Chapter 2

At Sea,

Puerto Montt,

Castro,

Puerto Chacabuco

December 22, 23, 24, 25

Heading south from Santiago

Monday, Dec. 22:  At Sea

We had quite a distance to cover, so we had an “at sea” day with relatively few activities.  Thinking that we would need something to keep us busy, I had signed us up for a “Culinary class” in the morning.  We showed up in the very well-equipped Culinary Center at the designated time, washed up, chose our work stations, and put on our aprons.

Susan is ready to learn how to cook.  (Yeah, right!)

The culinary center had room for about 12 students and all spaces were taken.  We quickly realized that this class was really about providing us some entertainment rather than a serious “how to cook” experience.  This was reinforced when the first activity was the distribution of a glass of wine for everyone, at 9:30 AM.  Our instructor chef explained how the class would work, with him demonstrating a “skill” and then we students would go to our stations and do that skill on the food at our station.  In addition to the chef/instructor, there were two assistant chefs and a utility helper/clean-up guy.   The “feature” that made it all rather unrealistic is that most of the prep work was already done for us: ingredients were measured and put in small bowls placed in the sequence they should be used: any serious chopping or cutting was already done and pans were started to heat to the right temperature while we were watching the chef.  About all we had to do was dump the ingredients into the pan in the right order, stir, and plate it.  Well, not quite, there was a little more to it than that.

The instructor/chef at his station.

Our first “project” was making an beef empanada and we did have to combine and cook the ingredients for the “stuffing”, place the stuffing onto the provided pastry, and close/seal the pastry so the assistant chefs could actually bake it.  Next was a “fish in paper” dish where we combined and cooked some seasonings and veggies and placed some on the provided paper, followed by the fish (cut and shaped by the assistants), then the rest of the veggies/spice, and fold the paper properly so it did not unfold in the oven.  By this time we were tasting/testing our empanadas as well as drinking the wine.  Finally, while the “fish in paper” cooked, the instructor demonstrated how to make crepes.  The batter was all made and ready for us, so all we had to do was pour it in the pan, cook, flip, fold, and remove the completed crepe.  To give you an idea of why this class took over two hours, here is a short video of the instructor demonstrating pouring the crepe batter: note that this segment was edited to reduce the time.  By the time class was over we had eaten an empanada, a hunk of fish with sauce, at least one of the crepes we made, a glass of wine, and it was about noon.  We didn’t bother eating any lunch.  We did leave with a nice booklet of some of their recepies.

After recovering from the strenuous class, we checked out the exercise room.  There was generally one weight/strength machine for each normally exercised muscle or group (biceps, triceps, chest, legs, etc.) but no equipment for abs or back.  It took a while to figure out the machines and how to adjust them, but we got in a few reps/sets and then moved on to the aerobic machines.  There were a couple of basic treadmills, two elliptical machines, one rowing machine, and a couple of upright bicycle machines.  I tried one of the elliptical machines first, but it was oriented across the ship (so you could look out a window at the sea) and there were fairly good waves making the ship roll back and forth.  As the ship rolled, the motion on the elliptical would go from uphill to downhill, back to uphill:  it was not a good effect.  I soon had enough of that and tried a bicycle and it was a little better, but I only lasted about 15 minutes before I’d had enough.  We did a few laps around the deck, but the wind and light rain soon defeated us and we headed back to our cabin to rest up.

We had reservations at the Polo “Steak House” and got an early enough start to get in a glass of wine at Martinis bar before dinner.

We did have a nice table.

We got a very nice table by a large window but the view was of rain, fog, and choppy waves.  My favorite on the Polo menu is the Prime Rib and it comes in a choice of 16 oz. or 32 oz (with bone).  Normally I prefer a bone, but I have enough trouble with the 16 oz size so there was no way I was going to handle 32 oz of prime rib.  Susan had a filet with a lobster tail on top and it looked pretty good also. 

This is the 16 oz size, think what the 32 oz version would be.

After dinner, we again stopped in at Martinis bar for some cognac.  The primary entertainment show this night was a “Magic comedian” and we have not had much success with comedians onboard ships, so we had an extra cognac and called it a night.

