Puerto Natales, CHILE - 15 january 2003
Thigh muscles or no, they remained covered up, tucked behind, layered in the cold and windy Puerto Natales. But after the wind in Torres del Paine, nonono… I shall not complain about the wind in Puerto Natales.
My pants, unwashed since a few weeks before I left Buenos Aires, could probably stand on their own now. My socks… dare I admit they are mine? I left them to the professionals.
I had some leftover bread from my hike. I remembered there were many stray dogs all over Puerto Natales, hiding from the wind and searching for food-scraps. I would feed them with my bread. But it was always the case, wasn’t it? Now, armed with bread, I could not find the dogs.
Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt, CHILE - 16 january 2003
I made another attempt covering more blocks to find the famished dogs and managed to toss the bread to some dogs today.
I would take the Navimag ferry this evening. It would be a three-night cruise through the Chilean fjords, arriving at Puerto Montt on Monday morning. Coincidentally, Koen and his girlfriend (who had skipped the Torres del Paine) would also be taking the same ferry. He had pointed out, “I heard it will be cold on the cruise.”
R-E-A-L-L-Y????? C-O-L-D in PATAGONIA?? Who would have imagined THAT???
We were told we could board by 9pm. But it was later dragged to 11:30pm. And finally, at 12:30am, we climbed onboard the ferry.
There was some mayhem at the storage area as a long truck had overturned. This was going to take a while…
We were all booked for Cabin ‘C’. ‘C’ for CONTAINER?, we feared. Nah, we had a little comfortable bed with curtains for privacy and a locker for our bag. Nice. We wondered if we would get a chance to dine at the captain’s table though.
I explored the ferry. Dining room was self-service and utilitarian, with plastic chairs and tables. No freaky chandeliers. No thick-woven Persian carpets. No Greek naked statues. No gold-guilded curved stairways. No stupid fountains. Wait, I was unable to locate the sun-deck, swimming pool and the mini golf-course.
A middle-aged tourist was verbally abusing a hapless crew-member and passing snide, sarcastic remarks. “Where’s my baggage?? Can I get it tonight? Tomorrow, maybe? This year??? Huh?? I WANT TO GET TO BED! Hey! Hey! That’s MY CABIN! What do YOU want?!!”
I re-entered my 22-man ‘C’ cabin and another middle-aged tourist asked me in a tired but worried tone, “Do you know WHEN we can get our baggage?”
Paradigm shift, geezers. Who is the one going to bed? You or your baggage? If you are here, the bed is here… GO TO BED!
To Puerto Montt, CHILE - 17 january 2003
We awoke this morning and found that we were still tethered to Puerto Natales. We did not awake voluntarily. We had all slept early this morning but the breakfast announcement said that breakfast was only served between 8 and 9am. Just 1 hour. So, we all dragged ourselves up to chomp down some food, and headed back to bed.
We finally left at around 10+am. Gisela, the middle-aged tourist sleeping below me totally missed breakfast. She claimed she did not hear the announcement because of her GOOD ear-plugs. OK, another fancy-gear alert.
We passed by the narrowest strait today. The crew tried to get us all excited about it. This section was 80 metres wide and could only be attempted in daylight. It was thoroughly COLD and WET standing at the deck to witness this ‘memorable’ moment. We later passed by a glacier that came nearly down to the fjords too.
Somehow, I had expected the scenery to be with deeper fjords and more dramatic gorges, maybe even with ice-bergs floating around. But it was generally flattish and roundish green islands scattered here and there along the channels. Well, if you have watched ‘Titanic’, maybe having no ice-bergs around is a GOOD thing.
To Puerto Montt, CHILE - 18 january 2003
Gisela’s alarm clock beeped for an eternity. Guess she did not want to miss breakfast today. But, what happens when you pitch a GOOD alarm clock against GOOD ear-plugs? The whole cabin woke up except the intended.
We passed by Puerto Eden today. This is a port-town with a population of about 200 people and their only contact with the outside world is via the Navimag ferries.
This bleak port-town, located in this icy-cold, wind-swept, forever rainy, impossible channels of the Chilean fjords contained the last few remaining people (about 10) of the Kawascar indigeneous race. It was so sad to hear that a particular human race was about to be extinct. Actually, there are several other races down south in Tierra del Fuego which are extinct or on the verge of disappearing too.
