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 large modern city, home to some eight million people.  While I had only a four-hour time change from Arizona to Chile, I needed to stay awake after the eight-hour overnight flight from Miami to Santiago, so explored the area near my hotel.  According to my Apple watch, I walked about 12,000 steps, meaning I was ready for a nice soak in the hotel bathtub and then an early bedtime.  (The worst part of cruising is the transit to and from the ship.  In my case, Oceania had booked my flights starting early one morning in Phoenix, changing planes in Minneapolis and then Miami, and arriving in Santiago early the next morning, a nearly 24-hour total transit time.)

The region around Santiago and San Antonio, and Valparaiso to the north, is very fertile.  Chile is a major producer of both table grapes and wine grapes, as well as many other fruits and vegetables.  I know that the blueberries and grapes we enjoy all winter in Arizona come from Chile.  On the two-hour bus ride to San Antonio, we passed many vineyards, and our guide pointed out an avocado tree farm on one hillside. 

Typical Chilean scenery: mountains, farmland, and the ocean

South of these population centers, there isn’t much except for gorgeous scenery and small towns.  Over the eight days we sailed along the coast of Chile, we stopped at just three ports:  Puerto Montt, Puerto Chacabuco, and Punta Arenas.  My shore excursions in the first two of these were nature hikes in the forests that cover the Andes Mountains in the Patagonian region.  

During the sea days we were treated to fantastic views of the majestic mountains and the many inlets making up the Chilean fjords.  Some people rate these as the most beautiful fjords on earth, but I’m not sure they are any more spectacular than those I have sailed along in Norway.

The region around Puerto Montt was settled primarily by Germans, invited by the Chilean government between 1850 and 1910 to farm these remote lands.  Approximately 30,000 made the arduous journey across the Atlantic and through the treacherous Magellan Strait to reach Chile.  Each man who survived the transit was given a cow and a few acres.  The abundant forests were either logged for houses or burned to clear the land for planting.  As a result, there are few surviving old trees.

The old trees; similar to cedar.

As was true across North and South America, these lands were occupied by native peoples who were not anxious to be moved out by European settlers.  In this part of Chile, the natives were the Mapuche.  While they put up a valiant resistance, they were ultimately overwhelmed by the immigrants.  

After our nature hike, we stopped at a private museum honoring the German settlers.  Among the articacts at the museum were a number of farm implements, such as the seed spreader shown in the photo on the left below, as well as travel trunks (like the one on the right below), and items of daily living.

Our tour guide told us that salmon farming is now the largest enterprise of this region netting about $150 million annually.  Unfortunately, the salmon have taken over, and other species of fish are disappearing.  The second largest economic driver in the region is farming with corn, potatoes, and cattle being the most predominant products.

The structures in the water are for salmon fishing

We made a brief stop in the village of Puerto Varas where we were able to view the Osorno Volcano in the distance across Lake Llanqui.  According to our ship’s on-board geography expert, this region was hit in 1960 by a 9.5 rated earthquake, the strongest ever recorded.  Puerto Varas and other towns were nearly completely destroyed, and the resulting tsunami waves reached as far as Hawaii, California, and Alaska.

Osorno Volcano as seen from Puerto Varas

In Puerto Chacabucco we walked through a portion of a 3,500-acre private reserve to view a beautiful waterfall.  According to our guide, a fire devastated this region, burning for twenty years in the early twentieth century.  The new-growth forest is home to a few old specimens that survived that fire.

On the left is one of the old-growth trees, in the middle the waterfall, and on the right the river fed by the falls.

After our hike, we stopped at a “quincho pavilion” for traditional Chilean drinks and appetizers.  A quincho is a building equipped for barbecuing and gathering to enjoy the meat prepared there.  The wooden structure we gathered in had picture windows looking out on a lake and the woods, and a central firepit where two whole sheep were roasting for another group.  We were served a beautiful purple drink called a calafate sour.  Its main ingredient is calafate gin which is distilled from the native calafate berry found only in Patagonia. 

The photo on the right is of the lake.  The top left photo is of a calafate sour and bottom left is the barbeque.

These port visits were followed by several sea days spent cruising the Chilean fjords and viewing some of the regions 19 glaciers, and snow-covered mountain peaks some of which reach over 13,000 feet.

Fjords, mountains, and glaciers.

This region is home to several species of penguins.  The most common one is the Magellanic Penguin, which breeds along the Patagonian coast in Chile, Argentina, and the Falkland Islands. Their nests are built under bushes or in burrows.  Breeding takes place in September and the chicks are launched in February or March.  As we passed by a colony, I was able to get some decent photos with my camera's powerful zoom.  The large photo below is of the colony, and the one on the left shows some of the nests burrowed into the side of the hill.

Magellanic Penguin Colony

Our final Chilean port was Punta Arenas which overlooks the Strait of Magellan and is the jumping off place for many Antarctica explorations.  The city was an important haven for ships sailing to the western United States during the Gold Rush of the 1800s.  Today, Punta Arenas is home to about 100,000 people.  I took a walking tour of the city.  Our guide took us to a cemetery where most of the region’s important families are interned in mausoleums.  She pointed out mausoleums of Spanish, Italian, French, Croatian, and Greek families.  She said that according to Chile’s 1930 constitution, all citizens had to be Catholic.  As an example, one marker indicated that the woman was born Jewish but died Catholic. 

The cemetery in Puenta Areanas

We toured a regional museum with exhibits showing the many animals native to this area, such as a large hare and a small deer that were about the same size, armadillos, condors, and the massive albatros.  There was also an exhibit showing the ways the native Selk’nam people lived.  These people wore no clothes but used seal oil to coat their bodies as protection from the cold.  Of course, when the Catholic missionaries arrived to convert the natives, they insisted that the people cover themselves, so they started using animal skins for clothing.  This region was originally called the “Land of Smoke” and later “Land of Fire” thanks to the plumbs of smoke early European explorers saw from the fires of the natives.

After walking around the central square, a bus picked us up and took us to a high point where we could take photographs of the town below.  At a café we were served Pisco Sours and rhubarb cake.  Pisco is a brandy made from the grapes of the region. The Pisco sour made my mouth pucker with the first sip, but went down more easily after that initial shock.  And the rhubarb cake was delicious.

Leaving Punta Arenas, we sailed on through the Beagle Channel (named for Charles Darwin’s ship) and by Cape Horn before reaching the southernmost Argentinian town of Ushuaia.  Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile.  The waters around the cape are particularly hazardous thanks to strong winds, high waves, and strong currents.  We experienced the winds and waves, but made it safely through the treacherous waters.  As we sailed by Cape Horn, our captain slowed down to allow us to take photos of the military outpost which is occupied by an officer and his family.  The assignment lasts for a year.

The Cape Horn outpost and a map of the region.  The red line is the border between Chile and Argentina.

And on we sail.  Argentina and the Falkland Islands are up next.  Here are a few miscellaneous photos that didn't fit elsewhere in this blog.

Right:  a sunset over the ocean. Bottom left: children playing on the beach.  Top left: an old shipwreck.