I couldn’t resist the pun, but in truth of fact every journey finds its harmony not in the major “Fjords”, but in the minor ones. What we expect brings with it the risk of disappointment. However, the little joys that we don’t expect become magnified in the encounter.

We arrived for a day in port at Puerto Chacabuco, Chile. The population (1,250) of this village was more than doubled by our arrival. It is an entry point into the interior of Southern Patagonian and the location of the 1817 Battle of Chacabuco where national hero San Martin and his Army of the Andes defeated the royalist in the struggle for independence.

I participated in a bus tour that visited the Rio Simpson Nature Preserve which was located an hours drive into the interior. The drive presented us with wonderful vistas that I wish we could have stopped to enjoy. I was able to secure some usable images that were shot through the bus window.

The passenger seated next to me happened to be Alister Miller, who for the last 7 years has been Vikings photographer. He has traveled the world-over preserving “Viking moments”. His wife is also the daughter of Vietnam’s former Vice President. She and her family were part of the boat people exodus from that country. She settled in Norway where she became a renowned dress designer. For a number of years she was the personal designer for Norway’s Queen. A joyfully unexpected meeting and conversation with a master of his craft.

The preserve was well kept and provided a delightful walk through fields of flowers along the Simpson River. The brilliant purple flowers are Lupin. The giant leafed plants are Gunnera tinctoria, also known as “giant rhubarb”, although it is not a related species. Perhaps one of my friends can help with the identification of the small yellow flowers.

At the park I met jewelry artists Claudia Munoz and her husband. I purchased a pair of Claudia’s earrings as a surprise for Christine. A little joy in the encounter, in the purchase, and in the subsequent giving.

On our return we stopped at Chile’s longest suspension bridge.

I saw a giant Andean Conor in flight. These are the largest flying birds in the world in combined weight and wingspan, weighing over 30 pounds and with a span of over 10 feet. They are among the longest lived birds, having a lifespan of over 70 years. The species is threatened and numbers are in decline. It is believed that only 6,000 remain in the wild.

Christine had passed on the outing to get over a minor upset stomach. We rejoined at dock and then walked the (few) streets of Puerto Chacabuco in search of lunch.

We have always considered “eating with the locals” as one of the little joys to embrace. We have rarely been disappointed with our off-the beaten-track finds, and today was no exception.

“Restaurante Y Cocinaria” didn’t look like much from the outside, but it was superbly charming inside. Good beer, a steak (real, not ground) sandwich as big as my head and a charming waitress who spoke no English made this another of the day’s little joys.

There were other “little joys”, but the one that I will leave you with was enjoying our veranda, drinks in hand. I was playing songs of our generation through my Bluetooth speaker. Like the Pied Piper it called our neighbor, Polly, to look over with a glass of wine in her hand. She and Christine bear a passing resemblance. Their banter, silver hair dancing in the wind, made for another joy that I was fortunate enough to preserve with my camera.

Peace… and little joys Everyone. Pete

PS. As I was finishing the above my background music began playing one of my favorite songs, Procol Harum’s “A Salty Dog”. Like most of their music the lyrics present a mystery of interpretation. Nevertheless, I found something resonant as we near our final port of call:

A Salty Dog

‘All hands on deck, we’ve run afloat!’ I heard the captain cry

‘Explore the ship, replace the cook: let no one leave alive!’

Across the straits, around the Horn: how far can sailors fly?

A twisted path, our tortured course, and no one left alive

We sailed for parts unknown to man, where ships come home to die

No lofty peak, nor fortress bold, could match our captain’s eye

Upon the seventh seasick day we made our port of call

A sand so white, and sea so blue, no mortal place at all

We fired the gun, and burnt the mast, and rowed from ship to shore

The captain cried, we sailors wept: our tears were tears of joy

Now many moons and many Junes have passed since we made land

A salty dog, this seaman’s log: your witness my own hand…

We are into our third and final week aboard the Viking Sun. As wonderful as this has been I confess that there are just a few aspects of this style of voyaging that do not suit my personality well. Making the final port will be welcome.

The service and amenities on Viking Sun are second to none. The staff are drawn from all over the world. What they have in common is an endearing quality that just makes you want to make them members of your family.

However, I am still somewhat constrained to a group schedule. The duration that I linger in a community is limited. There are few opportunities to meaningfully engage with locals.

Food and drink aboard are excellent and plentiful, to my detriment. I have stuck to my exercise routine, but there is a lot of sedentary time on our hands. The human body is like a battery and for the last 2+ weeks I’ve been taking in more calories than I can burn. The Piper will have to be paid once I’m home.

