The Cruise Ship Experience

Puerto Eden – Puerto Natales, Chile

Diana’s older brother Dave and her sister-in-law Severine are now cruise ship people. They spend weeks at a time roaming the world enjoying these floating towns.

We’ve never been real attracted to this concept. Not enough room to roam and we tend to avoid the more curated experiences that come along with this type of tourist trip. 

The ferry is not exactly a cruise ship. Probably a tenth the size. No ping pong, no tennis, no swimming pools, no exercise areas, no roving bands . . . Still, these last few days may be about as close as we come to a Love Boat type experience. Not so bad, really. Especially when there is no wifi. It’s like when we were in high school and everyone chatted everyday at lunch. Because, remember, when we were in high school there were no cell phones. The options were chat or . . . I don’t know . . . look at the wall . . .

So we have met lots of interesting people from all over the world. 

But let’s start with the sites and the creatures we saw along the way . . .

Glaciers. I guess glaciers are supposed to move – otherwise they are just ice fields. I’m not sure how you determine if they’re moving – because if they do move it’s not like a dog or something – more like a super-slow sloth. But the other marker is the blue of the ice. And we definitely saw some of that. So I’m saying we saw glaciers. 

Orcas. Remember our musical chairs game? Turns out that we really did see killer whales right out the window. Probably like six or eight of them all told – a pod? You could see the black and white of them, the blow as they rose out of the water, and their progress across the waves. 

Because of their randomness we didn’t get good pictures – but so fun to see.

Dolphins. A few of them swimming along with the boat this morning. Also very fun.

And a little bit on the land. We are now well into Canada now in terms of our latitude equivalent (in the west, the U.S.-Canadian border is generally set at the 49th parallel north – and we are now at around 51-52 degrees south). 

Like much of Canada, there is not much here. Hundreds of miles without houses or villages or really any sign of civilization. I guess I don’t totally understand it. I would think at least a few people – Chileans or otherwise – would be attracted to the Patagonian wilderness. Also wonder whether indigenous peoples had communities down here? They don’t seem to now . . . Something to look into . . .

My big experience with similar latitudes in North America was a fly-in fishing trip I took a few years ago. We started out driving about six hours straight north into Canada, and then finished with another 40-50 miles in a little float-plane. The lake was beautiful, but the land surrounding the lake was pretty flat and featureless. And I think that’s what we’re going to be looking at for much of this last stretch – with the lakes replaced by occasional ocean views. 

Okay, now this week’s special guests on the Love Boat…

Chris. 

A retired veterinarian from northern Germany, Chris is super into white water kayaking. It’s always fun to talk to people who have this kind of passion for something in life. Very much like our love for cross country skiing; people who will travel half-way across the world just to experience a great place for our sports. Chris has spent the past several months in a place called Futaleufu where he has, I think, kayaked himself, while helping his friends run white water rafting trips for tourists. He says Rio Futaleufu is maybe the best kayaking in the world . . . 

We talked about politics and the rise of the AFD – the right-wing party – in Germany. Chris explained that the bureaucratic state in his native Deutschland has become super-oppressive; by the end of his time doing veterinary work it had become impossible to enjoy the work because of the crush of rules and paperwork. 

He also talked about the perception of problems with immigration. Very similar to what you might hear in the States – except that instead of Hispanics, people are concerned about Muslims. Chris said there are no controls on the migration. The individual immigrants are fine, but the Muslim Brotherhood wants to flood Europe with Muslims so as to spread their religion and practices across the continent. He also said that crimes have grown worse and worse, and that the newer immigrants are undercutting the last wave of immigrants – from Turkey – who have been their a while, so that now the Turkish immigrants are also against allowing more Muslims into the country. 

Allen.

A civil engineer who works in the copper mining industry, Allen does not have a nuclear family – spouse or kids – but works one week on and then one week off in a mine four hours west of Iquique – a town we biked through in the Atacama. 

When Allen was young he went to school for a year in Toronto – and, like us, really liked it. He’s thinking of moving back there in the next year or two. 

Allen is not planning to go to Canada as a protest against Trump. He likes Trump because, for him, Trump-ism is about security. He is very concerned about the immigration Chile has seen from Colombia and Venezuela – and says that the recent immigrants from these countries have brought considerable trouble with them. In Allen’s view, security surrounding this immigration are the issue of his time – and he likes Trump’s approach.

Omar and Stephanie (sp?).

