A trip through darkest Patagonia

Puerto Montt has a face only a mother could love. It's a run down port town for cargo in transit. One local that we met was incredulous that there would be any tourists there and he had a point. However, the southerners are friendly. Strangers enquire who you are and where you're going and shake you by the hand. It's small things like that make travelling great.

Just before we set sail on the Magallanes (Navimag's cargo ship to Puerto Natales) a viscious storm rolled in off the Pacific Ocean pummelling the port with a torrent of heavy raindrops. An inauspicious start. However, the portents were to turn. The departure lounge contained a group of Chilean teenagers who scurried around, laughed at the cartoons on TV, played songs on the guitar and danced around in the rain. Their activity was diluted by the cosmopolitan mix of older types that slowly dripped into the room. But shortly before boarding the general hubub was silenced as the chief teenage scallywag (complete with retro training top and wrap-a-round shades) began to conduct his ragtag gang in a three part harmony. As chief scallywag precisely waved his Addidas clad arms an almost angelic aria permeated the room and everyone quietly smiled to themselves.

A few hours into the trip we entered the Golfo de Ancud and even though the sea was pretty flat the boat began to pitch - a slow undulation that we hoped would not escalate. However, we knew that we had to cross the open sea for around 12 hours, including the notoriously violent Golfo de Penas. Wasn't looking forward to that one.

The living quarters on the Magallanes pleasantly surprised us - far more comfortable than we had expected from a cargo ship (it's been refitted so that it now carries tourists as well as lorries and livestock). Our bunks were opposite those of Frank and Helen from a place just south of Brisbane. Frank's pretty lithe for an old fella. Later that night Suse and two American girls (Becca and Kelli) took it in shifts to get danced into the ground. The music was provided by the ship's Mr Fix-it, Christobel, who threw himself into the role with gusto, dedicating a song to a German women and winking at her evily as she stoicly stared back stony faced.

Tom won at Bingo but was forced to dance in front of the crowd in order to gain his prize of a Pisco Sour. He didn't deserve one.

In the morning we awoke to the sight of Patagonia rushing past the dorm door. Clouds brooded over the myriad of islands in the Canal Maraleda. A couple of Albatrosses skimmed over the sea nearby and a flock of huge black gulls trailed behind the ship. We passed through the Darwin Channel and out into the sea. We must have crossed on the calmest day that the place has ever seen. No yodelling down the great white telephone for us....

After a while looking for whales just becomes staring gormlessly at the sea. We had begun to despair of seeing any mamallian marine life when the clouds opened, the sea sparkled and three Peale's Dolphins arced out of the waves off the starboard bow. An Orca Killer Whale breached in the distance and the sea was suddenly full of spouts of water.

The next morning we were back in sheltered waters in Canal Messier, a labyrinth of waterways interspersed with the most rugged scenery that you can imagine. The landscape has been carved by hundreds of glaciers. Saturated mountains haemorrage water which erupts from hundreds of waterfalls below the snowline.

We disembarked briefly at Puerto Edèn, a settlement truly in the middle of nowhere. The town looked sad and lonely in the drizzle. It's home to around 200 people, including the last 8 of the Kawèsqa, the indigenous group that historically lived in the area. It's the same old story - many died from disease brought into the area, others were so depressed by the superficiality of modern life that they turned to alcohol. Soon, there will be no Kawèsqa left. It was strange to look into the eyes of a dying race. To be honest it's amazing that anyone can eek out an existence in such a remote, rainlashed place.

That afternoon the boat detoured up Fjord Eyre taking us to the edge of the Campo Hielo Sur - the southern Patagonian ice sheet. At the end of the fjord is the huge sheer wall of ice that is the Pio XI glacier, the fastest growing (there aren't too many that actually are growing) glacier on the planet. It's size is awesome and it's baby blue colour is stunning against the backdrop of the dark volcanic mountains and the milky sediment filled water of the fjord. The boat picked its way through iceburgs until we were only 500m or so away. Two of the crew went out in a dingy to collect some ancient ice for the Pisco Sours to be served at the party that night. Pisco hangover No. 2....

Next up - trekking around Torres del Paine, which is reputed to be the most beautiful National Park in South America.

Cheers for all the comments and continuing support. Big Love

T&S

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