Tuesday, Dec. 23:  Puerto Montt

Today was our first “Port Day” and there, Marina was anchored in the harbor of Puerto Montt so we had tender service from the ship to the dock.  We had signed on with a group from the Cruise Critic Roll Call for an independent tour, so we had to wait while many of the Oceania tours got first shot at the tender seats.  Luckily, all 10 of us on the independent tour got on the same tender so that made it easy to keep us together and find the tour guide. 

Marina at anchor in Puerto Montt harbor

We all climbed in the large van/mini-bus with our driver and a tour guide.  The first stop was about a 75 minute ride to get to a national park that is commonly called the Vargas Volcanos National Park, because it is in the Vargas area and includes two active volcanos.  While one of the volcanos was in the distance and generally hidden by clouds, the closer one seemed to loom over the area for much of our tour. 

The park included a number of trails, including some to the prime attraction, the Petrohue falls.  The trails themselves were nice and I enjoyed being in a rich green forest again, after being in the mostly leafless winter environment at home.

A nice walkway into the Vargas Volcanos National Park

Of course, the first order of business were the falls, so we headed that way on the trails.  The falls were not the traditional high falls, but a series of low falls, with a very high volume of water.  The water actually split into separate paths with a different set of falls for each path.  But, whichever set of falls you look at, the volcano seemed to always be in the distance.

The Osorno volcano, one of two active volcanos in the area

There were overlooks where you could get a good look at the falls, such as the one in the photo below.

One of the several sets of falls in the park

Then, a few feet away, was another set of falls where the water had decided to take a different path down to the river below, such as the falls in the photo below.

Some other falls, with the volcano in distance

If you want a little better idea of all this, check this video of some of the falls.

After looking at the falls for a while, and taking many photos, we headed to one of the trails that went through the wooded area, somewhat parallel to the river.  There had been a significant amount of recent rain so there was a bit of an obstacle course included on the trail, but I thought it was rather picturesque.

Slightly wet, but picturesque, trail in the park

We walked the trail for a while, checking out some of the side paths that led to overlooks along the river.  With all the recent rain, the river was flowing very well.

View of the river from an overlook along the trail

We soon loaded back into the van and started retracing our route back toward Puerto Montt, although we would have a couple of stops along the way.  From the van we could occasionally get a glimpse of the other active volcano in the area, Volcan Calbuco, but never enough to get a decent photo.  We rode 20 or 30 minutes and by now it was about lunch time.  We stopped at a picnic shelter with a table and benches along side the very large lake in the area, Lake Todos los Santos.  Lunch consisted of a glass or two of wine and, what else?…  empanadas!  We stood around for a while,  enjoying the wine and tasty empanadas with the view across the lake.  If this had been a clear sunny day, it would have been a spactular sight since all the mountains and volcanos in the area were always snow-capped.

Nice view of the lake from picnic area

After our lunch, we rode back to one of the larger towns in the area, Puerto Vargas, which sits on the shore of Lake Todos los Santos.  We had some “free time” to look around and it was a fairly busy area: remember, this is just two days before Christmas.  There was a nice, neat, and clean town square and off one side of the square was a very busy large tent that contained sort of a “Christmas Market”.

Puerto Vargas has a nice town square.

Not far from the square was the lake front with several beaches and, as with about any good size lake, plenty of birds, especially ducks.  The birds, especially the ducks, were rather tame and were obviously looking for handouts.

Any large lake has to have birds, especially ducks.

Extending out into and over the lake was a relatively new auditorium, concert hall, theater and multi-purpose rooms that were referred to as just “The Lake Theater”.  The style was a bit unusual, with a walkable sidewalk all around the building, even well out over the water and a very colorful form of exterior siding.  You can see a little of this siding in the photo below.

The somewhat different, but beautiful, “Lake Theater”

A short ride brought us back to Puerto Montt and the tender ride back to the Marina.  Tonight was dinner in the GDR followed by what I thought was one of the better shows” a husband and wife team who called themselves “Gilly and the Girl”.  His name is Mike Gill (thus the “Gilly” part) and “the girl” just seemed to be a natural follow-on.  He played guitar and they both sang various parts of what I call “easy listening” songs from the 70s and 80s: what they termed “Raised by Radio”.  Just enough talking and storytelling to break up the singing a bit and a very friendly, easygoing style.  The show band was on stage to back them up, but actually played very little: Gilly’s guitar was the primary musical instrument.  I didn’t have my camera to take any photos/videos, but I did have it a couple of nights later when they performed another show, so you will have to wait a little bit to see why I liked them.  After the show we made it up to the Horizon Lounge for a while to listen to the Deuces dance band and watch the few dancers while enjoying a little (more) cognac.

