el ferry Navimag

I hope no one went through withdrawals during my little hiatus. The ferry did not have access to the internet.

Let me say first that I was more than happy to leave Puerto Natales. The wind was literally driving me crazy. It was such a strange little town, and since everyone there was a tourist, everything was very expensive. I spent my last afternoon there killing time in a café/bookstore, sipping a Coke whilst reading a Lonely Planet guide to Peru. The background music was bluegrass. I excitedly asked the employees where it came from, and they said an internet radio station. I think I managed to convey my enthusiasm and shock over hearing bluegrass music in the far reaches of the globe!

The ferry was scheduled to leave Puerto Natales at 9.00pm, but in classic fashion we were not allowed to board until sometime after 1.00am. I immediately went to my cabin (shared with three other people; a couple from Denver and a guy about my age from Switzerland) and went to sleep. At about 8.30 the next morning I was loudly awakened by an announcement in poor English: "Well, passengers, now breakfast being served in da dining room". It was the first of many of those announcements. They woke me up every morning.

The ship was the M/N Puerto Eden. It had four decks and I estimate there were about 130 passengers on board. The route we took was straight up the coast of Chile from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt. Puerto Montt is usually regarded as where "civilization stops and Patagonia begins". In the three days we spent on the water, there was exactly one town between the two terminals. Most of the voyage was in sheltered channels, but a half day was spent on the open waters of the Pacific and the Golfo de Penas (which ironically translates to "Gulf of Sorrows"). This was the area of concern for seasickness. The Golfo is pretty notorious for bad weather (although after having day after day of what I would consider to be bad weather in Patagonia, I wondered what the Golfo could possibly throw at us that would be worse) and it was recommended that all passengers take a motion sickness pill before the ship entered its waters. As it turned out, we had great weather almost the entire way up the coast. The sea was like glass it was so calm. The top deck of ship turned into a makeshift beach resort as people lay out in the sun on towels. As we got farther and farther north, the air turned warmer and that godforsaken wind howling up from Antarctica died down. The crew let us walk on the bridge of ship whenever we pleased, and it was nice to stand there by the instruments, watching the blip move on the radar. I have to admit, though, that I got a little itchy to push buttons and therefore had to watch my time spent on the bridge. I don't think the captain would have been to pleased if I had grabbed the lever and pulled it from "full speed ahead" to "stand by".

The bad thing about the ship was the other passengers, and I don't mean people: I mean animals. Several trailers loaded with horses, cows, and sheep occupied the rear portion of the ship and after three days whenever the wind would blow from the rear of the ship I would feel nauseous. The days passed very slowly. I soon finished the only book I had brought with me to read and tried to find other ways to entertain myself. I made friends with a couple from New Zealand who shared a nightly bottle of wine with me, and I met a guy from the USA who now lives in Santiago and who had done a study abroad there, too.

The ship stopped at Puerto Eden, the only town between Puerto Natales and Puerto Montt, on Saturday morning for an hour. Since there was no dock big enough for the ship, we were ferried to shore in local fishing boats. The town of Puerto Eden has probably no more than 100 residents, and it occupies one of the wettest spots on earth. Mercifully, the sun was shining when we went ashore. The streets of the town are made of boardwalks; there are no automobiles. Most of town's residents make their living by catching crabs and fish from the channel, and by selling trinkets to visiting ferry passengers. I took an academic interest in the town, as it is home of the last native speakers of Kaweshqar, a native language now facing extinction. Some signs in the town were in Spanish and Kaweshqar, but I was unsuccessful in finding anyone speaking the language.

The vistas from the ferry were pretty. One evening the boat went very close to a glacier, and I also saw a few volcanoes (not erupting). I also saw the occasional dolphin and whale in the water. By the third day, I was starting to get antsy and I was more than ready to disembark when we arrived in Puerto Montt this morning.

I took a bus three hours north to Valdivia, where I am now. It is a lovely small city, and I shall comment more in my next post. This week reality sets in: Wednesday I have to be back in Santiago for orientation to begin.