On November 30th I learned that the automated system that sends out email notifications when I make a post had ceased operating. I have spent the last few days in frustration trying to rectify this. I can still manually post to Facebook, but many of the subscribers are not on Facebook. In the meantime we have continued to marvel at the sights and experiences that are unfolding for us.

On the evening of November 30th we arrived in Punta Arenas, Chile, a city of 127,000 residents. This is the southernmost city in the country, and is to Chile what Ushuaia was to Argentina. Punta Arenas was founded in 1843, and like Ushuaia it began as a penal colony. Both cities are common starting points for expeditions to Antarctica. We shared the pier with two such ships.

The Laurence M. Gould is an American flagged icebreaker. It is distinctive for its unusually blunt orange bow. The design allows it to ride up upon the ice where the weight of the vessel is transmitted to the ice through the reinforced bow, thus breaking through the ice with the downward pressure.

Docked just ahead of the Gould was the RSS Discovery, a world class oceanographic research vessel from the United Kingdom. It is operated by the National Oceanography Centre and features a host of state of the art instruments and devices, including remotely operated deep water submersibles.

In the distance the hulk of a four masted windjammer was visible. It presented a poetic counterpoint to vessels at the wharf. A ghost of an earlier era of exploration and commerce. This was the 1875 vessel, County of Peebles, that plied the Atlantic, Pacific, and Cape Horn over 100 years ago.

We enjoyed a 3 hour walking tour of Punta Arenas that was quite revealing if not picturesque. The city endures some of the harshest climate conditions of any city in the world. There are pedestrian “grab-rails” strategically situated to assist walkers during straight line winds that can top 100 miles per hours. Winter combines cold temperatures and driving winds with relentless snow. The city is not connected to the rest of the country by road (except through Argentina), yet retains some limited attraction as a tourist port destination. There is a humble (by Rocky Mountain standards) ski lift and downhill skiing during the season.

The city has the largest urban Croatian population outside of Croatia, due to this being a point of Croatian immigration in the 19th Century. Today, approximately 50% of the city’s inhabitants trace their ancestry to that country.

During the first half of the 20th Century this area became one of the most important in the world for wool production. Sheep-raising continues to be one of the main economic drivers, along with petroleum and tourism. However, there is a threat to tourism at present.

The streets were largely deserted because it was Sunday. However, broken windows, boarded up businesses, and graffiti were everywhere.

Our guide informed us that a few days ago the city was accosted by protestors. These were destructive groups from elsewhere in the country who simultaneously descended upon at least 3 other cities in addition to the capital, Santiago, where protests have been in the news for the last month. The troubles have been simmering because of deteriorating economic conditions. The “straw that broke the camels back” is said to be an increase in public transportation fares. Also, the country’s public pension fund is managed under a private contract. There are claims that the private entity and private interests have looted the fund and are causing a devaluation of the pension benefits. These are serious issues for a middle class that is suffering the loss of its financial security.

The town center features a still attractive park and monument to Ferdinand Magellan.

2020 will be the 500th anniversary of his circumnavigation of the world. The waterway that passes before the city is the Straights of Magellan where the explorer navigated from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans in 1520.

Magellan is credited with being the first person to circumnavigate the world, but only because between 1505 and 1511 he had been part of an another expedition that traveled east into Southeast Asia. He was killed in 1521 in the spice islands but that westward passage had crossed the easternmost extend of his earlier voyage.

Magellan’s voyage began in 1519. He was from Portugal but sailed for Spain, heading a fleet of 5 ships and about 270 men. Only one ship and 19 of the original crew survived to see Spanish soil when they concluded the journey in September of 1522.

Approximately 7 km from the town center of Punta Arenas there is a museum, of sorts. It is called the Museo Nao Victoria. Here in a very humble open space along the shore of the Straits of Magellan are found full size replicas of Magellan’s flagship, and the HMS Beagle of Charles Darwin fame. There were other vessels, completed and under construction.

The carrack Victoria impresses as a large, barely seaworthy, tub. There is nothing graceful or even remotely comfortable in her 65 foot length and 85 tons displacement. Yet she was home to 55 sailors (most of whom perished) and successfully covered 42,000 miles as she circled the globe between 1519 and 1522.