Wednesday, Dec. 24:  Castro, Chile

Today started about the same as many of the days will, with the ship slowly pulling into a harbor and dropping anchor while we headed to breakfast in the Terrace Café.  One thing about Castro that was not obvious is that it is actually on an island: a large island named Chiloe and our ship had to navigate a somewhat narrow and twisting passage to get to the harbor.

We will be on a Oceania excursion today, so at the appointed time we went to the Marina Lounge, exchanged our excursion tickets for the tender/bus number tickets, and waited until our bus number was called for boarding onto the tender.  It was just a short tender ride to the dock and we climbed into our tour bus, a large “full size” motorcoach: while we had more people on this tour (about 25) than the independent tour the previous day, the seating on the large bus was more comfortable.

Marina in the Castro, Chile harbor with a tender at the dock

The initial destination for today was the OS-Cucao Chiloe national park: Chile does seem to have a lot of National Parks.  This one largely followed the previous one with trails leading to and through wooded areas and places/plants of interest.  In total, we’ll be walking about 2 miles, but it will take us almost 2 hours, so there was no rush.  The first point of interest was at a clump of Gunnera Tinceria, more commonly called “Chilean Rhubarb”.  It has huge leaves, some about 3 feet across, that are very rough with many small spines, especially on the bottom side of the leaf.  The leaves are sometimes used to wrap foods while cooking, like banana leaves, and the stems can be peeled and eaten raw or cooked and eaten.  They are also used in dyes and in tanning leather.  Our guide said that some people believe that a person could live by just eating the parts of the plant prepared in many different ways.

Some leaves and bloom of a “Chilean Rhubarb” (Gunnera Tinceria) plant

Part of the trail was through a rather thick forest with many kinds of plants and trees.  Although rather cool and damp, it appeared very similar to a tropical rain forest.

Part of the wet trail through the National Park

AQ short distance into the walk, we came to a structure that allowed you to climb steps up the equivalent of about 15 or 20 feet to an observation platform for a better look around.  There really was not a lot to see around the relatively flat terrain of the park, although there was a lake and then some hills in the distance.

View from the top of the overlook

A little further on, the trail appeared to divide and there was a map of the trails with a “Park Ranger” standing next to the map.  The ranger smiled a lot but never said a word so I suspect he did not understand or speak English.  (That’s OK: I don’t know much Spanish.)  It turned out that were were at the beginning of the loop trail that is in the upper right of the map: We’ll be going around the loop then heading back the way we had come.

“Park Ranger” with a map of the trails

This part of the trail was partially up on a boardwalk and had some interesting plants and trees along the trail.  Our guide (not the ranger) pointed out some unusual plants (like the “Umbrella Leaf” plant), but I just enjoyed the unique sights the area offered and tried to capture some of them.

Have to get in some “artsy” photos

Here (above and below) are some views and photos that I thought interesting.

And another artsy one

We finished the loop trail and retraced our initial steps, but noticed different sights going in the opposite direction.  For example, very close to the clump of Chilean Rhubarb was the shore of a large lake with a walkway extending out into a mass of reeds to a small dock or observation platform.  If nothing else, it gave us a view with some nice blue sky rather than just the clouds we had seen so far.

We actually got some blue sky!

By the time we completed the walk and got back in the bus, it was getting close to noon, so, of course that means time for food.  It was only about 15 minutes to a roadside restaurant that was obviously set up to handle tour busses of people.  They did have some colorful flowers all around the restaurant as we walked in.

A mix of colorful flowers outside restautrant

Inside the restaurant there were large picnic tables with small appetizers and glasses of some kind of fruit juice and more glasses of Pisco Sours, a traditional Chilean (and Peruvian) drink.  There is apparently an ongoing (mostly friendly) debate whether the Pisco Sour originated in Chile or Peru and whether a “proper” Pisco Sour should include egg-white or not.  There was no egg-white in these Pisco Sours because egg-white, when shaken, would have left a thick layer of frothy foam on top of the liquid.

