How a cruise can teach you how to embrace life

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And we arriving to our second highlight of our trip... After 5 days hiking in Torres del Paine, we made it all the way down to Punta Arenas where we are ready to embark on our cruise Via Australis, to travel via the Cordillera de Darwin, the Beagle Channel & the Cape Horn to arrive at Ushuaia.

It's our first cruise so we are totally unexperienced, not sure what to expect but totally excited ! I even packed on some wine bottles just to make sure I don't run out ! :-) Well, it was really unnecessary as we will find out later that the food (most of the time but not always) is actually good and comes with wine. What was there to worry about ???

We, or I should say I, in this case, wondered how the tables arrangements will be and who will we be "stuck" with for 4 days !!!, are we going to rotate tables or are we going to have to stay at the same table with the same people... Lots of thinking for not much... Anyway, I told myelf I have to be open to whatever comes up. Another of those situations in life that teaches you to step back, relax, and accept whatever and whoever comes up your way... And just breath it, embrace it and let it in... And I just did. And everything went fine.

After the welcome cocktail and speech of the Capitan, we headed to our table to finally break that mistery of who we will be stuck with for these 4 days ! A very diversified table... Connie & Ivan from Hamburg, Claudia & Alex from Berlin, Michael & Eduardo (native Argentinian) from New York city and us two. We also adopted Ignacio (from Italy) from a nextdoor table who... how can we say... was the only youngster at his table, he made a great addition to our table !

After breaking the ice over a nice dinner and a few drinks, we (or I) knew that we will be ok being stuck on that table 14 for four days. And to add a note on this, I was delighted to learn that Michael & Eduardo had had exactly the same concerns than I and actually DID change their table from their original selection (based on the languages you speak). Speaking English, Spanish & Portuguese, they had some flexibility and we are all grateful that they did chose the English table so that they ended up at number 14 ! That was the best table on board, of course !

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