Saturday 28th January- We arrive in Puerto Chacabuco-Chile

Having threaded our way through the islands at night on the inland waterway, and the journey did get a lot smoother around midnight, we arrived at 0800 at Puerto Chacabuco.

We were booked on a trip to see the ‘Natural wonders of Patagonia’ which required us to get up at the unearthly hour of 0640 to enable us to have time to get breakfast and then ready for the tender at 0800 ish.

So the breakfast room was quite busy when we got there around 0705 and the about an hour later we were on the tender to the shore. We are parked in a beautiful fjord with the mountains towering over the ship and it was grey with the sun starting to work its way through.

Patagonian BBQ lamb

We boarded the bus for the twenty minute drove to the Nationals Park and then wandered through quietly, all 100 of us looking at the trees and plant life until we came to a waterfall which was quite attractive. From there we returned and climbed a reasonably steep hill so that we could see the lake then went inside the building for light refreshments and watched some local dancing where the men wear spurs on their shoes no doubt to prod the wife etc. The local Chilean wine was quite good and so when we returned to the ship around 1200 we spent a little while ‘up top’ admiring the views before heading to the restaurant for a light lunch which we took outside with further testing of the grape.

As it had been an early morning we went back for an afternoon sleep before having dinner and then heading for the Panorama bar for a nightcap and watched the rain pour down as the mountains and islands slid by. Let’s hope the Captain knows where he is going. We did hear that one of their Cape Horn rounding’s was really terrible with the ship all over the place and although the Soujourn made it through two other cruise liners had to turn back.

Tomorrow we arrive in Puerto Montt where we have not booked any tours but will walk the city and try to find a restaurant serving the Patagonian BBQ lamb and also an internet café to update the Blog and photo album and email etc.

Tomorrow night is formal night and so must find some clean knickers somewhere