Following our excursion to Cape Horn, the Stella Australis took us to Wulaia Bay for the afternoon, where we had a choice of three hikes. The Captain gave a compelling lecture (previous to our visit to Wulaia Bay) about the Yamana aboriginal settlements. Wulaia Bay was the site of one of the largest Yamana settlements, was also sketched by FitzRoy and described by Darwin during their voyage on board the HMS Beagle (yeah for beagles!). Here’s another link for more information.
There is an old radio station at Wulaia Bay that has been converted to a museum, and it’s very good. For the hikes, BILly decided to take the Difficult option while SILly, DH and I opted for Medium. Really, BILly’s hike just took him to a higher vantage point.
This would be our last time setting forth from the zodiacs. Awwwwwwwww….
Everyone drops their life jackets somewhere they are apt to remember them for picking up later, but it really doesn’t matter whose life jacket you pick up. Some folks were no so great at remembering where they put theirs. 🙂 But I love this shot showing both the Chile and Argentina flags.Breathtaking views! If you look very hard, you can see the old radio station/now museum in the lower left hand corner of this photo. Our hiking group visited the museum following our hike.Patagonia really reminds me of British Columbia. It’s not the same, yet it is. Depending where you are.“Us”.
On the last evening of the cruise, the crew auctioned off the navigation chart sued for sailing to Cape Horn. My motion sickness was still bothering me, though not as badly as the first few days. I’ve done three cruises now (Galapagos 2012, Cuba 2014 and now this one), and the Australis Cruise was by far the shortest, at only 4 nights. It’s a great cruise, not cheap but was well worth it for us. Since we backpacked through Europe and touched the westernmost point of Europe in the 19080s, we have wanted to check out other “direction-most” points. We’ve been to the easternmost tip of North America (Cape Spear, Newfoundland) and to the highest navigable body of water (Lake Titicaca), so visiting the southernmost point of South America was definitely on the Bucket List. Now, I need to get to the Dead Sea, but no idea when that will occur!
We had one more night on the Stella Australis before she docked at Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city on the continent, the following morning. We disembarked and had some more adventures before flying up to Buenos Aires for a couple of days. So we’re not finished yet!
Date Explored: February 16, 2016 – In Other Words, 02-16-2016. Kinda Cool.
Last I left off, we were visiting Pia Glacier and cruising through Glacier Alley. Preparing for today’s post, I see I noted in my travel journal for the night before February 15 (Pia Glacier):
Had some rollers during the night –> my full water glass fell to the floor, not sure where the water went!
Funny how we forget the little things. It’s a good thing I can read my handwriting (it’s very messy).
For Tuesday, February 16th, I wrote:
Woke @ 6 a.m. after a night of huge rolling waves and suited up only to receive the disappointing news that the winds were far too bad to go on Cape Horn. We got great views & photos but it’s not the same as stepping on the piece of earth itself.
200 km/hr winds was the max. they hit charting the course during the night.
Gusting to 88 knots/100 km an hour in a.m.
So there you have it. Yes, a bit disappointing, Cindiana Jones did not get to walk on Cape Horn! But thanks to her (well, my) zoom lens, which is actually pretty old in the scheme of zoom lenses, she/I managed to get some great shots from the ship. The captain made every effort to circle the Cape and allow for amazing photos (considering it was such a blustery day) and we had some wild fun when the ship, um, leaned a little more than perhaps was anticipated. We were told that there was no way the zodiacs would stay afloat trying to get us to the stairs up to the Cape. Even if the zodiacs managed to get us to the stairs, the winds were so strong we wouldn’t be able to walk on the Cape.
Everyone was a good sport about it. There was one fellow who decided to take the return trip from Ushuaia (our drop off point the following morning) for a second run at the Cape, because he had piloted (I believe was the word he used) ships himself and had never landed at Cape Horn. It was on his bucket list, as it was on my mine. But Alan was very determined. I wonder if he got there?
