Leaving El Calafate in the morning, we flew to Buenos Aires. Another day and another flight later we were in Santiago. Chile’s capital and largest city. 7 m people in a modern, bustling city nestled in a valley surrounded by snow capped mountains. Here we hired a small apartment for a few days. We like to do this occasionally. Slow down. Cook our own food. Catch up the blog and generally just potter around at our own pace. The apartment is built just for this sort of Airbnb use. We have encountered quite a few of these. It is too small to live in for any length of time. No storage. Of course, this is not much of a problem, if all your possessions fit into a single suitcase weighing less than 23 kg. It is reasonably equipped. A hob and oven for cooking the food we have been missing. A washing machine. There is a limit to how far you can go just rinsing clothes out in the sink.
After a few pleasant if rather unexciting days we packed our bags again and got a taxi to the coast at Valparaíso. Time for another trip on a ship. We were going to join the Seabourne Pursuit for a voyage that will take us across the Pacific and back to Australia. On the way we will be visiting a few remote islands.
First job was to actually get on the ship. This can sometimes involve an awful lot of queuing and filling in of forms. Fortunately, Seabourne appeared to be well organised and in less than half an hour we got to our cabin. They prefer the term suite rather than cabin. Maybe a cabin sounds too basic or something. Anyhow, our suite is lovely. Well equipped bathroom, good sized bed, nice balcony and a bottle of champagne waiting for us.
The ship sailed late afternoon. Before then we spent a few hours hanging around on deck and watching life in the port of Valparaíso. Some sea lions popped up onto a pontoon close to the ship. South American male sea lions are big boys. 350 kg of blubbery animal. Nobody was going to argue with them, so the tourist boats just worked around them instead. Let sleeping sea lions lie. A few cormorants were making good use of an upturned boat. Some turkey vultures floated above us and an Inca tern watched us from a repurposed tyre. We sailed on time, just before dinner. Next stop the Juan Fernández Islands and tales of Robinson Crusoe.
