The Vagabond Adventure Daily Journal
Where Are We Now?
Good to see you! Hope you’re enjoying the journey!
This journal provides you snapshots of our journey as we work our way around the world, never traveling by jet. It’s a chance to get a close-up view of the planet as we explore it the way people did 120 years ago.
Day 511 - Tierra del Fuego, Chile
The Ventus churns its way to the bottom of South America through semi-rough seas. As the sun emerges over the horizon, the channel’s waters look like they’ve caught fire. I think of Homer’s descriptions of sunrise in the ODYSSEY - “the rosy-fingered dawn” and “the wine-dark sea,” except that rather than sailing the Aegean Sea we are at the edge of the Drake Passage and I am looking at a place where all of the land we call South America disappears. Excepting Antarctica there is no land on earth farther south.
Day 510 - Tierra del Fuego, Chile
Cloudy, misty, the ship is rocking, temperature unknown. We awaken to mist and beyond the waves a single light house on a rockbound shore all white with a single red stripe around its belly. Mountains everywhere, one after another each marching higher white and thick with ice. We are looking at the great ice fields of lower Patagonia.
Day 509 - Tierra del Fuego, Chile
We assemble on the Zodiac deck and jump in making certain to clean our shoes in an antibacterial solution that protects us from contaminating the fragile islands we’ll be visiting. We are headed to Ainsworth Bay. The land is wild, some trees stripped bare of foliage or permanently bent by the wind. The mountains remind me of views Cyn and I had seen on Navimag and in Puerto Montt: sharp and green up to their caps of snow. But here, we are surrounded by water, the islands are nothing more than peaks that have managed not to be submerged. The summits and valleys and sea, the clouds in the sky — all of it makes one stunning panorama in the brilliant sunlight. All seems peaceful in the land where there is no God or law, but I am told this can change at any moment.
Day 508 - Punta Arenas, Chile
The ship provided several daily excursions deep into places so close to Charles Darwin’s heart when he sailed the Beagle and began to work out his insights into evolution. We boarded quickly, settled into our berth and at 8 PM sharp the Ventus pulled out of Punta Arenas harbor. We were, after all of these months, no longer connected to the landmass known as South America. The next morning we would be standing on the enormous island of Tierra del Fuego – the Land of Fire. I watched as we departed. The sky was caped beneath a thin blue curtain, but at the horizon it was clear and delivered a fine sunset, the color of peach. The sea was calm. Dinner was served.
Day 506 - Torres del Paine, Chile
Televisions are rare in Patagonia. You may find one in a bar or restaurante, but almost never in hosterias. It had probably been six weeks since we watched a TV. In my view this was a blessing. But at Lago Grey we checked the news anyhow, most of it bad, as news always is. That is why it is called news after all. Conflict — read drama — gets our attention and attention means ratings. At Lago Grey my old alma mater CNN informed us of a mass shooting, this one at Michigan State (when would this madness end?) while a massive storm was battering New England. The Kansas City Chiefs had beaten the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl (since beginning our odyssey we had missed two World Series, two Super Bowls, and one World Cup); and a Chinese balloon had been shot out of the sky creating concerns that either China or aliens might be preparing to attack. If the aliens were coming, Cyn and I guessed a Chinese invasion was moot.
Day 505 - Torres del Paine, Chile
The base of the Paine Mountains live cheek by jowl with Grey Glacier, and the great spiked mountains brood above the lake and the glacier that spills from their left like a beckoning blue hand. This close to the mountains you find yourself stopping again and again to look at the spectacle, the mountain’s razor sharp peaks thrusting into the sky as if straining to perforate it.
Day 504 - Torres del Paine, Chile
The great Blue Towers of Patagonia generate massive clouds which the wind pulls slowly away in resolute and ragged sheets. The mist and clouds are so big that it can feel as though the mountains and not the clouds are moving across the sky. The peaks and glaciers, lakes and rivers create so much weather it turns them into a massive shell game, often leaving them cloud enshrouded, like Kilimanjaro or Mount Fuji or the Matterhorn. But this morning the weather is perfect.
Day 503 - Torres del Paine, Chile
We awoke to gaze at the great towers outside our Hosteria Lago window. I found it difficult to tear my eyes away from their dramatic crags and so simply goggled. The evening before, we had returned from our horseback ride to settle into our new digs. Avis had taken our broken Symbol away and replaced it with an identical Symbol that had even more mileage on it than the previous version. We could only hope it would take more battering. We checked the connections, which were tight, and we were provided a pair of pliers just in case the roads rattled the battery loose again.
Day 502 - Torres del Paine, Chile
The road south to Torres del Paine looks smooth and broad as the German Autobahn … at first. It was like this when we passed the Mylodon Cave we had visited with Luciano, and the cliffs we hiked above Lake Sophia, and continues as you ride fluidly toward encroaching mountains to the left and in front of you. The views are so stunning they can make you wreck the car.
Day 502 - Cerro Castillo, Chile
We ate our breakfast of cornflakes, fruit, deli-sliced ham and provolone cheese and prepared to take our rattle-trap Renault Symbol along the southern route to Torres del Paine Nacional Parque. I had wandered Cerró Castillo the evening before, but Cyn had not yet visited the village and was curious. So before leaving, we braved the chill winds to view the tiny church, utterly empty streets and white corrugated homes with their red tin roofs. The village exists mainly as a border crossing to Argentina that will take drivers to the high mountains and Glaciar Perito Moreno near Calafate, Argentina. Chile's leaders apparently see great things for Cerró Castillo because, though it is small, two new highways merge here and two other large roundabouts have been created with a beautiful sculpture of a horse prominently displayed where the roads meet.