Trying to remain standing on deck as we circled the Cape! Not pretending. Really trying to stand. They wouldn’t let us stand on the very top deck. We were up there, but got shooed down. I guess it wouldn’t do to have one of the guests flail around in the drink.If we look a wee bit chilly, it’s because we were!
Oh, if you look back up at Picture 1, you can see I’m wearing gumboots. The Stella Australis provides gumboots throughout the expeditions, if you wish, but I chose only to take some for the Cape Horn excursion, and then it didn’t work out. According to this article I found about the Via Australis (sister ship to the Stella), the Via manages to land at Cape Horn around 75% of the time. I believe we were advised that the Stella manages to land (lately) around 70% of the time. So we were among the 30% of the time where the weather conditions do not permit landing.
Would I take another cruise that offered the opportunity to land at Cape Horn? If I were independently wealthy and could combine another shot at Cape Horn with a trip to Antarctica, definitely yes. But unless I win the lottery, no. I consider myself very lucky to have circled the Cape. I would love to land there, but…funds.
If the weather had been more cooperative, the zodiacs would have taken us to this staircase.
Here’s a cool video of folks aboard the Stella Australis landing at Cape Horn the month before us, January 2016. The crew determines whether or not you can land, for us, at about 2 a.m. So even though the passengers, at 6 a.m. thought, “We can do this!”, they said no.
So imagine if these folks on YouTube were able to land and we weren’t a month later…how extreme our weather was when they were charting the possibility of landing.
I am a little jealous of those people. If you visit the YouTube video, that’s what the wind sounded like as I was trying to remain standing on the ship.
A view of the lighthouse with my zooms lens.
Yes, I am pretty amaze-balls. I wasn’t standing very steadily when I took the shot.
I love this shot as we’re moving around the Horn. It was both light and dark at the same time.
Agh, I wish I could have gone up top to the monument and signed my name in the book! Oh, dear, it seems if I were a millionaire, I would go back.
I’m wondering why they didn’t let us sleep in instead of making us get up and be on-deck at six only to find out we couldn’t disembark. I guess it’s like allowing a woman to “try and push out the baby” if he’s, say, a surprise breech, like my first one was, so she’ll feel like she actually accomplished something. If they didn’t get us up so we could see for ourselves how windy it was, and if they didn’t give us the report from the weather station about the 200/km hour winds during charting…maybe we wouldn’t have believed them?
I do know from my experience giving birth that, yes, as the OB said, it was advantageous for me “to try” pushing out my baby, even if I didn’t succeed.
And so it is with Cape Horn. “That Cindy, at least she tries.”
Et, voila, to show for it:
By the way, if you are lucky enough to get Captain Juan Carlos Vargas, he’s excellent at what he does. Very informative talks, very personable…and not bad to look at (for those who make travel plans based on such things).
The rest of our morning was spent having a siesta, which I sorely needed. My motion sickness was having a great time with my head and stomach. It was like being spun around on a horizontal Ferris wheel at high speeds. My head hurts just thinking about it.
But, yeah, I would go back if I had the chance.
Next time, our afternoon excursion at Wulaia Bay, which was beautiful. The weather had cleared completely and we had a wonderful time.
Day 3 of our Australis Cruise was pretty much the reason FOR the cruise. Overnight, the ship makes its way around the western end of Tierra del Fuego and into the Ballenero Channel. It’s pretty exciting to look out your cabin window and see bits of ice beginning to show in the water. I can only imagine what it must be like to experience in colder months (but I’m a wimp so we went during their summer). The closer the ship cruises to Pia Glacier, the more you can feel excitement mounting on-board. Pia Glacier is one of the few glaciers accessible to humans that is not in retreat, but instead is advancing (this is when a glacier grows faster than it’s melting, whereas the Columbia Ice Fields in my home province are melting faster than they are growing, hence they are in retreat).
