2017 Patagonia - Antarctica Part 13: Santiago

Saturday - Sunday, February 19-20

Santiago

Saturday morning we had a 4 hour city tour with Silvia and Eduardo to see the highlights of Santiago business and historical centers. As we saw when we flew in yesterday, the city sprawls across 270 square miles so we saw only a small percentage of it today.

Except for the traditional gridlike organization around a central plaza that is common to all Spanish settlements in the new world, little remains of the original city founded by the Spanish in 1531. Today the Plaza de Armas, flanked by the cathedral, post office, museums and shops, remains a busy central meeting place, especially for Santiago's growing immigrant population.

 

 

The city is modern and vibrant, with many parks and wide thoroughfares. Traffic on this Saturday morning moved well. Santiago seems committed to managing its busy pace; it is expanding its metro system and changes streets directions to accommodate rush hour flow. The skyline is full of modern structures, and architects seem to have successfully mastered the art of earthquake-proofing the buildings of this most seismologically active country.

 

With its dry northern climate and lofty Andes peaks, Chile has over 50% (to be 70% by 2020) of the world's observatories, and Santiago is home to the ESO (European Southern Observatory). Santiago also hosts the United Nations Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Due to a road race, our bus was thwarted in its attempt to drive partway up Cerro San Cristobal for a view over Santiago. Instead, we got to ride up the funicular, which was a lot more fun.

 

A large statue of the Immaculate Conception overlooks the city from the top, where there are views to both the Andes and Coastal Range.

 

 

Our tour concluded with a walk to see several government buildings, including the presidential offices and former congressional building. Eduardo talked about Chile's representative democratic republic and the 1973 military coup deposing Allende. 

 

Greg and Charley snagged a few geocaches while Kathy and I walked through an informal market on a pedestrian street. The vendors had their wares artfully laid out on red cloths, which they'd hastily grab into bundles whenever a policeman was sighted.

 

Our farewell dinner was at Como Aqua para Chocolate, after the book and film (in English, Like Water for Chocolate). Before dinner we met in Charley and Kathy's room to polish off the last of our Chilean wine, then we were served potent pisco sours with dinner, and wine with our meal. About half of our group then retired to the hotel's rooftop bar, and although we joined them, we had had quite enough alcohol by then.

 

 

 

And finally, our day for departure back to the US. 

We had several hours before our transfer tip the airport this evening, so the four of us ventured out to try the much vaunted metro and explore further out. The system is easy to use, and has a fee system based on time of day and how busy it is. It cost about $1 per leg for our Sunday trips.

We went to the Gran Torre Santiago (Great Santiago Tower) which is the tallest building in Latin America. The 64 story structure was completed in 2015 and is part of a larger complex that won't be finished for several years. We took the elevator to the top for a 360 degree view over the city and the surrounding mountains. The signage explaining points of interest in each direction was in Spanish and charming English that must have been a literal word-by-word translation.

 

 

You can see the river rushing through the city towards our hotel in the distance.

 

We then rode out to the end of the red metro line to an old Dominican mission that Silvia had told us about. We were disappointed that we couldn't see the church today, but there was plenty to do as an artisans market is on the mission grounds, with craftspeople selling lapis lazuli silverwork, ceramics, woodwork, knitting, etc. Charley and Greg worked on a geocache while Kathy and I window shopped.

 

 

We ate at a crowded outdoor cafe and trustingly ordered a casserole dish to share that nearly everyone else at the restaurant was eating with relish. Identified as Comida Locale (local food), we suspected it was melted cheese over rice, chicken and other mystery ingredients. Well, it turned out to be one of the few things I really do not like: creamed corn. The mystery ingredients were a black olive, refried beans (which Greg doesn't like), a chunk of hard boiled egg and a tasty piece of boneless chicken. I dug in, a little. That's ok. I've been eating too much throughout this trip, anyway!

