Heavy seas, grey water and a challenging hike

Touching the foot of the statue on Hernando Magellan's memorial

I started my blog session from my bed of pain. I’d been holding it together, though it was touch and go. I stoically gathered together last night’s attire in readiness to go to the restaurant. I’d already declared to Nick that he’d be drinking on his own. As we started coming out of the fjords and heading briefly back into the sea, a force 8 made movement around the ship pretty tricky. I then started returning to my original whiter shade of pale. Ooohhhh sounds like a great name for a song! Spray was flying past our balcony and we’re on deck 10.

Eventually, Nick took one look at me and suggested we have a night in. I accepted with relief. Our reason for returning to the sea was to dispose of water. This is the washing machine, bath, shower, and sink water (AKA grey water). So we had to go out into deeper waters to offload into a fairly lively South Pacific. So again, anyone tracking us will have been totally baffled by our route heading south instead of north. It was interesting to see the near handbrake turn the ship did when we saw our route on the TV.

Our daily Horizon newsletter arrived notifying us that due to our location for the next four days, ie back into the fjords, water would not be allowed to be disposed of whilst we were in these shallower waters. They recognise they can’t stop us showering etc, but we were informed the laundries will be closed to minimise excess water. We didn’t have a lot, but we thought that within 4 days with 1400 passengers and 800 crew suddenly wanting to use the facilities, it might be wise to take this last opportunity. Nick set off (bravely) on this mission, whilst I remained in bed moaning and groaning.               

The whole operation of going back out to sea and returning to the shelter of the fjords took around 4 hours. Room service it was then. It was great when we returned to calmer waters and I was able to move around again.

Dawn broke around 5.30 this morning. I took one look at it (very lovely it was too) and then promptly went back to bed. Eventually, the inevitable clatter of the tenders being released woke me for the second time. With the anchor down and tenders at the ready, the announcements started. It has to be said, the operation went much more smoothly today than it did in the Falkland Islands. We had a leisurely breakfast with most of the passengers off the ship, already on trips.

Punta Arenas didn’t inspire at first sight. It’s a fairly sprawling, low-rise city with some tall buildings, but no skyscrapers. No hanging around for us, we were straight on to the tender. It was probably only a 10-minute ride today.

We had a trip booked for the afternoon, so we did our thing around the city. It’s sad to say, but Punta Arenas is probably the most uninspiring city to date. It’s not a place of beauty. There are two sorts of taxis. The black and yellow licensed cabs and then the beaten-up ones with saggy tyres and knackered exhausts. Every other vehicle (other than the taxis) are giant 4X4 pickup trucks. Traffic lights are regular and there is evidently consideration for pedestrians, but that’s where it stops. Consideration. There’s a sort of face off happens as it’s clear that you, as the pedestrian can cross, but they, as the drivers can still drive. I worked out that putting your hardest, scariest face on gave you the right of way. Guess what? We won every time, but not something we took for granted and still crossed with caution. 

I think the other observation we made, was that Punta Arenas is not set up for tourists and it certainly wasn’t set up for 3 tourist ships. Admittedly we were all small ships but 2 ladies' loos in the terminal building were simply not adequate for the volume coming through the port. No cafe, no tourist information. Nothing. 

Mausoleums-4-U

We had heard that the cemetery was a “must-see” venue. OK, that seems like an odd choice, but to be fair, once we’d touched the lucky foot on the Hernando Magellan statue, we’d rather done Punta Arenas. That’s now two lots of luck for me on this trip, what with the lucky tree on Sugar Loaf mountain as well!  So off we trooped to the cemetery and paid our dues…$5 each. 

Those for the "ordinary" folk

Yikes, it was a cacophony of mausoleums and individual boxes for ordinary people. 

A clear winner here

Then extra points seemed to be awarded for the most garish and plastic flower arrangements. After a while, we felt so disturbed by this opulence, that we had to move on. By now, time was ticking and we felt it right to get some lunch before we headed off on our trek. The logic was to get closer to the terminal and get something there. 

Enjoying "lunch"

Sadly, we found out that once we got back to the terminal, there are no such things as cafes within a KM of the place. OK, crisps and a chocolate bar it is then from a local souvenir shop. $10 later…

The chairlift

Off we set on our trek. It was a 20-minute drive to the base of Fenton Hill. So named after Thomas Fenton who worked for the Red Cross. Punta Arenas was the first city in Chile to have the Red Cross. Fenton Hill is normally a ski resort, so our route up the hill was on rickety wooden 2-seater chair lifts which had certainly seen better days. 

Trying not to look terrified as we brushed past treetops

Fenton Hill is 621 metres high and among the various animals and birds that inhabit the hill, pumas prowl these areas too. Philippe, our guide, was very knowledgeable about flora and fauna. It became evident that no one really understood how/why we were in Patagonia or indeed if we were. Interestingly, Philippe agreed this wasn’t conclusive and in fact, there are three theories as to where Patagonia starts and ends. None of them agrees with the other theories. We all felt fairly vindicated that we hadn’t thoroughly understood this aspect of Chile.

Our guide explains why no one knows where Patagonia is

So of course, what goes up has to come down and once we got to the top, with a quick photo opportunity, we then started the descent. It was a challenge. It was quite steep in places, and very dry, making the ground quite slippy, with a lot of tree roots to negotiate and a lot of rickety low-level bridges. 

Nick is waiting to get down to the ship for his tea!

Thankfully we had our trusty hiking poles with us. I get cross at finding something so simple a challenge, especially when I consider what I’ve done in the past. When we got to the bottom, we were rewarded with hot chocolate and either a pecan tart or a rhubarb tart with crumble on top. We had one of each and shared.

We were half an hour late getting back to the ship, but thankfully they waited for us. Once we were on board, the Captain made a very solemn announcement and the one we were expecting. Our planned stop for two days in Lima in Peru has been cancelled due to the political unrest there. The ship will be stopping to take on provisions and to allow those guests who were due to get off at Lima to disembark and to take on new passengers, but we are not allowed off. It’s what they call a short service stop. They are looking at other options for where we could stop. We’d had a couple of great trips planned for Lima, but here’s hoping we can make different and safer experiences elsewhere.