From pampered cruise to self catering studio in Mexico

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Chile 13 – 24 February 2020, Mexico 26 February - 3 March



This is the third and last blog about the cruise. Sorry it took so long but the last week on board comprised lots of port days, so much to see and record.



The southern part of South America which ends in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago is a strange place, lots of islands and channels and if you look closely at the map you see that it is divided between Chile and Argentina. But as the area is narrow you are never far from the other country. However as soon as we were in Chile it felt a friendlier place than Argentina but that might have simply been the Usuaia 'cold shoulder' colouring our perception. By contrast Buenos Aires had been a lovely place to visit.





As I mentioned at the end of the Antarctica blog Captain Norman had done a great job in choosing his timing to cross the Drake passage both ways so the biggest swell we experienced was 4-5 metres, considered flat as a pancake in that vicinity! However the weather front chasing us north finally caught us up but only the edge of it. So as we sailed the Beagle Channel and Glacier Alley we had dark skies and stronger winds with occasional showers but still good enough to spend plenty of time on deck watching the view and listening to the expert commentary.





The glaciers along the Alley came by in quick succession. There was some confusion about whether there are 7 or 9 but they are named after countries in Europe including Hollanda, Italia, Francia and Allemania with some small ones remaining nameless. They are backed by mountains so are dramatic and each one different, some reaching the sea, others still easing their way out of valleys. It was a pleasant sail with plenty of interesting scenery and landforms but the amount of marine life was reduced. We did see the odd whale and penguin, mainly Humbolts as we moved north, but nothing like the populations seen in the South Shetlands and Antarctic peninsular. Perhaps the change in the light and weather conditions meant they were more difficult to spot.





The pace of the cruise started to change. After the seven sea days and the call into Usuaia the number of port calls increased, with the first Chilean stop being in Punta Arenas. We had decided not to take one of the excursions to see another penguin colony, not that I had seen enough of them, but because there seemed to be some interesting local historical attractions within driving distance of Punta Arenas. Plus of course arranging a private trip was much cheaper than ship excursions.





We went ashore and set about trying to find a driver. Because the town is relatively small taxis are not easy to find. There were a couple of local tour companies that could arrange what we wanted but one was closed. The other one agreed a price with us then set about calling their drivers only to find that non were free. We wandered out and started talking to a minibus driver, who was going in the opposite direction to us, but who called a couple of young men over who spoke good English and told them to find us a driver. One of them was a passionate Manchester United fan, evident from his clothing, and on discovering I came from Manchester, (the first Mancunian he has ever met) he was spurred on to arrange our transport and tracked down an elderly taxi driver who was a little reluctant at first to take us as passengers as he spoke no English. However, we set off and when he realised we could communicate, most of the time, with my limited Spanish, he was happy and we had a wonderful day. He phoned his wife to tell her what he was up to and I had to say hello to her too.





First we headed south along the coast to Fort Bulnes with Jaime giving lots of information en route about his family and life in Punta Arenas. He came here from Conception twenty five years ago and has never regretted it. He likes the peace.





Fort Bulnes is in the Parque del Estrecho de Magallanes (Magellan Straights). In May 1843 the Chilean President Manuel Bulnes sent the schooner Ancud, manned by Chilotes but captained by former British officer John Williams, to occupy this area and claim it for Chile. On September 21^st, 1843, the Ancud arrived at what is now known as Puerto Hambre and Williams declared the land to be Chilean territory and he established a camp on a hilltop which they called Fuerte Bulnes. As a result of lack of potable water, exposure, rocky soil and poor pasture some settlers moved further north before they were too weak to do so, whilst those remaining died of starvation, which is why it is called Puerto Hambre, Port of Hunger.





There is a privately managed museum there describing the flora and fauna of the region together with a history of the indigenous peoples. Europeans called the area Patagonia, which loosely means home of the big footed people as the indigenous people were considered giants by the new arrivals. The museum is in a lovely modern building and could have been fascinating but for some reason it is so dark inside that it was impossible to read the signage or even see maps, drawing and artifacts clearly. A very strange place.





Outside we had chance to see the bay where the settlers sadly starved as well as the restored wooden fort of Bulnes and the fishing boats of the village. We also stopped at an elaborate monument which has a marker saying it is in the middle of Chile with the same number of miles to the northern and southern borders from this point. It seemed strange as we could not get our calculations to agree with this but if everyone else is happy who are we to argue?





