Ushuaia & Punta Arenas

1.28.2015

Punta Arenas, Chile.  Not to be confused with a city we will visit later on this trip in Costa Rica.  Punta Arenas bills itself as the southernmost city in the world.  (Ushuaia bills itself as the southernmost town in the world.)  Punta Arenas is much larger, and not as quaint.  We tendered into town and walked about snapping photos and shopping.  Prices are both low and high here.  In dollars, very cheap.  But the Chilean peso uses big numbers.  10,000 pesos is less than $18.00 in the US.  Passing 10,000 peso bills feels odd.  Fun, though.

The commodore asked for and received permission to go faster than normal through the channel last night in order to allow the cameras to click at the glaciers.  There were five in total, very like being on a ship in Alaska.  What is odd is that the mountains are about 3,000 feet high and have glaciers on them.  Even now in the summer.  The tree line looks to be about halfway up the mountains.  Curious.

After today, we will be at sea for three days so we are going back ashore to try to post the blog entries for the last towns/cities.

John & Colleen

1.27.2015

Thursday we moved around Cape Horn.  The commodore took us a bit around the cape, which is actually an island.  Who knew?  The he retraced his steps as the seas were over 16 feet high and the winds up to 45 mph. Choppy to say the least.

There are three ways to go around the end of the world.  One is around the cape and it is the toughest and roughest.  Then there is the Beagle Channel, named after the boat Darwin went to the Galapagos Islands on.  We went through, or partway through on our way to Ushuaia, Argentina.  There were great photo opportunities as the sun shone intermittently.

Friday we were in Ushuaia, the southernmost town in the world.  That's what they say and who is to argue?  Ushuaia is in Argentina and we were warned while on the ship not to wear anything related to the Falklands or Great Britain, that there could be verbal or physical confrontations.  A little hate goes a long ways down here.

We took a tour into the southernmost National Park in the world.  Gotta brag about whatcha got, right?  Beautiful trout streams, everything from what looked like a spring creek to small pocket water streams.  However, they are suffering from a fungal type disease that travels on the clothes and gear of fishermen and so, they stopped all fishing in the park.  OOH, what a waste.  Nice mountains and lakes.  Very scenic.

 We went to the 'end of the road', one that starts in Alaska, and ends here.  Our tour guide told us that each home here in Ushuaia is billed approximately $5 every couple of months for the fuel (natural gas) to heat their homes.  The International airport here gets seven flights a day during these summer months and five flights in the winter.  Antarctic cruises usually leave from Ushuaia since it will take just two days from here.  The ones from Australia will take at least ten days each way.

It is now 4:56pm, local time on Friday.  All aboard was at 3:30, but someone needed an ambulance to go to the local hospital for assistance that the ship is not able to provide.  The ambulance took 45 minutes to get here and this is a very small town. 60,000 residents and no suburbs.  Once the ambulance arrived, it was determined that it was not capable enough for whatever was needed.  Another wait.  Normally, no one gets too excited about leaving late, but the Commodore is upset.  Upset because on our trip from here to Punta Arenas, Chile is through the Strait of Magellan and there were to have been photo opportunities of several glaciers near dark tonight.  Now it might be too dark for photos so there is disappointment for some.  Medical comes first.  We hope it is not too serious as we are a long way from a "full service" hospital.

Colleen and John