Navimag Cruise north through the Pacific - Ships, booze and Mark doesn´t appear a good combo!!!

As the title suggests Chris and I have recently disembarked from a 4-day journey north along Chile´s Pacific coast. It was something I´d been looking forward to for a long time, as the cruise was a big expense for someone on my budget, and I had never been on a boat for such a long period of time, so this would be a new experience for me.

The weather, however, was the usual chilly, blowy combination we've got used to - with a fair bit of cloudy and drizzly thrown in for good measure!!

I'd like to be able to say that the Navimag cruise was 4 days of cultured chat with fellow shipmates, with time spent admiring the stunning beauty of Chilean fjords. That, however, would be a total lie!! The weather didn´t lend itself to spending much time on the outer decks, and the landscapes we passed through weren´t all that stunning.

That did leave plenty of time for the boozing, which was pretty spectacular. The 150 or so passengers included a good number of backpackers, and as most of us seemed to come on board with about our own bodyweight in Chilean wine, it was always going to be a dangerous combination. Having had so little to drink over the past 6 weeks while I´ve been trekking, I was hit hard!!

On the first night my stomach and the fine "USTINOV" vodka that I was drinking had a bit of a disagreement, and it seems Russia´s finest export may have given Mark a little bit of a tummy upset!! I also managed to wake up with a good random-drinking-injury where it appears I decided that breaking my fall with my chin and not my hands would be a sensible measure to take!!!

On the last night I managed to hold myself together for long enough to win some prizes in the Navimag bingo - one of which was a (promptly drunk) bottle of wine, which definately didn´t help me out, and I am now the owner of a Laguna San Rafael fleece that is absolutely toasty warm - but a little bit redundant as we have suddenly encountered shorts and t-shirt weather in Pucon where we have arrived!!! The aforementioned bottle of wine, combined with a drinking game christened "circle of death" , saw another early retirement for me. Worse was to follow later on, but as my parents read this "what goes on tour, stays on tour" eh boys!!!

Overall then, a great 4 days in which I achieved absolutely nothing remotely cultural or productive. Resulto!!

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