THE CHILEAN FJORDS

A sunny day on the top deck.

It was about 3 months before the trip when Emi began talking about an alternative way to make our way from Southern to Northern Patagonia – via a boat. His choice was with “Navimag”, a marine transportation company that takes cargo and curious tourists from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt, covering some 1500 km in 3 days and 3 nights. Even though, this sort of an all prepaid (room and board) excursion seemed to be out of our budget, all I cared about was seeing these islands separating the coastal waters of Chile into thousands of canals. Those canals or fjords were not always water. At some point, probably during the last Ice Age, the whole southern part of Latin America was frozen. When the glaciers along the coast of Chile melted, they left trails of their retreat, in a form of web-like, deep canals, separated by many islands with virgin flora and fauna. 

Miniature islands.

One way or another, we had to find a cheap way to get on that boat and see those fjords for ourselves. With an application of a couple of manipulations we had 2 off season student tickets for a 16 person dormitory cabin. The luck continued to be on our side and at the time of check in we got an upgrade to a 4 person cabin with a window and a private bathroom! Originally, when we bought the tickets, the date of departure was the 5^th, but then it was rescheduled for the 6^th and on a different boat called “Puerto Eden”. The explanation we were given at the time for this change was that “Evangelista” was out of commission due to a minor crash with one of the “moving islands”! Apparently, in Chile islands can move unexpectedly and cause an accident… Later on, one of the crew members told us that the real reason of the crash was negligence of the captain assistant on duty. According to roomers, instead of monitoring the navigation of the boat, the guy had the vessel on auto pilot and while he spent his time flirting with one of the passengers on board… Who knows the real truth, but we got an upgrade out of this whole mess, so we were happy.

Travelling cows and horses.

Our boat “Puerto Eden” was scheduled to leave at 6 am on the 6^th of April, but passengers were allowed to board the night before. I could not wait to get on board and have a real bed all to myself, especially with the flu that I had caught in the days after the Torres del Paine experience. The cabins and the whole passenger part of the boat reminded me a lot of the river ferries that we have in Russia. The only difference is that in Chile there was also a cargo part for cars and trucks. Out cabin window was overlooking just exactly that part of the boat, which this time around, was full of animal transportation carriers. Even thought we were assured that the cows and the horses were given water and food and were not suffering, it was quite a sad seen to be watching them stand right next to each other for 3 days straight, no matter the cold rainy weather.

Emi, Margarita (Portugal), Massimo (Italy) and me.

We were not exactly lucky with the weather again. It only got better the last day, which ended up as perfect as it could have possibly been. It was sunny, relatively warm and not windy at all. It felt as if everyone on board woke up from hibernation, and was out and about on the upper deck enjoying the sun and a variety of drinks from wine to pisco, which all of a sudden appeared in almost unlimited quantities. By that day we had already made friends with a number of people and had an opportunity to practice all of the languages we spoke and the ones we didn’t. Our new friends were from Portugal, Italy, France, Brazil and Canada. Between the drinks and the conversations we also managed to see some dolphins, sea lions and even a number of whales (actually, just the water fountains that they jet up in the air swimming by).

Fantasy islands.

It is actually very difficult to spot those water fountains and most of the time it was the captain of the ship that told us where to look for them. Surprisingly enough, the captain and the whole crew were very friendly and answered every stupid question we and other tourists had for them. Emi, being obsessed with all means of transportation, took advantage of this disposition and interrogated those guys about every switch, gauge and radar he could find on the control panel. Unlike my Russian river ferries experience, here we were allowed to enter almost every part of the boat, and especially the captain’s control deck. It was really cool to watch “how to drive a marine ship” standing right next to the captain.

More islands.

The majority of the trajectory of the trip is in between the islands, so it is very calm and almost feels like going through a river. Nevertheless, there is a 12 hour period when the ship goes out to open waters… Supposedly, we had perfect weather conditions with only 3-4 meter waves – not a big deal. Well, it is not for some people, but I was far from being perfect. Since I was already taking medicine for my cold I didn’t want to add more to my system by taking a motion sickness pill, and so I had to just suck it up. When feeling nauseous, eating doesn’t really help, but in this case when the food was prepaid there was no way I was going to miss out on that dinner. At dinner I discovered that it was beer that was a secret remedy for sea sickness! One can of German-Chilean beer just did the trick for me, after which I could eat and sleep through the whole night without any problem.

Fishing boats in Puerto Montt.

We arrived to Puerto Montt at 6am on April 9th. Even thought the Navimag experience was very relaxing and comfortable, I was anxious to get on going and continue our trip up north. Without much of a plan we went to the bus station to check our next possible destination. Since we had to decide between spending more time in Chile (spending more money), or going to Bariloche, Argentina, where we had already prearranged a free stay with Emi’s uncle’s friends, we ended up voting for Argentina.

Seafood wanders!

There were about 3-4 hours that we had at our disposal before boarding the bus, so we went to the famous Puerto Montt’s fish market Angelmo. Chile is known for its fish and seafood, and I was not going to lose an opportunity to taste its marine delicacies. The market was small and charming, and full of strange looking seaweed and shellfish. Naturally, I was going to try whatever I could get my hands on. This time, they were picorocos that crossed my path. These unusual shellfish creatures were the best seafood I have had in my life so far. Freshly steamed and with a little lemon they are absolutely delicious! If you are not a vegetarian and have an opportunity to try these things, do it! You will love them!

Ghost islands.

On the way to the bus station I also made sure to buy myself a freshly smoked salmon to enjoy it in Argentina, where fish is regarded as nothing more but food for cats. Thankfully, Emi doesn’t eat these kinds of things, so I had it all to myself and did not have to share.

At 5pm, our passports were stamped again and we were back in Argentina to now explore Northern Patagonia - the ski Mecca of Argentina.