Day 501 - Cerro Castillo, Chile
Following our first night in Cerró Castillo, we explored which route we would take to Torres del Paine, leaving our friends the dog and sheep behind. This road sign was the first indicator that we were near guanaco, the llama like animals that roam the pampas all through this part of Patagonia. Then, when the road turned to gravel, we saw the animals themselves, far more fleet and elegant than the Moroccan camels we had ridden in the Sahara the previous year. Take a look at the video. It shows you how beautifully they move.
Day 500 - Cerro Castillo, Chile
A few days after Puerto Natales, we rolled our lilliputian rental car down Chilean Highway 9, a ribbon of smooth cement that took us to the Riverline Lodge in Cerró Castillo, half the way to famous Torres Del Paine National Park. Cerró Castillo isn’t much more than a wide spot in the road. Outside of a few pine-framed houses riveted over corrugated iron, there is one church, a single large motel that looks quite new, many sheep and a bar restaurant that promises in English “Fresh Eggs.” The Riverline itself stands alone on the pampas and has two lazy dogs and six cozy rooms clean as a hen’s teeth.
Day 498 - Puerto Natales, Chile
On our second full day in Puerto Natales, our friend and guide Luciano took us to a promontory above Laguna Sofia, a favorite place for campers. I had met Luciano on the Hurtigruten voyage (the Roald Amundsen) that had taken me through the Panama Canal. Luciano had been working as the ship's historian, and I learned he grew up in Puerto Natales. He arranged Navimag and promised to take care of us once we made it to port because he too would be off the ship by that time.
Day 497 - Puerto Natales, Chile
The Tehuelche people who roamed the land known as Puerto Natales long before such a name existed are gone now, but new inhabitants walk the town: Nordic, Canadian, German or Norte Americanos here for the hiking and wild mountains and prairies. They all seemed charged with testosterone; heavy beards, sunburned faces, thick hair wrapped up in top knots that you give the vague feeling of samurai. The wind is ever-changing companion and seldom quiet. Gusts 40 to 50 mph whip out of nowhere. It can be sunny and 66° one minute and the next you’re fighting to stay upright. It’s what happens when surrounded by ocean channels, frigid lakes, and soaring, glacier-scrounged glaciers all around.
Days 496 Navimag to Puerto Natales - Day 5
The wind abated and the ESPERANZA (meaning HOPE) docked at last. Sadly we and our fellow Patagonian sailors headed in separate directions: Jorina, the German hiker and orthopedic surgeon; best-selling author Mary Neal and her husband Bill, outrageously advanced kayakers and both doctors, too. Mary had become famous because, while kayaking in Patagonia, she had been submerged under water for 30 minutes, and recovered! She wrote two books about the experience. We said goodbye to Philippe and Andrea and their sunshiney toddler Sol; 83 year old Don from Pensacola and the Fedele family who were exploring South America and teaching their pre-adolescent children about the world; Jorge and Pancho of the Chilean Navy now about to begin captaining ships like Navigmag; Jerome and Radak from Lyon; Megan and many others. Everyone of them fine and fascinating people.
Day 495 Navimag to Puerto Natales - Day 4
We sailed into the final channel that takes ships to Puerto Natales. We planned to debark at 3 PM, but from out on the mountains sustained winds of 40 miles an hour stopped the ship dead in its watery tracks. I stood at the bow and the gusts took my breath away, rocking me right and left. There was no rain, only the invisible and unrelenting hand of the wind. Great gray clouds swirled around the bay between bright patches a blue light.
We were no more than 2 miles from shore, but it may as well have been hundred miles. I heard the thunderous clank of the anchor chain as it crashed into the sea. The winds were not going to abate for hours and so the rest of the day and night we would remain, the gargantuan metal anchor holding the ship tight as it twisted south and north like a toy.
Day 494 Navimag to Puerto Natales - Day 3
More about the fascinating denizens of Navimag’s Esperanza. They come from all walks. They are truckers moving cargo; couples – younger and older, pre-marriage or empty-nesters; single wanderers, even a few toddlers; travelers from Switzerland, Chile, Germany, Argentina, Canada, the US, France and the Netherlands. They have traveled on vacation, or on week and months long excursions, some with plenty of money, others pinching their pesos. But everyone enjoys the astonishing world we all are witnessing, and as the hours pass strangers become friends.
Day 493 Navimag to Puerto Natales - Day 2
Day two on the Esperanza - Windy, rougher seas as we sail west back into the Pacific away from the channels of the archipelago. Saw some whale spout and two sweeping albatrosses, but they were too far away to capture with the camera. We passed through The Gulf of Corcovado and toward the Darwin Channel, named for Charles and among the places he explored as he developed his concepts about evolution.
Day 492 Navimag to Puerto Natales - Day 1
Day # 1-Navimag. We didn't have much time in Puerto Montt after returning to Argentina to find Butch Cassidy's ranch in Argentina. One night's sleep and the next morning our taxi is winding us along the city’s docks in search of our ferry - Navimag’s Esperanza which would steer us and 244 others for four days and 1200 miles through some of the remotest fjords and channels in South America. Next stop would be Puerto Natales, the gateway to southern Patagonia.
Day 488 - 489 - The Hunt for Butch Cassidy
On our drive to find Butch Cassidy’s ranch we headed South. The Pre-cordillera mountains at sunset were fierce and fiery. The sky felt like passion and love. We had finally made it to the charming tourist town of Bariloche. It sits along the glacial, alpine lake Nahuel Huapi. It is immense and absolutely pristine. It reminds me of Tahoe but prettier, deeper and bigger. We picked up our car to begin the search for the ranch of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and Etta Place in Cholila, 3.5 hours south. They bought the property with the money they made robbing banks in Montana and Utah. That was when The Union Pacific hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to bring them in dead or alive. The bounty was over $10,000 for the two bank robbers.