I think I'd like to experience  more of Santiago, but that will have to be another trip. For now it was back to the hotel to wash up in their spa and change into traveling clothes for our long trip home. I'm sorry to see this wonderful adventure end, but looking forward to seeing my parents and friends, not to mention Maggie and Ellie. We're bringing lots of memories home with us to carry us through to our next adventure.

 

2017 Patagonia - Antarctica Part 12: Punta Arenas to Santiago

Friday, February 17

Disembarkment to Santiago

We said goodbye to the MS Midnatsol this morning.  It's been an awesome trip that I feel privileged to have experienced. I'll miss the pristine, surreal scenery, no noise or air pollution, never knowing what we'll see next. I'll miss the animals whose reaction, if any, to our intrusion in their environment is curiosity. I'll miss the international makeup of our fellow travelers and crew, focused on encountering our incredible natural world instead of squabbling over it. And I'll miss the hiatus from bombardment by breaking news cycles. 

 

After clearing security, we boarded a bus for a 2 hour of Punta Arenas. It's Rosamaria's hometown, and she did a nice job presenting an overview of the history and highlights of the city. She also presented us each with a copy of a regional guidebook she researched and edited for the Chilean Antarctic Institute.

 

Punta Arenas was established as a frontier city and penal colony to establish a Chilean toehold in Patagonia on the Strait of Magellan in the 1840s. Now a city of 100,000, it maintains a unique status. Due to its remote location and as an incentive to its residents, citizens enjoy tax free status. With a history of settlers from all over the world, the Magellanic area has a strong regional independent spirit, and is one of only 2 regions of Chile to boost their own flag.

We visited the Municipal Cemetery, which has both traditional family and society mausoleums, and long walls of crypts. As with other cemeteries we've seen in South America, places can be rented by the year, in perpetuity, or for various terms in between. The diverse population which settled Punta Arenas is evident in the cemetery, where tombstones are in Spanish, English, Croatian, French, German, etc...sometimes varying within the same family plot

 

 

Karaoke angel

 

Next stop was an open air museum which contained 1:1 scale replicas of several historic wooden ships. These were fascinating, both because the ships themselves were impressive, and because we could climb down into the holds and up to the various decks on steep rickety steps without handholds. We needed to use our phones flashlight app to maneuver around the dark lower decks, where we were occasionally startled to stumble upon a dummy of a seaman lurking below. There were implements like axes and reproductions of 16th century pistols laying around like props. This unsupervised access would never have flown in the US. It's a negligence lawsuit waiting in the making. We loved it. 

Having just had our own little encounter with a powerful storm on the open seas, it was hard to imagine taking these small wooden vessels, particularly the 1520s model, on a voyage of discovery. They must have been very brave, ambitious, and/or desperate. And at times, very scared.

Match the ship to the photo (no fair reading the names on the boats)

A. Magellan's Nao Victoria

B. The Beagle

C. Shackleton's James Caird

 

 

 

Next to the airport for our 3 1/2 hr flight to Santiago. We were happy to see Silvia's smiling face at the airport when we arrived, and look forward to having a couple more days with her.

We had a brief overview of Santiago from our local guide, Eduardo, during our drive to our hotel in the central district. Santiago is 80 miles from the Pacific at approximately the same latitude south as Los Angeles is north, and share many climate qualities with LA. It lies in a valley between two mountain ranges, with the Andes to the east and the coastal range to the west. Their summer weather is ideal, 80s during the day with low humidity, and cooler in the evenings, with no rain from December-March. About 6 million people, one third of Chile's population, live in the Santiago region.

It is very pleasant here, and comfortably warm after the last two weeks in polar seas. We had tapas and drinks with Kathy and Charley at the rooftop bar at our hotel, enjoying the sunset and the view over the infinity pool.

 

2017 Patagonia - Antarctica Part 11: Tucker Island

Friday, February 17

TUCKERS ISLANDS

During the night we crossed via the Beagle Channel to the Pacific Ocean and back into the Straits of Magellan to head north to Punta Arenas. Today was a bonus day, as we'd expected to spend it merely cruising through the fjords enjoying the scenery. Instead, we also had the opportunity to take a wildlife cruise in the zodiacs.

