We boarded the Navimag Ferry in Puerto Natales at midnight on Monday. We were warned that the ferry was not bound to any rigorous schedule but instead to the weather conditions along the route. Given that the ferry is sometimes a day late or even canceled, we were lucky to be delayed only 3 hours.
Lonely Planet writes that in taking the ferry, “… you can have the same experience as stowing away on a freighter – packed with 18-wheelers, drunken truck drivers and cattle.” And that is exactly true! The ferry is a working ferry. The cattle aroma grew pungent as each day passed. The bartender cut off one of the truck drivers the other night as he stumbled around the bar. Some time ago, they must have figured out that (some) tourists would pay quite a bit of money to travel through these environs, no matter the accommodations. As the Lonely Planet writes, “The Navimag is a quirky travel experience.” Does it then follow that we are “quirky travelers”?
When planning our trip, we decided to take the ferry northbound and fly south to catch it. We disembarked in Puerto Montt after 3 days and 4 nights spent traveling through the Chilean fjords. Chile itself is sparsely populated, but this area is very remote. Most of the hundreds of islets and islands we traveled through were not inhabited except for a few tiny fishing hamlets and the salmon fishermen who live in boats next to their salmon pens. Chile is currently the second-largest salmon exporter. Recent environmental pressure and a virus are forcing the government to tighten control of the industry.
Along the way, we passed in front of the Glacier Skua and through channels so narrow we could almost reach out and touch the land. As we traveled north, the landscape changed from arid granite mountain tops to lushly covered hills. Southern dolphins played alongside the ferry, and we saw minke whales off in the distance. Seals and sea birds were plentiful. It is not out of the question that we might see blue whales near Chiloe and the Golfo de Corcovado, but we never did. A blue whale nursery was discovered in 2003. Apparently, over 100 blues come here to feed each year.
We opted to splurge a little for privacy and an en-suite bath, so we didn’t have to share our cabin with others and didn’t need to walk down the hallway in the middle of the night. Call us spoiled, but it would have been tedious not only to sleep with two strangers in the tiny cabin but also to continuously negotiate moving around the very tight space. There were two sets of bunk beds separated on either side of the cabin, with only room enough for one person to stand between the bunks at a time. If one needed to get by, the others had to step back out towards the door or into the bathroom. You couldn’t even sit up in any of the beds because the ceiling was too low. Hoisting oneself up to the top bunk was not a pretty sight. There is some grunting involved. While there was no hot water in the shower, it wasn’t cold either.
There was a common dining room where we ate our meals. There was no menu. Instead, we ate what was served. The food was surprisingly good—baked chicken, white fish, lamb, pork roast, and spaghetti bolognese (our all-time travel staple). The Nescafé did get old, however. There was a bar lounge upstairs where we hung out for most of the day when not out on the decks.
The weather was beautiful, mostly. We had a rainy and extremely windy day, listing the ferry to one side and requiring the Captain to alter his course and navigate through the less direct, but more protected channels. Walking on the deck was challenging. A few food trays hit the floor.
In addition to the glorious scenery and the complete disconnect from the world, it was enjoyable conversing with the other passengers. The ferry trip was one of those “bonding” travel experiences. The 200 or so passengers were from all over the world. Many were young people traveling in South America for extended periods. Some were families. We met a couple who were taking their four children around the world for a year. A Chilean couple was traveling with their six children. He worked for a travel company in Puerto Varas, so he has been quite helpful with planning the next part of our trip. Others were older travelers like us who were willing to put up with some discomfort to see this part of the world. There was a history professor from Rutgers writing a book, and a German couple living in London who had recently been laid off from their jobs in the financial sector. A Dutch Ph.D in immunology was taking a six-month hiatus before returning to Amsterdam and her research.
Our favorites, though, were a New Zealand husband and wife traveling with his mother and their Chilean friends. The couple was bringing their innovative dairy farming practices to Chile. Alan was quite good company with a Kiwi sense of humor and a killer instinct at dice. His mother was a riot, although she talked my ear off. One morning, she told me the entire plot of the romance novel she is reading. I don’t read romance novels in the first place, so having one retold to me was a tad tedious, but I was between books and in the middle of nowhere. After two days, I was finally beginning to understand their accents.
The wind on the last night determined when we disembarked. After three days, we were eager to leave the stench of the cattle packed on the lower decks behind. From Puerto Montt, we traveled to Chiloé, an island shrouded in fog and mist, steeped in myth.