Then Jaime drove us back to Punta Arenas to visit the Nao Victoria outdoor museum where can be found three replicas, one of Magellan's ships, the Victoria, one of Darwin's Beagle and the Ancud. It was fascinating to be able to clamber around these ships, to look below decks and get an idea of life aboard in the wild seas of Tierra del Fuego. They are so small it must have been terrifying to be caught in a storm and the rough seas around the Cape.





Eventually Jaime returned us to the Zaandam and we were sad to say goodbye. He had been good fun, even managing to dress Jim in costume to board the Victoria! However after five hours I was in need of a rest. A language lesson of that length is truly exhausting.





The day out with Jaime cost us a total of $100 plus about $20 in museum entrance fees. The ship shore excursions covering the same sites was about $500. The only advantage of the ship's tours is that if they return late for any reason the ship won't sail without you. If you are late back from a private trip they will! Plus in a tender port, where you can't just walk off the boat, people on cruise excursions are given priority tender tickets so they get ashore first. If you are on a private excursion you have to start queueing anything from 30 minutes to 2 hours before tendering, depending upon the popularity of the port of call, to make sure you get an early tender. That was one of our pet annoyances – it seems so unfair when you have paid the same cruise fees. But having said that it seems an integral part of the North American culture, the more you pay, and the more cruise days you have completed the better 'rewards' you receive. So for instance people with the top two status levels never have to queue for anything and can walk on to a tender at any time, taking selected, non 5* friends with them! The comment which defused some of our irritation was when Craig (the Aussie historian) quoted the saying, 'The more you pay, the more you sway!' In other words basic cabins are low down and as you climb the decks it becomes more expensive, terminating in the Pinnacle suites at the top.





Next day we sailed the Chilean fjords, and they proved not to be what I was expecting. Having seen fjords in Norway and New Zealand I was waiting to see deep, steep sided and narrow channels where we would sail between tall cliffs. I kept waiting but they did not appear. Then the Captain explained he would be travelling very slowly for a couple of hours as there was only a draft of two metres clear under the ship. This did not sound like a fjord to me so I trotted off to have a word with Bryan, the geologist. He explained that the granite rock was extremely hard and, although it had been glaciated, as it was much older than other fjord areas and was exposed to the more powerful Pacific, it had been worn down, producing rounded topped hills. Plus the longer time period meant that the eroded rock had broken down and been carried into the channels building up silt. That was why they were more shallow than traditional fjords. So they are fjords – just a lot further along the timeline. Perhaps not as exciting as Norway but interesting in their own way.





Our next stop, another tender port, was Puerto Chacabuco, a very small town of only 1,000 inhabitants but it one of the most beautiful natural settings I have seen, set in a bay surrounded by mountains. It is so small there are no permanent buildings that can serve as souvenir shops. To overcome this lack and wanting to take best advantage of a cruise ship stopping by they have erected pods to provide the needed retail space. We did nothing special but enjoyed a gentle walk around the town. It was the first tender port where there was no rush for the tenders! Few ships stop here.





The following day was again a tender port in Castro on the island of Chiloe. This island has a very different culture from the mainland which is not that far away across the channels but remote from everywhere else in the interior with few inhabitants. Chiloe has distinctive tejuels which are wood shingles on the sides of houses, palafitos or houses mounted on stilts along the water's edge, the wooden churches, 16 of which are World Heritage sites and curanto, a distinctive stew of potato, meat and/or seafood. It also is a spiritual place of myth and legend involving witchcraft, ghost ships and forest gnomes. One of these, the Trauco, is meant to be very ugly and repulsive to look at but for some reason also totally irresistible to women. So much so that when the men return from extended periods of fishing at sea they might find their wives have conceived in their absence. The only explanation of this is that the Trauco worked his magic and seduced the woman so of course she is free from any blame or responsibility. Seemingly a very acceptable outcome for all!





I particularly wanted to visit the churches of Chiloe and as it required a ferry crossing we had decided that it was probably easier to go with the cruise organised tour as it would take the whole of our shore time and we could not risk being late back. This was our only cruise organised tour. It proved to be a good decision.





The disadvantage of the ship's excursions is that they involve other people which always requires a lot of hanging about. Unfortunately Jim & I are not very patient. We started in Castro by looking at the Iglesia San Francisco de Castro. The outside is painted bright yellow with mauve trim and the inside is polished wood. This building was completed in 1912 but replicated 2 previous churches on the site both of which burned down. Obviously that is one of the risks of constructing in wood although the area has so much rain it must be safer than in many locations.





What is interesting about the churches is that firstly they were built by the Jesuits, some as early as the mid 18^th Century, and secondly they reflect local culture. They are built of wood using boat making techniques, skills that the local people already held hundreds of years ago. Interior styles vary but they tend to be colourful like their fishing boats. Traditionally the early ones were built using wooden pegs rather than metal nails.