When Pia Glacier first comes into view, it is just breathtaking. It’s surreal to be among such beauty, and in today’s day and age there is a pretty somber realization that seeing a glacier calve (which we did, several times) as the ice pushes from the back and huge chunks split off into the ocean is a rarity. You truly feel like you are at the mercy of Mother Earth.
When you visit the glacier, you can choose to just stay at the viewing area or to hike to gain “better views.” The hike was pretty slippery, over large boulders, and it was muddy. They warned us it would be muddy, and it was! I had rain pants and gators. We were in Chile and Argentina for a month, so I didn’t have space in my luggage for hiking boots. You can borrow gumboots off the cruise folks, but I thought they would be too slippery on the rocks for this excursion. I just used my hiking runners with the rain pants and gators, and that combo worked great.
In the zodiac en route to the disembarkation spot for Pia Glacier. The zodiac engines churn through the ice. It sounds like a big blender.I am “enjoying” a glass of scotch with glacial ice. This was after our hike to a “better viewing area,” which is really, in my opinion, a way to not have too many people on the viewing rock at once. The folks who take the “easy” landing just stay here as long as they want. Meanwhile, the rest of us are hiking up the slippery boulders. The view was very nice, and I’m proud of myself that I made it! But I’m not so sure I would have made it back down if not for my husband telling me (and others) where to step and when. I seem to have a natural inclination to step exactly where I shouldn’t, on the slipperiest area. But at least I didn’t fall off the path like I did hiking down from a volcano in the Galapagos four years earlier.
I had to put quotation marks around “enjoy,” because I am not a scotch drinker. I just wanted my picture taken like everyone else.
See the blue area of the glacier to the left? That’s where Pia Glacier was calving during our visit. We didn’t think it was going to calve at all. Then we started our hike and as the day warmed, you could start to hear the rumblings of a potential calve. Once we returned from our hike, I forgot about taking pictures or even attempting to get a calving on video. I just stood there and watched in awe. A couple small chunks calved, and a big one calved. See that icy water just behind me up above? As the glacier calves and drops into the ocean, it creates this “down the sink” effect, which shoves and swirls the water just beyond our viewing rock. The force of nature is awesome.
The final ascent was up to a viewing area to see a fjord. It was pretty crowded by the time we got there, with a group that had arrived previously. Now, most of the folks you will encounter on the cruise are cognizant that everyone wants to take pictures, but there were a few who felt their photography skills were of paramount importance. Really, a couple of fellows could have just moved a wee tad to allow, say, SOMEONE ELSE, ANYONE ELSE, a chance to take a photo. While I wouldn’t use the term Asshat to describe an individual in particular, I might say “egotistical twit.”Heading back to the cruise ship, DH and I wound up in the last zodiac with a bunch of photographers with massive cameras. Most of them were quite nice (like the gentleman with his back to us) and the zodiac captain was very accommodating driving the zodiac to a vantage point from which the photographers with their massive zoom lenses could take pictures of the ship. I had long since decided just to watch the glacier instead, in case it did a massive calve while I was watching it and the attention of my zodiac mates was diverted to the cruise ship. Wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happened. All I could get out was a “Holy crap!” and before the massive cameras could turn toward the noise, a building-sized piece calved off the glacier.
Sometimes it pays to just enjoy the moment instead of recording it for posterity, you know?
After you return to the ship, the boat cruises through “Glacier Alley,” which features tidewater glaciers coming down from the Darwin mountains and the Darwin Ice Sheet. Most of these glaciers are named after European countries, and the ship serves you a drink reminiscent of the country as you cruise past a glacier in question. Excuse my photos, because I took them through the window. It was quite blustery outside by this point. So I can’t tell you if this glacier is France, Holland, Germany or Italy, but I can tell you I enjoyed sips of champagne and beer (I think I ran out of steam after that).
This glacier is obviously melting, which was kind of sad.More glaciers!
