By Rosemary Sullivant

We settle in, or resign ourselves, to ship life pretty quickly. The morning begins with a recording of a bird singing on the ship's speaker system. Ann and Jerry find bridge partners. Bonnie and I watch the scenery roll by. We pass hundreds of islands, some neatly cultivated, others forested with rocky shorelines. We read, we eat, we cruise. For me, Bruce Chatwin's classic travel book In Patagonia provided more of a sense of where I was than did looking over the ship's rail.

The advantage of a cruise is also its disadvantage. You get to see a lot from the ship that you could not see otherwise, but seeing is all you get to do. For me sitting on the deck watching the world sail past was just about as frustrating as being a kid on an escalator in toy store at Christmas time, kept from exploring all the wonderful things on display by the restraining hand of a parent.

Once, however, just looking was enough. Stepping out on the deck on the first clear night and seeing the blazing stars of the southern sky was a revelation.

Our first stop is the fishing village of Puerto Aquirre, the weather is gray and drizzling. Children come to meet the boat, offering to take passengers on walking tours. Bonnie and I hike up the hillside and down the few streets, enjoying the wild fuchsia, holly hocks, and cabbages in the kitchen gardens.

As in Puerto Montt, decoration on many of the buildings comes from varying the patterns of wooden shingles, called tejuelas, on roofs and siding--a style introduced by the area's German settlers. The shingles are made of alerce, a weather resistant wood, and are laid in series of overlapping rows. Some are cut with straight edges across the bottom, others are curved, some pointed. The combination of cut and pattern seems limitless, and the overall effect is a sort of needlepoint texture. On a island across the water from the village lies the cemetery with little houses built on the graves.

We sail on, we eat. Among the bounty is salmon from the region's many salmon farms--more than 30 are based in Puerto Montt--and small, sweet oysters picked up in Puerto Aguirre. One lunch is beludo, a white-fleshed local fish. A special treat is a Patagonian dish of chicken, sausages, clams, scallops, barnacles, and roasted potatoes called curanto. There are times when we think we see more ocean life on our plates than in the sea. Though, to be fair, Billy and Alex tell us they spotted seals and Bonnie sees dolphins alongside the ship.

Then one morning, as the ship navigates through the narrow Canal Rio Tempanos, we start to see little pieces of floating ice. By the time we enter Laguna San Rafael, the little pieces have turned into hunks. We sail west, where, flowing down between black mountain peaks, the San Rafael glacier presents a wall of ice more than a mile wide and 200 feet high.

Part of the northern Patagonia icefield, the San Rafael glacier is one of several glaciers that originate on Monte San Valentin. And though the guidebook says it is the closest glacier in the world to the equator, that just isn't so. (When I got back home, Richard Williams, of the U.S. Geological Survey in Woods Hole, explained that while there are many glaciers at much lower latitudes this one, including some in Ecuador, this claim may have originated in the fact that the San Rafael glacier, which calves into a sea-level lake, does reach tidewater at a lower latitude than any glacier in the world. He also explained that an icefield is like an ice cap but that it doesn't completely cover the terrain, leaving lots of rock outcrops and making it very beautiful.)

Patagonia's two icefields make up the most extensive glacier system in South America, one that resembles that of southeastern Alaska.

Out on deck, the excited passengers listen for the sound of cracks and groans in the ice and watch for a few bits of ice to fall as a prelude to a large, crashing collapse of an iceberg from the glacier's terminus.

Then outfitted in orange life jackets over our down jackets, we set out in small boats to get even closer. The temperature is about 55 degree F and the sun is out. A chorus of "oohs" and "aahs" erupts over the Kool-Aid colors of the icebergs that float all around us. Some are robin's egg blue, perfectly clear, as sharply faceted as a diamond. Others are white and opaque like the stuff encrusted on freezer coils. An occasional dirty piece floats by carrying a bit of the Andes out to the sea.

There are more oohs and aahs when a hunk of ice falls from the glacier face, and the wave it generates swells toward our small boat taking us for a ride.

A crew member hacks out a piece of clean ice from an iceberg, chops it up, and passes out glasses filled with ice and whiskey. We've been told about this ritual at dinner the night before--30,000 year-old-ice, says the captain, and 12-year-old Scotch. (Another claim, de-bunked by Williams who says one to two thousands years tops--for the ice, that is.)

Back on the ship, we spend a lazy afternoon as the ship quietly drifts past the glacier's face, taking pictures, waiting for another iceberg to calve and the gulls to squawk and fly away.

The ship turns back north toward Puerto Montt, stopping for a day at the eastern edge of the Fjord Quitralco, where the cruise company has indoor swimming pools, hot springs, and a sauna.

Our next stop is the fishing village of Quellón on the Isla Grande de Chiloé, the largest of South American's islands after Tierra del Fuego. Chiloé itself is an archipelago with some 23 islands; the main crop is the potato. While some shipmates line-up to use the public telephone, the rest of us stroll around town or shop for handicrafts at the wooden house built on stills above the water, called a palafito.

Our last stop is one of Chile's oldest cities, Castro, Chiloé's capital. It's dark, raining, and late when we arrive. But thrilled to be on land again, we trek up the steep street from the dock to reach the square. Few people are out, but bright light streams out of one side-street storefront. It's a computer store, and half a dozen young men sit and stoop over flickering computer screens.

In the morning, we get a better look at the city with its waterfront market and orange cathedral. Sharing a taxi with Louis, the travel agent, we make a short trip to the nearby village of Chonchi, famous for its multicolored multi-level wooden buildings and neo-classical church. I ask our driver about Chiloe's famous male witches, but his answer is too complicated for my high-school Spanish. And I had complained about headsets.

- End -


CONTENTS | PAGE BACK | NEXT PAGE | DIRECTORY
Copywrite 1996. LatinWorld Magazine Content Is Produced By Jorge Giraldez-Benard, with Netpoint Communications, producers of the LatinWorld Directory. All original articles and photographs published in LatinWorld Magazine are protected by international copyright law. Reproduction, in whole or in part without prior written permission, is strictly prohibited. Miami, Florida, USA.

FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION
Click Here