South American Adventure: Ushuaia and Chile

The port town of Ushuaia was our first landfall after Antarctica. Tierra del Fuego park is a big attraction about seven miles out of town. We were off the ship early and joined with Henry and Cora to share a taxi out to the park. We had a nice tour and didn't have big crowds at the view points.

The park had mountains, lakes, and rivers.

Our taxi driver with Cora and Henry. Based on his driving Henry was convinced he didn't see well.

Inside Tierra del Fuego

A stroll around town and a visit to the Prison Museum finished our on shore excursion.

The Maritime and Prison museum

Joanne having a heart to heart talk with a prisoner.

A view down the hill toward the port.

Punta Arenas was our next port. We had booked the excursion to the penguin preserve on Isla Magdalena. It was a two hour ferry ride each way. We had an hour on island where we walked a path up to the light house and back. The penguins nested in burrows in the ground on both sides of the path. It was fun watching them scurry around. Some were gathering dried seaweed for their nests.

It was really windy on the island. You can see how the wind is puffing up our jackets.

There are approximately 60,000 pairs of penguins nesting on the island.

A couple out for a stroll.

Running some seaweed to the nest.

The next few cruising days resemble the inside passage to Alaska. We see waterfalls as we observe mountains on both sides. Our destination on Feb 13th is the Amalia glacier via the Sarmiento Canal.

A wrecked US ship ~1983

A beautiful day with calm waters as we cruise to the Amalia glacier

The Amalia glacier flowing around on old volcanic dome

A close-up of the glacier meeting the water. We saw lots of bergy bits, but no major calving.

The best evidence we have of the fast little dolfins playing around the ship.

We spent Valentines day cruising the Chilean fjords. Saturday, Feb 15th, we arrived at Puerto Chacabuco , Chile. It is a small town of either 1000 or 5000 depending on who you ask. We joined a van with 8 people to tour the countryside. We traveled a valley with mountains on each side.