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Published: December 5th 2006
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The Navimag ferry has taken me all the way from Puerto Montt in mid-Chile to the far south. The trip took approximately 67 hours, but it seemed to go very quickly. I was warned to expect lengthy periods of boredom but I can´t honestly say that I got bored. The time was spent by gazing out from the deck, watching one of the documentaries or films, eating and drinking, and chatting to other passengers. There was an interesting mix of people on the boat - old, young, gay, straight, from all over the globe. It was almost as if this was some kind of Big Brother type experiment, all types of people squished into a small space for a fairly lengthy period of time. Thankfully, I wasn´t evicted into the ocean. Neither did I have to eject any of my insides into the ocean, which was something of a relief.
I was one of the lower class passengers, having secured the cheapest possible ticket. The bunk beds were in the bottom deck of the boat, and sleeping here is not for the claustrophobic. There was very little room to manoeuvre and after the first night I had banged my head
so many times I felt as if I had been in a round with Mike Tyson.
Basically the trip involved navigating through the Chilean fjords, and much of the scenery was comparable to the Milford Sound in New Zealand, with untouched hilly forests lining the shore and mini waterfalls plunging down into the sea. The weather was pretty poor for most of the way - plenty of rain and wind. There were still some awesome views though, not least of the mighty Pio XI glacier, the largest in the southern hemisphere. This part of the world is extremely remote and barely inhabited, so it felt like quite a privilege to be seeing it.
There was one stopover of about an hour or so in a village called Puerto Eden. About 150 people manage to survive in Puerto Eden, a.k.a. "the middle of nowhere", relying heavily on the goods supplied by the Navimag ferry. Some of the inhabitants are indigenous people belonging to the Kaweskar nomadic sea tribe. There are only 9 of them left and the women are too old to have children, which means that sadly the tribe will be extinct before too long.
I didn´t
have much luck in terms of spotting wildlife despite spending many hours staring into the sea. At one point I decided to go for a quick afternoon siesta and when I came back onto deck there was high excitement as a group of whales had just been spotted. As soon as I had made it onto deck however, they seemed to disappear. And when I arrived on deck another time, a girl exclaimed to me "I´ve just seen a dolphin!!". I felt like replying "well bully for you". I got the distinct impression that every time I turned my back the whales and dolphins emerged from the surface, probably doing back flips and all sorts, before disappearing as soon as I peered back towards the sea.
Another theme from the trip was the constant tannoy announcements, made first in Spanish and then repeated in English. Some were welcome (i.e. those announcing that my lower class group could get our dinner) and some were not. For instance, at 6.30 one morning the captain announced that in 30 minutes time we would be able to see a shipwreck. This immediately woke everyone up. I could have understood it more if we were 5 minutes away from the shipwreck, but 30? The captain must have been having a laugh. It certainly felt that way when, after 2 more announcements and most reluctantly admitting defeat in getting any more sleep, I emerged onto deck only to see a veil of mist hanging over the sea. Eventually however, the shipwreck did come into view, although given the choice I am not sure I would have forfeited the extra sleep in order to see it.
The last night on board was party night, kicking off with a game of bingo. I didn´t win, but was really rather more interested in sampling the bottle of pisco (very potent Chilean drink!) offered to me by one of the lads. Bingo was followed by the cheesiest of cheesy discos. It was rather surreal dancing on board a ferry with my fellow passengers, but also good fun. For those of you who have shared drunken nights with me, you will not be surprised to learn that I managed to leave my cardigan behind. Losing your clothing when backpacking is not a good thing as you don´t have many clothes with you as it is. Just as well, then, that one of the guys recognised the cardigan as being mine and placed it on my bed.
So, I am now in Puerto Natales, a somewhat desolate town but an ideal location for exploring the surrounding mountains. It is cold and windy, so much like home I imagine. One big difference though is that it doesn´t get dark until about 10.30pm!
I am currently planning trips to the Glaciers national park in Argentina as well as Chile´s Torres del Paine, which I am looking forward to very much.
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