Blogs from Punta Arenas, Magallanes, Chile, South America - page 17

We proceeded to the Faulklands Islands after a day´s sailing. These islands were well worth visiting, although most unfortunately Anna was still in poor health so I proceeded by tender boat to the island alone. Stanley is a quaint little English style town. Some say there was four seasons in one day when we were there, but I would suggest more like four shades of Winter - sleet, snow, rain and always wind. Around 4c I think. I visited two war memorials, for the Brits-Argentine conflict (1982) and the little known Brits-German conflict of WWI. The Faulklands are a bleak land but have there own beauty. It´s a very isolated life they lead. I also visited the very interesting Brittania House museum and a colony of magellan penguins at nearby Gypsy Cove. Finished the day with ... read more

Hi all. Happy Friday or, if you´re reading this another day, Happy whatever day it is. Back when I was planning this trip, a few people expressed an interest in joining me for various parts of the trip. As several of these conversations took place late at night in pubs after adult beverages had been consumed, I disregarded most of them. One or two people, however, have followed up their interest and actually booked a flight to join me on my mad adventure. So it was that I found myself at Santiago airport one Thursday morning waiting for an old work pal, Philip, to join me for a couple of weeks in Chile. I don´t think Philip will mind me saying that he´s had a tough few months recently so he was heading out here for ... read more

So, Paul´s beard is still growing at an alarming rate and we are still continuing our race southwards. We have chilled out for 8 hours at a thermal spa, shared a beach with some sea lions and seals, p-p-p picked up a pengiun at a colony, rented a rib and hung about at a petrol station for 3 hours where Paul took some pictures of some rather large tyres - bet you can´t wait to see the chile ´portfolio´ Highlights include Polly, our pathfinder, which we hired to take around Chiloe - a mysterious island with painted churches and its own gang of mischievious trolls. Didnt see any of them, but did see huge groups of hitch hikers and ended up providing a kind of gringo bus service for them. Due to a mix up with ... read more

We had a spectacular flight over the mountain chains, flying from Santiago, stopping at Puerto Montt and finally arriving at Punta Arenas. We saw amazing snow covered mountains and vulcanos, lakes and fjords. During the landing at Punta Arenas we were welcomed by the famous Patagonian wind. We NEVER experienced a landing like that - the wind was playing with the aircraft and rocking it from side to side. The turn over water made us think for a second that we actually will have a wet landing as the tip of the wing seemed to brush the surface of the lake. We were half expecting the sound of "BEEP BEEP BEEP" from the cockpit and a "BRACE BRACE BRACE" but thankfully it never happened. On the way out of the aircraft we saw that some passengers ... read more

HURRAH!!!!!!!! When all hope seemed lost, we somehow wangled a last minute cancellation on the Navimag for 2 to set sail through the Chilean fjords from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt on the 9th Feb. Can´t tell you how chuffed we are! Watch this space for a future Navimag captain´s log. When we left yas last time we were heading to the little known (and little visited!) Puerto San Julian. After recovering from initial shock at the completely deserted but clearly once very grand ex-wool town we really warmed to the place. Natalie, the local marine biologist, Captain Fernando and Mapu the crazy sea-lovin hound took us on a jaunt around the bay to see (more) penguins, Commerson´s dolphins and lots of sea birds. Hot tips from Natalie included best coffee in town from local petrol ... read more