This is an amazing young couple from Mexico. They are on their second big motorcycle trip. On the first trip they went up through the United States to Alaska and back. Now, like us, they are headed down to Ushuaia. 

They have their own business – selling lion’s mane mushrooms through Amazon – and Omar also has his own consulting business – something to do with helping companies with AI. With these virtual businesses they work from the road and are, essentially, digital nomads – who can bring their work anywhere. 

We ended up talking to them because I saw their MSR fuel canister on the back of their motorcycle and I figured they might know something about how to get our stove running again. Sure enough, Omar was pretty knowledgeable, and I’m hopeful that we’ll be back in business soon. (I don’t want to go too far down this rabbit-hole before I can watch a video on how to clean my stove – and there is still no internet – but I feel pretty good about the ideas that Omar gave me.)

One thing for sure . . . Omar told me that we shouldn’t be using high-octane gas – which I’ve been doing because I figured, for the extra 3 cents, it might be a good idea. Omar explained that the high-octane fuel has more additives, which, I guess, translates to more stuff that can clog the fuel lines on the stove. 

“You know what I did, I put expensive gas in this thing. It hates expensive gas . . .”

What movie is this from? I’m not going to award that many blog points because it’s just too easy . . . 🙂

Ivana.

From Slovakia, Ivana is kind of the opposite of Allen – at least politically. She helps people with her name by explaining that she has the same name as Trump’s first wife. Not the same as Ivanka though – that’s the daughter . . .

Ivana knows four languages – Slovak, German, Spanish, and English – and she can understand Polish and Ukrainian as well. She’s been traveling for some time.

She explained that immigrants don’t really end up settling in Slovakia because Slovakia has little to offer them, but the right wing still fans the same flames of Trumpism by sowing fear and loathing of new people there.

Ana and Mateo.

Italians who live in Spain and have been traveling in South America for some time now. Ana likes to cook and frequently makes pizza or other delicacies as they go. They joined forces with Ivana in Colombia and have been traveling together on-and-off for several months now. Ana seems to be an expert wildlife spotter; she’s the one who spied the orcas and the sea lions for the first time.  

Paul.

A long-time world traveler from Los Angeles, Paul is affable and fun and a great connector. He’s constantly introducing us to new people, and Paul knows the area well – having traveled to Patagonia on multiple occasions. 

Paul is an optometrist by trade, but he he never liked the work. Too repetitive – I guess everyone came in with the same problems. Paul has been retired for a number of years and really loves traveling and chatting. We really enjoyed Paul. 

Clement.

You’ve met Clement before – or at least his tent. He’s the one who showed up at our campsite the other night – but didn’t get up until after we had packed up and left for the day. 

Clement is from Northern France – near Calais. He studied marketing but he is not a fan. After working for a while after university Clement quit his job, traveled to New Zealand, and spent 15 months biking through Kiwi Country – stopping periodically to work picking fruit, pruning grapes, etc., in order to pay the bills. 

At least at this point in his life, Clement has little to no interest in children or a family. We talked about how much of his generation seems to share in this feeling. He does call his parents once every few weeks, but he feels like they need to get interests beyond what he is doing . . .  (I feel bad for them – no matter what else is happening in your life, your kids never stop being super important.)

I’m sure we’ll be staying in touch with Clement because he is the first person we’ve encountered who seems to be on the same basic trajectory that we are on. 

Manuel and Leonora.

We had dinner with these folks. They are from Arica and don’t know any English – so we did our best to communicate in Español. Manuel drives trucks and Leonora a taxi. They have four children – all boys – and six grandchildren. Three of the four boys and all the grandchildren live in the Arica area – a mining town up near the border with Peru. We passed through Arica – it was the town where the electricity went out. Beautiful beaches, lots of fruit around, a nice mall, an overall fun city, and kind of the gateway to the Atacama. 

Update. We just had lunch with Manuel and Leonora. Some new information . . . They are visiting their eldest son, who is a construction worker in Punto Arenas – some 5,000 kilometers from Arica. But it turns out that they are not married. They were married – but they divorced about ten years ago. Manuel says Leonora is a great cook and makes excellent deserts. Not sure why they divorced – but they seem to get along pretty well now . . .

Switching Gears . . .

We may take an extra day in Puerto Natales to get ourselves organized, but then we’re off on the final leg of our South American journey – about 450 miles over the wind-swept steppes to Ushuaia, Argentina. Hopefully we’ll keep the breeze at our backs – because I guess the cross-winds can be brutal.

Wish us luck . . .