The Navimag ferries provide them with some supplies and take those in need of medical help to Puerto Natales or Puerto Montt. Many boats rowed out towards the ferry to meet us. With pattering rain on my face and my frozen nose about to fall off, I could only stand there in the rain and admire the resilience and adaptability of the people living out here.
Later, we passed by an abandoned rusty ship which had run aground 30 or 40 years ago. Again, this was another moment the crew got us all excited about. I stood inside by the window and waited for the rusty ship. Then, I got impatient and went out.
It was so easy to type ‘went out’ but it took a lot of force, heaving and shoving, to push the door open against the ferocious wind. I was out there for 20 seconds and had to force the door (the handle outside was barely held in place) open again. I re-entered clumsily and now looked like a soaked chicken.
We would cross the aptly named Golf de Penas (Gulf of Pains) tonight. This is the only section where we had to sail around a peninsula, across a gulf and then on open sea around the peninsula before heading back into the channels. This was the legendary bit of the cruise. The pukability meter would rank high tonight.
We were watching ‘The Matrix’ when IT began. The slow, continuous swaying of the boat, the special high-tech effects of the movie as we traversed through wormholes and into virtual reality and the ‘charm’ of Keanu Reeves, one got nauseous really quickly. Many left before the movie ended.
To Puerto Montt, CHILE - 19 january 2003
There was a loud crash in the middle of the night and everyone woke up. The swaying and rocking had gotten worse through the night. Some people feared the worst. Gisela started to panic and demanded to know from a crew-member if a truck tied to the ferry had fallen down. No, it was probably much worse, dear. Then, she insisted that if there was a fire on the ferry, they MUST sound the alarm and let us know. OK, but if you continue to wear those GOOD ear-plugs…
By breakfast, I staggered, held onto beams and walls and made my way to the dining-room. A section of the ceiling was on the floor. All the tables and chairs were tied up. We were getting sandwiches today, nothing of the sumptuous breakfast we had had yesterday.
I looked out through the window. The entire view showed the sea one moment and then, the ship rocked to reveal the sky the next. I felt woozy and headed back to bed. Lying down, one seemed to cope better.
By lunch, in order not to let my new muscles waste away, I again made my way to the dining-room for some exercise. At one point, a surreal scene happened in front of me that seemed to be in slow-motion. It looked unreal. Tables skidded and people fell off their chairs. Food flew. Beets spattered. Oranges rolled. Beef-steaks slid across the room. Rice scattered. Even after it was over, I still could not register this scene properly. It felt like all of us were in orbit, floating around.
After lunch, I stared out of the window again and observed the waves. Everything indeed was in slow-motion. The swelling and troughing of the waves, the breaking of the waves, the spreading of the waves, the rocking of the ferry… everything took its time and appeared to be placid and peaceful. It was so surreal. But, now that they had fed me, maybe I should not be staring at the waves.
We finally re-entered the channels late afternoon.
Puerto Montt to Castro (Chiloé Island), CHILE - 20 january 2003
Miyako, a Japanese lady travelling alone, joined me at lunch again. She is very sweet and nice but we could not really communicate for her English was rather bad and my Japanese was limited to ‘Arigato’ and ‘Sayonara’. Half the time, she gave me blank looks and I was never sure if she understood what I was saying. Most of the time, she did not talk to me but when she did, she used sporadic words and some noises disguised as words and I usually did not understand her.
With her, came an elderly Japanese man surgically attached to his Sony digi-cam. This one spoke neither English nor Spanish.
With him, came another Japanese young guy who now lives in London. He could speak English but was rather shy and did not have much to say to me.
So, together, we formed ‘little Asia’ at the dining-room. As three of them chatted away in Japanese, nodded earnestly and took photographs, I ate up my lunch in silence. Next to me sat two Mexicans, conversing in Spanish. This was so funny. I looked like the Japanese but I could not understand a word. Yet, I could understand 80% of what the Mexicans were talking about and I very much wanted to join in their conversation. However, they were trying their best to ignore ‘little Asia’, especially Grandpa Sony who was filming his lunch for the third time.
We finally docked at Puerto Montt around 4pm. We bid farewells to those we got to know on the boat and everyone headed to the bus terminal to catch a bus out rightaway. I journeyed straight to Castro, a town in the middle of a nearby island, Chiloé. The rain pattered on…
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment