo ferry: there were about 75 passengers and several trucks hauling everything from vegetables to construction materials. Thankfully I was not on the cattle hauling route. 

Instead of heading south on the Carretera Austral the boat wove in and out of canals and straights, down the Pacific, past fjords and glaciers to Puerto Natales. 





We were led by a German who gave lectures on the local flora and fauna. Perceval was very knowledgeable and what he lacked in fluency in English he made up for in indefatigable enthusiasm for the subject matter. 

We saw enormous jelly fish, playful river dolphins, and many kinds of birds. There were many condors and cormorants but also a lot of albatross. I did not see one of the gigantic wandering albatross from Samuel Coleridge’s poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but even the smaller version is an elegant bird. 



The passengers were an interesting mix of nationalities and backgrounds. I shared a cabin with Anna, a Dutch woman who worked in the legal department of the national welfare system and had taken a leave of absence from her job to travel in South America for three months. In the cabin next to ours were a Dutch doctor and nurse. There was also a guitarist from Rotterdam. For a relatively small country the Dutch were well represented on the boat.  Most of the passengers were French and German, but of course there were several Americans as well. 



We sailed for four days and three nights. For 16 painful hours we were on the Pacific Ocean and got to experience seasickness first hand. The captain informed us that it was pretty calm on the ocean and thank goodness for that otherwise it could have gotten really unpleasant. I had dinner with the Dutch couple one night and the nurse looked really green. It was the first time I had understood that expression. 

We landed in Puerto Natales and most people headed off to start their treks in Torres del Paine. I signed up to do the full circuit with a group many months before and a had a few days to kill in Puerto Natales.  





Fresh off of kayaking in El Calafate I decided to do it again on the channel.  The wind on the western side of the Andes is stronger than on the eastern side so kayaking this time was a bit harder. 





Near the town are caves where the skin of a Mylodon (giant ice age sloth) was discovered in 1895. The remains of other Mylodons were subsequently discovered and the skins are in Europe, but the caves are still being excavated to search for more ice age creatures. 





I think I’m too tall to really enjoy caves. After hitting my head for the third time in one of the smaller caves I decided spelunking is not in my future. However, the sillón del diablo (devil’s armchair) nearby offered great views and was fun to climb. 





I also went to Bernardo O’Higgins National Park and saw two more glaciers Balmaceda and Serrano. The glacier on Monte Balmaceda dramatically comes down to the fjord. 



It was snowing at the top of the Serrano Glacier, so it rained where I stood at the base. I watched pieces of the glacier plunge into the water.