At least this time I kind of have an excuse. We took a trip! It was kind of a combination of good and not so good. But it was certainly interesting. It was another Viking cruise; this time around southern South America.
We took a flight from Las Vegas to Houston and then to Santiago, Chile. We got on the plane just before 2 pm local time and it was 08:30 the next day when we landed. Usually Viking does ok with the airport transition, this time is was AFU! We got to stand in this huge line of passengers then wander around the parking lot in groups of 30 or so to find a bus to take us to the ship. That was a 2+ hour bus ride to the port of Valparaizo. All of that was ok but tiring, of course. The port in Valparaizo isn't small by any stretch so when you got off the bus at the port entrance you got to get on another bus to take you over to the ship. What a deal. Anyway, we finally made it on and our luggage arrived only a couple hours behind us.
Viking ocean ships are all the same so even though we'd never been on the Viking Jupiter, it was exactly like the Viking Sea or any other. The expedition ships are probably different and, of course, the river ships are very different. Anyway, we wandered around, got comfortable and had a nice night.
The next day we had signed up for a visit to Santiago. At the time we signed up we either didn't realize it was a 2 hour bus ride there and 2 hours back or we didn't realize how dumb we were being. There are mainly small towns and agriculture between Valparaizo and Santiago; our guide talked about all the grapes that are grown along the route. That's when he wasn't talking about how the upper classes take total advantage of the poor. Anyway, let me just say that it takes a lot to make up for 4+ hours on a bus and the Santiago tour didn't provide it! I don't even have a photo to share that is worth the pixels.
Of course having spent the whole day busing around we didn't see much of Valparaizo. This would be the view from our balcony.
I think it is really interesting that there are a few high rise buildings down near the water then it turns instantly into much smaller buildings. Valparaizo is one of several cities around this part of the coast. We missed out on them as well!
The map up above shows the route of the ship going out into the Pacific Ocean and, yep, it was fairly rough going. Especially where you have a whole shipload of people who just got on board. The crew must get a few laughs at the clumsy old folks who don't have their sea legs yet. But it didn't last long, only about a day. Then we were sliding into Puerto Montt. There wasn't much in the town (well, no tours anyway) so we went up to Puerto Varas where we were supposed to check out the lake and and the volcano on the other side of it. Happily this bus trip was only 12 miles so it didn't take long at all. We got to see the lake but the volcano was kind of a no-show. It was just cloud covered. The town was kind of cute but small and filled with tourists. Our guide on this trip was an older lady who thought things were going pretty well in Chile so that was a nice counterpoint to the previous guide.
We had a good helping of more rough seas the next day but then somehow the ship found calm water heading for the fjords. The weather started to get a bit gray and moist though and that would follow us the rest of the journey through Chile. The fjords are amazing though!
We have lots of photos of this sort of world. No tours but amazing views. That photo shows the snow/ice on the mountain tops but there were plenty of places where it was right down to the edge of the fjord.
The star of the show is supposed to be Amalia Glacier. And what you could see of it was pretty impressive.
The ship has a little putt-putt golf area on the top deck and this photo shows people lining the fore area to check out the glacier. The ship just stayed there for maybe half an hour so people could get some photos. Then we saw this little boat out there next to us. It was from the ship! The guys on the little boat were trying to get some ice that had broken off the glacier so passengers could see it. Later it was on display in a public room.
Of course the lighting was a little on the dramatic side but I do believe that it was actual glacier ice that we were admiring.
The next day we were headed for Punta Arenas, Chile. It is a fairly large city for being so far south! Here we managed a guide who was an idiot. He started out walking us around the port so we could admire the bird life.
Yep, the birds like it here. And, of course they have some statuary to honor those folks who founded the area.
Then the stupidity started. First he kept getting his centuries wrong; like the city was founded in 1848 and he said 1948. Then he started crossing streets against the traffic lights! Jeez! He started us on a march at top speed up a hill so we could see the entire city. Nah! My wife especially wasn't feeling like it so we turned around and found our way back to the ship.
I'm going to stop for today. There is plenty more of our trip. Thanks for stopping by and keep washing those hands!
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