Cruising the Chilean Coast and Fjords
Chile is a long, narrow country on the Pacific coast of South America, bordered on the north by Peru and on the east by Bolivia and Argentina. The Andes Mountains extend 8,000 kilometers (nearly 5,000 miles) through South America from Columbia and disappear into the Magellan Strait, where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans meet. The mountains form a natural border between Chile and Argentina. I sailed approximately 3,000 nautical miles (3,450 land or statute miles) from San Antonio, Chile, a port city near Santiago, to Punta Arenas and around Cape Horn on the Oceania Marina in March, 2025. I flew into Santiago and spent one day there before boarding the ship. Since the Southern Hemisphere seasons are the reverse of those in the Northern Hemisphere, March is the end of summer and the beginning of fall. In fact, the day we boarded the ship, March 6, our guide on the transit bus told us that it was the first day of school across Chile. Santiago is a l...