Our second church was the Iglesia Nuestra Senora de Gracia de Nercon. It is built from cypress and larch with internal pillars painted to look like marble. The internal roof is the shape of an upside down boat, not very noticeable from the floor of the church but if you climb upstairs there are narrrow aisles the whole length of the building which allow you a view of the outside of the roof and then it really does look like a boat. There are also two small peep holes above the altar, supposedly where the priests can peer through to monitor the congregation's behaviour below.





All had been going well until that point. We climbed back aboard the coach to head for Dalcahue and the short ferry crossing of only eight minutes to the island of Quinchao. Unfortunately, the queue to drive on to the ferry was huge and it was an hour and a half before we embarked! Normally there are four or five ferries crossing constantly but it appears that a political struggle is taking place and the largest operator is trying to gain a monopoly which is opposed by the council. To show both their displeasure and power the main ferry company had gone on strike, anchoring their boats mid-channel, so that day there was only one ferry operating. It was very frustrating as the channel is so narrow that if they had lined all the ferries up we could almost have hopped across, minus coach of course. On the plus side, while we queued we saw a dolphin and lots of black necked swans.





Eventually after viewing another church, we reached our lunch stop where we had a simple snack of local foods and were entertained by some traditional dancing.





Next we stopped at Achao, a small town founded as a Jesuit Residency where the church was completed by 1730.





We tried to return across the ferry but the queue was as long as in the morning so our guide arranged that we leave our coach, walk down the hill to the jetty, cross as foot passengers, then be picked up by another coach on the other side. It did save some time but even arranging this took well over an hour as it had to be agreed by the coach company, the ferry and the army who ensure security at the jetty.





We were about ten minutes late for the last tender back to the ship which of course had waited for us. Some people who had done the tour independently and been delayed in the same way as us had been very anxious about making the last tender. Luckily because a number of the ship's coaches had been held up they managed to catch a later one. This is why so many people are willing to pay extra for cruise excursions as the ship will not delay for independent travellers. The day had been interesting and despite the boring hold-ups we did see all the planned churches and only missed out on time in the handicrafts market, not a great loss for us.





The next day was again a tender port in Puerto Montt and I queued for tender tickets as we had arranged to be met from the ship. Senor Sergio Leal Perez, recommended by friends Paul & Sheila, took us on a lovely drive through the Lake District to see Puerto Varas, the city of Roses, and then along the Petrohue river stopping a few times to see waterfalls, view the volcanic cones of Osorno and Calbuco and then climb the steep, twisting road up to the ski station on the slopes of Osorno. The views from here stretched into the Andes and the Cordillera and reminded us of the volcanic landscape of Lanzarote with the added bonus of snow on the peak of Osorno. We were lucky as it was a bright sunny day with blue sky and hardly a cloud in sight. A rare occurrence in this part of the world.





After one more sea day our cruise came to an end in San Antonio where we had arranged to be collected by John Gottlieb, a Chilote of Eastern European descent with a couple of branches of the family still resident in Wales and Leicester. It has been interesting to learn the background of our guides as it really shows the movement of populations around the world and the high percentage of immigration over the years from Europe and in this area in particular, Wales.





Our itinerary with John was not firmed up beforehand because of the present civil unrest in Chile so we had agreed to make decisions on the day. In fact he felt it was safe enough to visit Valparaiso as hoped as long as we avoided the centre. En route we drove to Pablo Neruda's (the poet and Nobel prize winner who was also embassador to France for a time )house on Isla Negra but unfortunately arrived an hour before it opened. However the door was unlocked so John ventured in, with the two of us following hesitantly. He hope they might let us have a quick look around. The caretaker cleaner soon spotted us and we were quickly ejected but we managed to see the building and beautiful location. Rather than wait an hour Jim & I decided that we would settle for visiting one of Neruda's other houses in Valparaiso.





Valparaiso is a huge city, built on hills overlooking the sea and as John said, people either love it or hate it. The old town is a hotch potch of brightly coloured buildings in various states of repair, perilously crammed in on steep streets. Street art has been encouraged to brighten up the area and some is very skilled and entertaining. Numerous funiculars enabled people to get to the homes on the hilltops, but some are now unsafe and one crashed recently, thankfully not causing any fatalities. Of course now there are more cars around and they make squeezing through the narrow and crazily steep streets exciting.





