South America and Pacific Cruise - Sector Two

Montevideo - Punta Arenas - Amalia Glacier (sail past) - Pio XI Glacier (sail past) - Puerto Montt - Valparaiso

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January 26. Montevideo, Uruguay. Not as good a day as expected. The girls went shopping and the boys went to the Japanese Gardens, only to discover that all cultural sites in Montevideo appear to be closed on Mondays. So we strolled along a slightly polluted river, behind some slums, before heading for a bar near the ship. Stayed on board in the afternoon. Beautifully warm weather for the sail away. About two hours out we passed a Costa ship, which appeared to be barely moving. Rumour had it that she was tendering to Punta del Este, but no land was visible.

January 30. Punta Arenas, Chile. A tender port. A trip to Otway Sound to see the Magellan's Penguins colony. On the way through Chilean Patagonia, I saw Darwin's Rheas, guanacos, llamas, eagles, geese, jack rabbits and other wildlife. At Otway Sound there were fewer penguins than I'd expected, but still enough to make the trip worthwhile. Back in Punta Arenas I saw the cathedral, main square and a monument to I don't know what . I also saw two derelict piers covered in gannets. The weather was much warmer than I expected.

January 31. Amalia Glacier. We arrived at the Amalia Glacier around 17:00. It's actually quite a narrow tidewater glacier. Nothing like as majestic as the Hubbard in Alaska. Later in the day, we stopped in front of a smaller but to me more impressive glacier. Unfortunately, I was only able to get a photo through my cabin window, which has a solar film on it.

February 1. Pio XI Glacier, Chile. We arrived here about 7:00 and left about 10:15. It was much colder here. The glacier was better than Amalia and looked more like one would expect a glacier to look.

February 3. Puerto Montt., Chile. Another tender port. We were on a small group trip. First stop was to see the exterior of Puerto Montt cathedral, a memorial to the original German settlers and an umbrella sculpture. Why umbrellas? Because Puerto Montt has 2,500 mm of rain per year! Luckily we only had a couple of drops. Then it was on to a view point. PM is a scruffy town of about 200,000 inhabitants. After that we went to Puerto Varas, a resort town on Lago Llanquihue. We travelled along the shores of the lake to the Petrohué River, on the way we passed llamas by a café. We stopped for photos, they have very soft wool. We then travelled to Lago Todos los Santos (All Saints Lake) and to Osorno Volcano. The volcano is snow capped and is active, but hasn't erupted for a few years. I took a chair lift up to the first level. Stunning views of both the cone and Lago Llanquihue. Afterwards, we returned to the llama café for lunch and then back to Puerto Varas for a visit to a handicraft market, however Rob and I had a pisco sour instead!

February 5. Valparaiso, Chile. This was a surprising place. It's built on 46 hills and used to have 18 funiculars to help people up and down them. Only 6 are still functioning. There are so many buildings hanging on the hill sides. apparently, when it rains, some will just fall off. They are immediately replaced. The roads are almost all narrow, two way and winding. We drove down an extremely steep one that had a right angle at the bottom. If you didn't turn, you would crash through a low wall and go down an even steeper slope. Many of the houses are quite dilapidated. We travelled on a funicular that was built in the 1880's. Yvonne said that it looked like a garden shed on wheels. The door at the top station was like someone's front door. We then travelled to the seaside town of Viña del Mar, which is quite upmarket. We saw an Easter Island moai outside a museum. When we returned to Valparaiso we had a look at a fruit and vegetable market. I saw the biggest maize heads I've ever seen.

Terraces	Us	Montevideo	Tugboat	Flag	Graveyard

Containers	Wake	Sky	Ship	Rheas	Otway Sound

Plant	Penguins	Penguins	Penguin	Patagonia	Plant

Church	Monument	Aurora	Gannets	Fjord	Mountains

Mountains	Mountains	Mountain	Amalia Glacier	Amalia Glacier	Brujo Glacier

Pio X Glacier	Aurora	Sea	Ice	Ship	Pio X Glacier

Pio X Glacier	Pio X Glacier	Cathedral	Monument	Umbrellas	Llamas

River	Volcano	Lake	Me	Volcano	Mountain

River	Cable Car	Me	Volcano	Volcano	Lake

Outcrop	Lagoon	Valparaiso	Building	Building	Street

Valparaiso	Funicular	Building	Church	Building	Street

Valparaiso	Building	Moai	Me	Market	Glaciers 3 min 21 secs

Page created 6^th February 2015