The Beagle was much more akin to my idea of a sailing vessel and showed how shipbuilding technology had advanced in the interceding 300 years. She was launched in 1820 as a 10 gun sloop of the Royal Navy. Her 90 foot length and 242 ton displacement carried a compliment of 120 sailors. She was used as a vessel of exploration. Her second, and most famous, voyage between 1831 and 1836 explored South America and is chronicled in Darwin’s famous book, “The Voyage of the Beagle”.

Our visit to the Museo Nao Victoria was a bit of an adventure in itself. We and another couple hailed a taxi in the city center and were dropped off at the museum. The remoteness of site gave me a little pause to consider how we would return to port. Nevertheless we toured the vessels… there was no actual building that was part of the exhibits. When it came time to leave there were a couple of tour busses exiting, but no cabs. We were not part of the tour groups and the one employee that we could find suggested that I walk to the highway that was about a quarter mile away and flag down a cab. That was what I determined to do until a kind man at the main gate offered to phone for a cab. We waited in the drizzle and were happy to recognize the driver who arrived as the one who first delivered us to the Museum.

All is well that ends well! Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. I hope to remedy the problem with the email notices. However, Christine is rightly encouraging me to just give it a rest. I don’t have my computer here and all the work that I am doing is on my iPad and iPhone.

PPS. December 4th. Automated email notices went out shortly after this published. However, not all of the images are visible. Some further efforts will be required.

Our overnight 24 hour ocean passage from the Falkland Islands to the Beagle Channel and Ushuaia, Argentina, gave a hint at what the whims of the weather gods could offer to the unsuspecting mariner. A following wind gusted to over 35 knots and seas built to 15-20 feet.

Our vessel and crew were more than capable, but a wine glass on our dresser tumbled to its demise by gravity’s invisible hand.

We are quite literally at the end of the civilized world. Ushuaia, Argentina, is the southernmost city in the world. It was founded in 1884. With a population of approximately 60,000 it is a popular tourist destination for travelers who arrive by ship, train, highway, and air.

Ushuaia is the point of departure for most tourists who seek to check off a journey to Antarctica from their bucket lists. The city’s motto, “Fin del Mundo, principio de todo”, translates in English to “End of the World, beginning of everything”.

As inhospitable as the region is, it has been a place of human settlement for 10,000 years. Tierra del Fuego (land of fire) refers to the visage seen from ships of thousands of fires tended by the natives. These days the lights ashore are furnished by electricity.

In 1896 a prison colony was established here, not unlike Britain’s Tasmania and France’s Devil’s Island, where the nature of the island and environment contributed as much to the confinement as did prison walls and bars. Convict labor was instrumental in building the town infrastructure, including the prison, roads, and a narrow gauge railway. The prison was closed in 1947.

We participated in a 2 hour overview tour of the city which was hosted by Cami, our delightful guide.

The city is situated between the southernmost extent of the otherworldly Andes Mountains and the legendary Beagle Channel that offers some protection from the rages of Drake’s Passage as one passes from one great ocean to the other.

We have been two days in this port and there is too much for me to say in a single post. Therefore, I will focus my thoughts within this post on Ushuaia and reserve our experiences in the nearby Parques Nacionales Tierra del Fuego for a second post.

The bustle of Ushuaia belies it’s geographic remoteness. Trip Advisor lists over 100 restaurants that are open for dinner. There are hotels, banks, casinos and nightclubs… even a Hard Rock Cafe. Of course, there is no shortage of shopping for locals and tourists alike.

Every war creates two narratives, one written by the victor and one by the vanquished. Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands tells a very different tale from the one recited in Argentina. Argentina has not relinquished its claim to “The Malvinas”, the name by which it refers to that archipelago.

Ushuaia is Argentina’s declared capitol of The Malvinas, and the seat of its “government in exile”. It is also the site of its monument dedicated to the memory of the Argentine soldiers who lost their lives in that conflict. Neither they or Argentina’s claim to the islands are forgotten.

Our evening on the 25th concluded in town with a wonderful dinner at Isabel Cocina. The house specialty is a dinner for 2 served piping hot at table in an iron pan. The dish features your protein of choice simmering in a stew of vegetables and paired gravy. We could have opted for chicken, pork, lamb, or an incredibly huge crab which is fresh caught in the Beagle Channel… it was a pair of beefsteaks for us. “Starters” are available but not encouraged as the large loaf of oven warm bread is the perfect starter when enjoyed dipped in the main dish sauce.

The dinner for two, including drinks and gratuity, was $20 US. The experience was priceless.

Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. Part 2 will follow with a focus on the nearby National Park. Also, we are scheduled to round Cape Horn at 7am (4am US Central time) Wednesday, November 27th.