Our second attempt at viewing one of Pablo Neruda's houses, La Sebastiana, was successful. It also overlooks the sea but this time it is in a city and has great views of the coast and port of Valpa. It is a five storey building full of narrow curving staircases, decorative tiles, idiosyncratically shaped rooms and large windows allowing breathtaking views over the city to the sea. It is furnished with his possessions, adding character and insight into his personality. He was a great socialiser and womaniser so much of the space is designed for entertaining.





John decided to take us through Vina del Mar and then turn inland to Santiago, our destination for the night. Vina is the seaside resort which borders Valpa to the point where it is difficult to see where one ends and the other begins. Certainly the buildings start to look more affluent as you head north on the coast road until suddenly there are nothing but hotels and condominiums stretching up steeply from the road to the top of the long ridge of hills which parallels the sea and which leaves almost no flat ground apart from the two lane road. An unusual feature is that almost every building has a mini funicular running up by its side so guests don't have to climb hundreds of stairs. It is a very busy, congested coastal strip which probably stretches for at least thirty miles but is obviously beloved by Chilean holiday makers. The rocky coastline only feet from the road is interspersed with small beaches.





John's plan to travel the extent of Vina to reach the road to Santiago suddenly collapsed as we came to a stop and saw a long queue ahead. Knowing the road, he decided it would be better to double back to Valpa and take the main highway back to the capital. It seemed the best solution as we managed to do a u-turn on the narrow road and head south. The traffic piling up on the north carriageway quickly built up so that it stretched the whole way back to Valpa. I realised then that the ribbon development along the coast is really a ribbon, there are no roads turning off. Coming from the UK where there is nearly always an alternative route, especially near urban populations it was strange to realise the one road north to south is it!





Once out in the countryside again we stopped for a wine tasting and a chance to stretch legs at the Indomita winery set in a beautiful position on the top of a hill, finally reaching Santiago late afternoon. John gave us some idea of where we might go the next day as we had a late flight, being concerned that we knew to stay away from the city centre, especially Plaza Italia. It was good advice as the next day there was a demonstration there which lead to rioting and the use of teargas. We stayed close to the hotel but had an enjoyable morning walking around the sculpture park which was only five minutes away from the hotel. Providencia, the area we stayed in, is a quieter, more affluent area which so far has escaped the unrest.





The next few days hurtled by, the flight home, two nights at Heathrow (couldn't face hauling our bags around for such a short time so stayed at hotel within walkway to Terminal 4), quick visit to see Gilli and exchange warm clothing for cool, did the washing, and flew out to Mexico City.





Mexico City or DF (dayeffey as it is called) is one of our favourite cities because there is so much to see. We like to stay within walking distance of the Zocalo or main square where there is always something happening, usually three or four things at the same time. This time the inner square was filled with stands from all the different regions of Mexico showcasing their local handicrafts and culture, while around the edges two or three demonstations were taking place. There was also a tent camp of demonstrators outside the main government building.





We visited the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, a world class museum set in the wooded area of Bosque Chapultepec and spent half a day there before having to go sit by the lake to rest our legs. It is a large rectangle of a building with vast inner courtyard. Around three sides on the ground floor all the various indigenous people are identified and described, their history and culture. There are superb replicas of some of the outstanding ruins of the different areas entered through wide doors which take you outside where the structures and plants really create the atmosphere of the real thing and than back inside are fascinating artifacts. On the floor above each area there is information about the same groups today, where they are, how they live, how they are gaining a little more autonomy and how they are trying to keep their cultures alive. This linkage of past and present provides amazing insight into present day Mexico. We had visited some of the areas as well as other museums but this one connected it all together and provided new information about the groups in the north, areas overlapping into the U.S.





After two days we flew to Puerto Vallarta where we are now 'resting' for the next two months. It hasn't changed, lovely climate, lots of bustle, bars and restaurants but still Mexican at heart. I might not blog again from here as you have heard lots about it in the past. When we return home in early May I will carry on and let you know where we find ourselves in Astrid. Hope spring arrives soon for you all.

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Photos

When & Where daily programme
Lots to do but includes lots of 'retail opportunities'. We were never short of activity

Guido, one of the Cultural team
Here demonstrating the bandoneon. Not a Spanish word but named after Herr Band who designed it to reproduce the sound of an organ in churches too small or poor to have a full sized one. He also gave a very good talk about mate, the drink or Argentina, Uruguay. His other skill was the tango, with his partner he gave demonstrations and lessons.

Replica of one of Magellan's ships, the Victoria
In Nao Victoria museum, Punta Arenas

Palafitos
Houses on stilts, stilts have to be replaced every 9 or 10 years

Terjuels, wood shingles
Each family has own design/colour so properties of different family members can be identified throughout village. other examples below