During the cruise along Beagle Channel (beagle!!!) and through Glacier Alley, my sea-sickness was taking its toll. This was the night before we would reach Cape Horn, another reason to take the cruise – a chance to disembark at Cape Horn!! The success of the landing depends entirely on what the weather is doing around midnight to 2 a.m. the night before. The ship guys (captains, whatever) are in contact with a weather station that alerts them to the probability of landing at Cape Horn. But of course they don’t tell you whether you’ll land or not until the next morning, because how else will they get the entire boat into life jackets otherwise?
Did we land at Cape Horn? Did I fall overboard and need to be retrieved? Or did they toss me a rope and allow me to barefoot water-ski through ice chunks? These and other questions will be answered next week on another installment of Cindiana Jones Does Patagonia. Stay tuned!
Our Australis Cruise, “Fjords of Tierra del Fuego” on the Stella Autralis, departed Punta Arenas on February 13th, “Day 1,” but we didn’t have any excursions on that day. You’re led to your cabins, settle in, then assemble for an intro talk, drinks, and decide which expedition excursions to sign up for the next day, Valentine’s Day for us! The morning excursion featured two levels of difficulty for hiking/walking. We signed up for “Difficult,” but they also offered a Moderate or Easy route (I can’t remember which). Let me say, if you can’t hike up a slippery path, even with a rope to guide you, you have no business signing up for Difficult just so you can get a “better view.” I guess you don’t know until you try, but if you don’t hike in your regular life, opt for the Easy or Moderate outings. Opting for Difficult when you can’t handle it just takes the guides’ attention away from other guests. And I say this fully knowing there are times I shouldn’t elect the Difficult hike myself.
Saturday morning, when we departed on the zodiacs for Ainsworth Bay, was chilly but sunny. The afternoon was overcast. I want to show a photo of the Stella Australis. It’s from the afternoon excursion, thus the clouds:
Can you see that little craft to the very left of the shot? Those are the zodiacs, on which you travel for your excursions.
Here is a shot of our zodiac traveling to Ainsworth Bay, off the cruise ship:
Isn’t that beautiful? You can see two more zodiacs in front of us. Luckily, even though I get seasick, going on a two-week Galapagos expedition-style cruise in 2012 taught me how to handle myself on a zodiac, and it all came back to me, like riding a bike. 🙂 So this time I could be brave and sit on the edge without death-gripping ropes, and take whatever pictures I wanted.
Note: If any rapids were around, I would have been hanging onto the ropes with the aforementioned death grip.
Travel Tip! If there are rapids, you are likely on a river.
Cruise Ship Tip! We selected deck 3 of the Stella Australis, and it was perfect. I don’t like to be too far up, because it’s better for motion sickness to be a bit further down, and mid-ship is also advised. We were in room 327, beside the stairs, and we had no issues whatsoever.
The view from our hike at Ainsworth Bay, along the glacial moraine (returning from the hike):
So beautiful and peaceful! That’s the Darwin mountain range in the distance. Remember, we went during their summer.
The weather can change quickly in Patagonia. We had a wonderful lunch back on board the Stella Australis, sailing west along the sound before traveling via zodiac again in the afternoon to the Tucker Islets, where we saw lots of sea birds and cormorants nesting, but, really, everyone’s there to see the penguins!
En route to visiting the penguins. You can see there are four zodiacs ahead of us.
After traveling to Galapagos, where we saw cormorants drying their wings in the sun, seabirds weren’t really on our agenda. We did see a couple of penguins in the Galapagos, and unfortunately we didn’t book ahead enough in advance to see the Magdalena penguins on a day trip from Punta Arenas, but none of that mattered now, because we saw penguins galore at Tucker Islets.
Penguins for your perusal (this one guy wanted to pose for us very badly!):
The giant penguins are at Antarctica. I don’t know if we’ll ever go there. I love expedition-style cruises, where you launch daily on zodiacs to view wildlife, but there are a lot of other places in the world to visit, and I’m happy we chose the Patagonian fjords. Leaving you with my favorite penguin until next time, day 3 of the cruise….
