GLOBAL ODYSSEY 2010 BLOG #26: LAND OF WIND & RAINBOWS

Jiri Snitak.  You need to remember that name!

Well, we decided before arriving at Punta Arenas, Chile, that we would not be flying to Antarctica. Seeing the frozen continent is one thing, and we look forward to our days of cruising along its coast. Paying $4000 each to step on its soil for a short visit is something else entirely.  It seems like you’re paying more for bragging rights than for any experience.

Torres del Paine National Park, however, attracted us both as an option. Described by some as South America’s finest national park, this has been in existence a bit over fifty years, but still only attracts some 200,000 tourists annually. We would not, of course, have the chance to trek the famous “W” route, but we felt that a visit would introduce us to a new area of Patagonia.

Zipped by bus to the Punta Arenas airport, our group boarded two prop planes for the hour-long flight inland. We were able to get a few good stills from the plane, which has convinced Sam, at least, of the wisdom of taking local flights wherever possible for a different view of the surroundings. Landing “in the middle of nowhere,” we boarded a bus with Eva, our tour guide, an enthusiastic raconteur with a penchant for “demonstrating” the sexual couplings of the local fauna. Believe us, it was something that had to be seen to be believed ….
Not only is this an area where Andean condors are commonly seen, but the flightless rea is occasionally encountered, and the guanaco, wild relative of the llama and alpaca, roams in herds here. We even spotted a Patagonian fox!  Above all, floating in and out of the clouds and mist are the Torres del Paine. Originally part of a sheep estancia, the Park’s overexploited resources received a further blow in 2005 when a camper using a portable stove in windy conditions, burned down about a tenth of the Park! Think about that for a minute. People are upset about George Bush’s record on the environment and hardly a peep about someone who burned down a tenth of South America’s premier park? So, who was this guy? One of the guide books states that he was a Czech, none name him! Sam decided to do a little footwork and …

(you were wondering who Jiri Snitak was?) So next time somebody asks you about environmental bad guys, you know who to tell them about ….

The Park is great and well worth a visit, but watch out for deydration. Mary got dehydrated, was sick on the way back, and was out of commission the following day. Still, we both agree that this trip was well worth it!

GLOBAL ODYSSEY 2010 BLOG #25: THE CHILEAN FJORDS

This will not be a lengthy blog, but we wanted to say something about this part of the trip to accompany a few pictures.  We can’t say how the Chilean Fjords compare to Alaska’s Inside Passage, never having done the latter (give us time!), but Sam says it’s right up there with his memories of the Norwegian Fjords some forty years ago!

The one problem, of course, with a transit of this sort is that you can’t see everything that is out there – both because of the duration of the transit and because you can’t be on both port and starboard side at once.  Our suggestion would be to relax, take as much in as you are comfortable doing, and realize this is not a one-trip deal – you have to come back. Hopefully, if the climate hasn’t changed, the glaciers will be waiting for you!

GLOBAL ODYSSEY 2010 BLOG #24: WE KNEW THERE WAS A REASON TO DISLIKE LA SERENA

You’ll recall that our only partially negative experiences so for was at Coquimbo/La Serena, in Chile. Maybe it’s a family thing! Sam recently came across the following, excerpted from Samuel Bawlf’s The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake: 1577-1580 (2003), at p. 129.

On December 19 [1578] they anchored in the Bay of la Herradura, and the next morning, after finding a stream, they began refilling their water casks. The Spanish town of La Serena was only eight miles away, however, and its inhabitants had been watching Drake’s ships sailing back and forth along the coast for several days, during which word had come from Valparaiso that they were corsairs.

A dozen of Drake’s men were working on shore when a lookout on the Golden Hinde saw a large body of Spanish horsemen with 200 Indians running alongside on the ridge above the beach. Hearing the signal gun on the ship, and seeing the Spaniards, the sailors began wading out to a large rock where their boat could retrieve them. Richard Minivy, turned and stood in defiance of the on rushers and was promptly shot dead. After the others escaped, the Spaniards dragged Minivy’s body up on the beach, where they beheaded it and cut out his heart, and then the Indians shot it full of arrows. When they had departed with their trophies stuck on spears, Drake took some men ashore and buried Minivy’s remains.