Pisco sours and some kind of fruit juice for a starter

In addition to the small appetizers, the juice and Pisco Sours, we were also served…  you guessed it!  Empanadas!  When we were finished with the refreshments, we loaded back into the bus for the 45 minute ride back to Castro.  Susan and I (and most people on the bus) took the option of getting off the bus at the town square and walking back to the dock.  Like every small to medium size town we visited on this trip, Castro had a very well kept and attractive town square.  Like Puerto Montt the previous day, there was a Christmas market off to one side of the square that was doing a pretty brisk business.

Castro town square with Christmas decorations

There were Christmas decorations all around the square and on about all the businesses that were close to the square: it appeared everyone was in a holiday mood.

In case you forget where you are, a reminder

We walked around the square and several adjacent streets, making several wrong turns and backtracking, before finally finding our way to the dock and the tender back to the Marina.

Castro waterfront, as seen from Marina

The waterfront area of Castro is pretty, but you have to get up close to see one of the distinctive features of the city: the “Stilt Houses” or Palafitos.  The area has become about as well known for this stilt houses as it is for growing farmed salmon and mussels in the many bays and inlets of the area.

Close-up of waterfront with a few “stilt houses” visible

In this close-up view from the photo just above, you can see a few stilt houses, but there are a couple of whole communities of these houses seemingly wall-to-wall and several houses deep which, unfortunately, I failed to get a decent photo of.  After returning from our excursion, we rested for a while and got ready for a glass of wine in Martinis bar, followed by dinner in Toscana, the Italian themed restaurant.  I don’t remember what pasta dishes we ordered, but they were pretty good. There was a Barbara wine on the bottle wine list, so I had to give it a try: it was a bit juicy/fruity for a Barbara, but very pleasant and went well.  However, the memorable part of the dinner was really Paulo, the guy who wheeled around the cart with a variety of olive oils and balsamic vinegar for the bread.  Paulo is probably one of the older people on the staff, is completely bald, is from Portugal, and is a bit of a character.  He can also be found behind the counter making all kinds of coffee in Baristas Coffee Bar during the day.  At the opposite end of the spectrum, as far as age and hair goes, was Aksant(?), a young server/assistant who was very personable and made several helpful suggestions.   All-in-all a very enjoyable meal, even if I did eat (and drink?) too much.

After dinner the primary entertainment was a special Merry Christmas song and dance show that the production company apparently put together specifically for this one Christmas Eve show.  While perhaps not top Las Vegas quality, I thought they did a very good job of putting together a special show.  You can get an idea of what it was like in this short clip from their Jingle Bell Rock number.  After the show we decided to get to sleep early so Santa Claus could get to work.

Thursday, Dec 25 (!!) :  Chacabuco, Chile

On Christmas morning we were again slowly making our way up a relatively narrow inlet (fjord?) to Puerto Chacabuco.  I’ll include a piece of a map to give you an idea of what I mean.

Puerto Chacabuco

As you can see, we had to take a rather long route to get from the Pacific Ocean to Puerto Chacabuco.  We did have some interesting views as we made our way through the inlet, including a double waterfall coming down a mountainside.

Passing a double waterfall on the way to Puerto Chacabuco

Looking out from our balcony, we could also see some rather threatening clouds that had me a bit worried. 

From our balcony, the weather did not look promising.

We were part of another independent tour today so I was worried that we might get stuck behind the Oceania tours when trying to get seats on the tenders.  Today we would be lucky though: we actually got to the bay and were anchored almost an hour early, so the Oceania excursions were not scheduled this early and we got one of the first tenders to shore and the local “Cruise Terminal”.  It was very quiet, but I was a little surprised there was anyone around, considering that it was Christmas morning.

The Marina as seen through the window of the cruise terminal

Our excursion instructions said to take the free shuttle from the cruise terminal to the “three domes”.  Eh??  Three domes?  It turned out to be the usual case of “when you see them, you will know”.  Up on a small hill overlooking the harbor were three white geodesic domes, each about 40 feet across and 20 feet high: you couldn’t miss them.  There were a few vendors in the domes selling their wares and I felt a little bad about not buying anything from them since they had come out on Christmas.

Inside the geodesic domes, with the shops

We found our tour guide and the 10 of us were soon loading into a van and getting started probably almost an hour ahead of schedule.  Although our port was officially Puerto Chacabuco, there really was not much to see there: well, other than the domes.  We headed up the nice highway a couple of miles to the slightly larger town of Puerto Aysen which lies on the Aysen river.  Puerto Aysen is primarily a fishing town and the river offers a good protective anchorage for the fishing fleet, which was almost totally in port today because of the holiday.  We stopped at one bridge to get a better view, and a few photos, of the colorful fleet.