Last I left off, we were exploring Castro and Quellon on Chiloe Island, which I am really glad we visited, even if we had to sacrifice time in the Lakes District to do so. We needed to return our rental car to the kiosk at the Puerto Montt airport on the mainland of Chile on Thursday, February 11th, and catch a flight to Punta Arenas, from where we would begin Leg 3 of our journey on a 4-night cruise through the Patagonian fjords. Just in case something went wrong, we left our B&B in Ten Ten, Castro pretty early. We were again lucky to catch a ferry without waiting in line. On the ferry back to Pargua, we saw some jelly fish. It’s a very short trip, just a commuter ferry, but very pleasant. You are expected to pay on-board, and they do come around and check. So make sure you have pesos handy.
We knew where the airport was, but we now had time to kill so decided to look for a place to have lunch. Unfortunately, we wound up in a light industrial area of Puerto Montt that wasn’t very appealing. I was beginning to understand why I had been advised to head straight to Puerto Varas when we first arrived in Puerto Montt a week earlier. In fact, we were mighty tempted to drive to Puerto Varas for our lunch! But we got so lost in Puerto Montt, needing to hang out our window and beg directions from a nice fellow who turned out to be a taxi. He was generous enough to let us follow him around construction detours to get us back to the road to the airport. We stared driving to Puerto Varas, then thought better of it. You just never know what might go wrong. So we headed back to the Puerto Montt airport, settled things with the car rental agency, and ate in the airport. Not a first choice, but honestly we couldn’t find anything else that looked decent and didn’t have the time or inclination at this point to continue driving in circles.
I don’t want to do Puerto Montt a disservice. For us it served as a base to land and then visit Puerto Varas, see the volcanoes, and circumnavigate the lake. Once you’re at Puerto Varas, the inclination is strong to head north and keep exploring the Lakes District, so I didn’t research Puerto Montt at all as a travel destination. For us, it was a means to an end.
Our flight to Punta Arenas went off without a hitch, and we had booked a transfer in advance to our hotel, Boutique La Yegua Loca. This beautiful boutique hotel was a splurge for us. It wasn’t cheap, but we really wanted a nice place at this point in the trip (not knowing where we were going to be for those two nights in Castro in advance). And it was worth it. I get motion sickness, and between the ferry and the flight and tiredness, I was pretty bagged by the time we had dinner at the hotel (very nice small restaurant).
Here’s me outside the hotel the next morning:
A well-worth it splurge! My Liege and I were in El Carpintero with a lovely view of the water, and BILly and SILly were on the same floor, across the way. We could hang out on the top balcony and there was a little sitting area between the rooms.
Too late on Thursday night, I remember SILly and I were thinking of doing the Magdalena Penguins tour on the Friday, our “rest” day in Punta Arenas. I knew we could book once in Punta Arenas, but you really need to book a couple of days ahead. The tours were all full by the time I looked into it, after we’d settled into our rooms. It’s a six-hour tour, and I knew I was heading for motion sickness on our small cruise ship, so we decided to forgo the penguin tour (not that we had a choice, considering everything seemed booked), knowing we would get to see some penguins, if not as many, during our Australis cruise.
Travel Tip! It’s very easy to book the Magdalena Penguins tour once you are in Punta Arenas. Here are a couple of spots. Viator. Solo Expedicions. There’s no need to book weeks in advance UNLESS it is something you simply must accomplish. Then, maybe book a few days to a week in advance. Or months in advance. Up to you. We wanted to play this leg free and easy.
Punta Arenas was a pleasant surprise (visit that link for a list of things to do). The flea markets were reasonable, you can visit a statue of Magellan and rub his toe for good luck on your seafaring adventures, there’s a wide boulevard with lots of sculptures, a maritime museum, a lot of replica ships that you can visit if you have a rental car or book a tour, plus the aforementioned penguins. We only had so much time, so we visited the Naval Museum (totally worth it) and then walked to the Sara Braun Municipal Cemetery, which was beautiful. An above-ground cemetery, again worth the visit.