 

We had a gorgeous day to be on deck as we passed through the San Gabriel channel. At one point it narrows to only 250 meters, or about twice the length of the Midnatsol. The outlying fingers of the 100 km long Darwin Icefield lay above on the starboard side, Tierra del Fuego, with dozens of slim waterfalls cascading down the mountainside.

 

 

 

 

A group of tiny islands known as Tuckers Islands lie at the far end of the channel. They are full of wildlife, and were a great place for our final zodiac cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

The highlight, of course, was penguins. Magellanic penguins are burrowing penguins that nest under grasses. The chicks were nearly adult size, but had not yet molted.

 

Lots of burrows

 

 

There were hundreds of nesting rock cormorants in crevices in the cliffs, a huge Chilean sea lion that was disguised as a rock until out lifted its head, a very well camouflaged Chilean skua (wherever there are penguins, there are skuas looking for their favorite meal), and many other birds.

 

 

Spot the skua 

 

Then it was back to the ship to begin to wrap up our journey. We returned our excellent rubber boots, received our instructions for disembarking and packed up. We will be in 80°+ degree weather by tomorrow afternoon.

Before we leave the ship, a few words about preserved fish: Every buffet meal on this Norwegian ship has offered a cornucopia of cold herring, mackerel, salmon and other fish I've never encountered before. There is sweet chili herring, cod, haddock, blueberry herring, tuna, mackerel in cream sauce, smoked salmon etc etc etc. 

 

We had a Norwegian-themed menu for our farewell dinner, and then were treated to an impromptu salute by dozens of dolphins who played around the ship while we remained anchored off the Tuckers Islands. What a wonderful way to end the day!

(The video will be better)

 

2017 Patagonia - Antarctica Part 10: Puerto Williams

Wednesday, February 15

Puerto Williams

It's official! We were in a hurricane yesterday. 

We woke today to nice calm seas, and a balmy 52°.  As we entered the Beagle Channel, a Chilean naval vessel brought a pilot to our ship to navigate us through the fjords to Punta Arenas. 

 

We had our last landing today, at Puerto Williams on Navarin Island. It's on the Beagle Channel across from Tierra del Fuego. Maurice, the anthropologist on board, has lived there for decades among the Yamana people, and provided a nice briefing on this southernmost village in the world before our landing.

 

 

Puerto Williams is a fishing community of about 2,000 residents. Their quarry is not fish, but king crab. Although this is not the crab season, we saw small fishing boats in the port and stacks of crab traps outside some of the homes.

 

This is a small working village and, except for a little museum and a few little souvenir shops, there was not much to see. The museum was focused on the Yamana Indians who first lived here, and had dozens of historic photographic portraits of the Yamana from the 1920s. 

The Chilean government has recently undertaken several improvement projects to make the village more of a draw for ships Antarctica-bound or cruising the Chilean fjords. Road construction was ongoing everywhere.

Armed with maps provided by our ship, we set off on an 8 km walk that looped to nearby Robalo Bay. We passed the yacht club, from which sailboats depart to sail around Cape Horn, and the naval base. After the whites, blues and grays of Antarctica, it was nice to see bright colors in the houses and little boats.

 

At the naval base 

 

Another curiosity is the bow of the Yelcho, the ship that rescued the 22 members of Shackleton's Endurance expedition who were stranded on Elephant Island for 137 days.

 

Evidence of strong westerly prevailing winds

 

Choose one: the boat was too high to clear the bridge, or it was stranded and provided a convenient support for a proposed bridge.

 

Robalo Bay looking across the Beagle Channel to Tierra del Fuego

 

Puerto Williams doesn't stand out as much of a destination in itself, but it was lovely to walk without our heavy rubber boots and multiple layers of pants and coats. 

As we cruised west, we were treated to a golden sunset  and albatrosses over the Beagle Channel.