So, while not the first Menefee to come to the area, we may have been the first to leave it….

GLOBAL ODYSSEY 2010 BLOG #23: RAFTING THE PETROHUE

The problem with active activity is that taking pictures can create a risk. Paddling the Petrohue – a class 3 or 4 rapids entailed such a consideration, which is one reason you’ll see no photos of Sam and Mary, blazing paddles in hand, running the river. We didn’t want to lose the cameras, and thought our guide would not be pleased if we stopped paddling to snap a ”candid.” And then there were the “horseflies.” Horseflies?

Actually, we think there are a form of bee; we were told that if were hungry enough, the pollen sack could be extracted and eaten. (We weren’t.) But we weren’t told that they come out in January and they are all over the riverbank. We’re not talking about two or three. We’re talking about thousands. (They were even present mid-stream, although Sam managed to bat down and drown a few.)

That’s another good reason to don a wetsuit and other gear provided – it protects you for the river, it protects you from the flies. The trip itself was first rate – a bit of a drive from Puerto Montt, where you could see the volcanic peaks of Osorno and Catbuco shooting up in the distance like Latin American Fujis. ALSUR Expedition, the company we went with runs a first rate rafting service with English-speaking guides; ours hailed from California and had run rivers all over the west.

The trip is pretty average white-water – a safety briefing and paddle practice at the beginning, a series of rapids starting almost immediately and then a pull-out and picnic lunch (very primitive) at the end. There were no big surprises, but it was a different way to see this part of Chile and we’d recommend it to anyone with an slight taste for adventure.

GLOBAL ODYSSEY 2010 BLOG #22: BEING ROBINSON CRUSOE

OK, let’s start with something humorous. To our knowledge, there is no copy of Robinson Crusoe on board the ship (certainly not in the Library) and we saw none for sale on Isla Robinson Crusoe (the former Juan Fernandez). Doesn’t that seem a bit ironic?


At the same time, Crusoe, Alexander Selkirk and the buccaneers are what dominate your thoughts as you see this isle (the largest of a group of three) rising out of the sea. It’s much bigger than you expect – hard to imagine Selkirk beginning to chase down goats on its slopes – but it’s exactly the sort of place you’d associate with pirates (correctly) and buried treasure (well, not so much, but the jury’s still out …).







This was the Amsterdam's first visit here and, rumor asserted, the ship was expected the next week. We’re not sure what that will mean for tons of unsold tourist bumph sitting around (apparently the island averages 14,000 visitors a year), but it underlines one of our strongly held beliefs – if you want pamphlets or books, get there early (Sam got one of the last two copies of a book on the island – not the greatest, but certainly better than nothing.) You also have to watch out about what is for sale – they had some whale teeth – great souvenirs and very tempting if you didn’t know they’d be confiscated by customs when you reenter the U.S.











But hey, you’ve got only part of a day and you’re on the island! Why hang around San Juan Bautista? We quickly got




in line and bought passes to the national park (which nobody checked – we were later told that the custodian closed his office when he ran out of passes) and headed up past the caves where early Chilean patriots were imprisoned by the Spanish, to the upper reaches of the island. Away from the few streets, fewer autos and barking dogs.

This is where you really experience Juan Fernandez – past the huge eucalyptus trees and into the island’s endemic flora, and that’s where the small surprises begin. A sign took us off the path to an “inscribed rock” (mentioned in none of the guidebooks) – an impressive 1866 sketch of one fish eating another and a palm tree. Then it was onward and upwards on rough mountain paths, which may well have been trod by the buccaneers. Not far enough to reach the peaks, but we did get a bit of Selkirk’s perspective, and were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of (but not, unfortunately, to photograph) the rare Juan Fernandez hummingbird found only here.


























The hills beckoned further, but we had a ship to catch and so slowly returned to the village below. Right now, Isla Robison Crusoe is in that gawky teenage phase between undiscovered paradise and tourist destination when anything can happen. It is well worth a visit – who knows whatever wonders we may have missed – but get there quickly before it changes!