My Liege at the Naval Museum.Between the hedges at the Saran Braun Municipal Cemetery in Punta Arenas. Photo Credit: BILly
I did take lots of pictures at the cemetery, but whittling down, they aren’t the sort of pictures I usually keep. We had a brisk walk back.
Cute door returning from cemetery.
There are plenty of nice places to eat in Punta Arenas, but the place revolves around the cruise ships either docking for a day or departing, as ours was, so you’re not likely to get a great deal on a meal, shall we say, but the food was great.
Olive Di Oyl enjoying cheesecake and hot chocolate (or latte, can no longer remember) in Punta Arenas before the cruise.
For our cruise, we chose Fjords of Tierra del Fuego on the MV Stella Australis. This 4-night expedition cruise departs from either Punta Arenas or Ushuaia, Argentina, or you can elect to do a round trip of 5 or 7 nights, but a couple of the excursions will duplicate. A 3-night option is also available.
Check out the Australis website for the various options. I would definitely recommend this cruise. It was top-notch.
For our one-way trip, a few days before our sailing date of February 13th, I received a PDF from the Australis folks with instructions for boarding, but it would not open on my iPad and I did not receive an email back when I tried to contact someone to see what it was. So we dragged our suitcases from the hotel down to the address we had on our tickets, only to discover that the “office” was closed. We knew there were souvenir shops around the corner, and folks were coming and going from another ship. BILly and My Liege went ahead and tried to find out how we were supposed to board the Stella Australis when the office was closed. It took a lot of rig and a ton of marole, but finally they found where we needed to go through, and then we basically backtracked to eventually discovering a big waiting room and souvenir shop just for the Australis cruise folks. I am thinking it might have been nice to learn what had been on that PDF, but oh, well….
There was a huge lineup of folks checking in, so we just hopped in line and resigned ourselves to a lot of waiting. Eventually, we made it through to the souvenir shop, where we ultimately discovered we had to board buses to get driven down the dock to the cruise ship. It was easily walking distance. Not sure why the need for buses, but I guess it helps them organize.
Once on the ship, each couple is greeted by one of the expedition guides and taken to your cabin. This was a very nice touch, very personalized, and we came to realize that the Stella Australis is a beautiful small cruise ship. Ours featured a big window for viewing.
You settle in for a short period and then we were invited to the Darwin Lounge for a short briefing and welcoming. I am not much of a drinker, so did not research the liquor rules in advance, but we found out that all booze throughout the 4-night cruise was free. The Pisco Sours were delicious, but I can only manage one. The meals were all delicious, as well.
If you suffer motion sickness, make sure to bring supplies. I was using the ear patch, which I used to great success in Galapagos in 2012, but this time the side effects were nearly as bad as motion sickness itself. Our Galapagos cruise was two weeks, and by the fourth day I had settled in with the patch nicely. The Australis cruise wasn’t long enough for me to settle in with my motion sickness, so my stomach felt pitchy the whole time.
Another traveler advised to cut the patch in half, which I tried, but then some of the medicine leaked out and stung my skin. I would try the patch again (after having success in Galapagos), but would cut it in half and then cover with one of those little round bandages.
However, I’m come to realize over three small cruises (Galapagos, Cuba and the Patagonian Fjords) that no motion sickness system works for me entirely. I’m still trying to find the best solution.
Do you suffer motion sickness? Any tips for my next cruise? (Likely a couple of years from now, hopefully to Alaska.)