The fishing fleet in protected waters

From the Aysen river with the fishing fleet, we made the short drive over to the town square to look around and provide bathroom facilities prior to the hour drive that was ahead of us.  Like the other town squares, this one as well maintained and decorated for Christmas.  There was a large Christmas tree in the center of the square, but I liked one corner where there was a old anchor on a bit of a pedestal (honoring the local fishermen) next to more Christmas decorations and across the street from a “mixed architecture” church and a rather modernistic bell tower.  It was quite an interesting area.

At the town square: Christmas decorations, a symbolic anchor, modernistic bell tower, mixed architecture church

We also stopped to take a look at one of the bridges over a wide part of the river: the locals referred to this bridge as their “Golden Gate” and there is a definite resemblance in color and style, if not in size.  We’ll see another “interesting” bridge a little later.

The Puerto Aysen “Golden Gate”

After checking out Puerto Aysen, we loaded back in the van and headed north for about an hour, to another Chilean National Park where we had about 45 minutes to look around.  The park was bordered on one side by a decent size river and had a number of trails to check out.  Susan and I ended up walking with our guide on a trail that paralleled the river, with all kinds of trees and plants.

Very colorful little flowers

There were several small streams that came down the hill and fed into the river and, with a light rain falling most of the time, the streams were flowing pretty well.   You might notice in the photo below that everything is a bit damp, and we were also by this time.

A little stream flowing through the woods in the park

At the end of the trail there was a sheltered overlook where we could take a good look a the river.  I suspect the river was a combination of rain run-off and snow-melt from the near-by snow capped mountains: I also suspect the water is very cold!

And the little stream joined with this river.

After looking around, we got back in the van and enjoyed its warm dry environment for a while as we headed back to Puerto Aysen.  We did make a stop to check out a 2-stage waterfall alongside the road.  There were a number of cars and couple of other vans of people checking it out.

A “two stage” waterfall alongside the road

If you want a little better look at the waterfall, check this short video.  After checking out the waterfall, we headed down the road a little further and then turned off the main road onto a local gravel road and rode another couple of miles before we stopped.  You remember my comment about another bridge?  Well, here it is.

Susan and our guide walking across the bridge

And the reason we stopped was so we could unload from the van to reduce its weight.  The bridge was not exactly in robust condition, with a number of loose and broken boards.  Getting everyone (except the driver) out of the van cut its weight almost in half and, if the bridge did give way, only the driver would be going down with the van.  We all walked across the bridge and then watched the van drive across very carefully.

Watching the van come across the bridge

The van didn’t have much room to spare on the sides, but the driver got it across unscratched.  We piled back into the van and another mile or so down the road, we pulled into the parking area of a very local restaurant.

A very local restaurant

It was not exactly a big modern building, but once inside, we could see that it was comfortable and of very solid construction, unlike that bridge.  There was some lamb on the grill, as well as some pork that had been smoked.

Lamb cooking on the grill

We all grabbed seats and enjoyed some wine, fresh baked bread, and a salad before the servers came around with our choice of lamb, pork, or salmon.  (We are still in a major salmon farming region.)  After the meal, the show began.

Susan, Roberta, and Frank raise a Christmas toast.

There were two dancers, actually brother and sister, that put on a demonstration of some local dances.  Dances just don’t show well in photos, but I do have a video of parts of a couple of the dances.   After a very good (and large) meal, we thanked the family for coming out on Christmas to feed and entertain us and climbed back in the van.  And yes, we had to go back out the same way we came in.

Yes, we did it again on the way out.

We had to unload, walk across the bridge, wait for the van to cross, then load up again.  At least this time we had much higher confidence that the van would make it across successfully.  We got back to Puerto Chacabuco about 3:30 and relaxed for a while.  With the large lunch, we decided to just have a (relatively) light dinner in the Terrace Café after some wine in Martinis .  Being a little different this time, we headed to the Horizon lounge after dinner for a cognac.  The entertainment was the Magician Comedian again so we skipped that and just relaxed in the Horizon lounge, perhaps with a second glass (snifter?) of cognac before calling it a night.

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 Chapter 3 - the cruise continues