On our second day in Castro, my husband declared he wanted to “go to the beach.” So we set off to find a Chilean national park with beach access. We did have one in mind, but we wound up taking a road trip instead. On our way south out of Castro, SILly and I spied another of the UNESCO World Heritage wooden Churches of Chiloe. We had only seen the one, in Castro, and we knew we wouldn’t have time to see another if we didn’t stop at Iglesia Nuestra Signora de Gracia. The construction is amazing, and we managed to squeeze in our visit before a tour bus pulled up. Score!
A nice little above-ground cemetery is to the left of the church, looking straight on. Chile has a lot of beautiful above-ground cemeteries. We visited super-large ones in Punta Arenas, before stepping aboard a four-night cruise, and we visited another in Buenos Aires.Yes, I’m making a big deal out of the wooden churches of Chiloe Island. Look at the little pieces of wood! That’s a lot of work.The marble look to the columns is drawn on. They aren’t really marble. The columns would have looked just as nice without the drawings, IMO. Do you know how they created the domed interiors?
Thus:
Courtesy of upkeep efforts, we can see that the churches are built upside-down, like ships. Well, the roofs anyway. That’s how they get the concave wooden ceilings. Then they flip them.
SILly and I were able to climb the bell tower and walk along inside the shaped dome from one end to the other, where we looked INTO the church through a peephole. The guys, meanwhile, were having a siesta in the car. Silly men.
The church is about 4 klicks south of Castro, so don’t miss it if you’re in the vicinity.
After the church, SILly and I were ready to take Steve and BILly to the beach, but the guys had decided we might want to drive south to Quellon instead. I knew this from my research, but had forgotten — the highway we were on stretches 21,000 kilometers from Anchorage, Alaska to Quellon, Chiloe Island, Chile. When would we get another chance to drive to the end of the highway?
Never, my friends.
So instead of going to the beach, we drove to Quellon. It was a bit of a tricky business because, like on Easter Island, we were following our noses with no real clear plan of what was occurring. Were we on the right road? Did we take the proper turn? Turns out we were and we did. We arrived at a monument heralding our destination:
And it’s on a beach!!!
The very end of the Pan-American highway. We didn’t have time to drive back up to Anchorage and back, so we stopped in Quellon for lunch instead. Everywhere appeared to be closed (damn siesta). But finally we found a restobar filled with locals, and I made fun of BILly’s “cheese soup” lunch until all the locals started ordering the same thing. It was delicious.
Here’s a view across the road from our restobar:
I had read that Quellon was a small place not worth a stay, but we liked it just as much, if not better, than Castro. You can use Quellon as a base to take a 5-hour ferry to Chaiten, from where “the boat sails through the inner channels of the Chiloé archipelago” (taken from the ferry link). When we were planning the Chile trip, we knew we wanted to do the Australis cruise through the Patagonian fjords, but BILly kept whining about a place called Tic-Toc. I researched and researched and researched “Tic-Toc,” which I finally discovered is in a new Chilean national park that was so new during my research period that I couldn’t find out anything about it.
But now, now, thanks to me (not really, thanks to Google catching up with BILly’s ideas after we came home), you can find out about Tic-Toc Bay. If our group was serious about seeing Bahia Tic-Toc, we wouldn’t have had time to do the Patagonian cruise. Things turn out like they’re meant to. We left Quellon and revisited our quest to find My Liege a beach. We used our wily skills to make our way to Cucao, where we spread out on the sand along with quite a few Chileans, with the big difference that they would go in the water and we would not. Way too cold for us wimpy Canadians!
We did put our feet in the ocean. Ya gotta.
Then it was back to our B&B in the Ten Ten area of Castro where we had a relaxing night and left the next morning to catch the ferry back from Ancud to Puerto Montt. We needed to be at the airport in time to catch our LAN flight to Punta Arenas, from where we would begin the cruise that inspired us to visit Chile in the first place. The entire trip up to the cruise was an effort of backward-planning. Very handy and simple. Choose a primary destination where you HAVE to be somewhere at a specified time, then explore options previous-to and afterward. If you’re like me, you wind up in the country for a month. So much fun!
