The Vagabond Adventure Daily Journal
Where Are We Now?
Good to see you! Hope you’re enjoying the journey!
This journal provides you snapshots of our journey as we work our way around the world, never traveling by jet. It’s a chance to get a close-up view of the planet as we explore it the way people did 120 years ago.
Days 496 Navimag to Puerto Natales - Day 5
The wind abated and the ESPERANZA (meaning HOPE) docked at last. Sadly we and our fellow Patagonian sailors headed in separate directions: Jorina, the German hiker and orthopedic surgeon; best-selling author Mary Neal and her husband Bill, outrageously advanced kayakers and both doctors, too. Mary had become famous because, while kayaking in Patagonia, she had been submerged under water for 30 minutes, and recovered! She wrote two books about the experience. We said goodbye to Philippe and Andrea and their sunshiney toddler Sol; 83 year old Don from Pensacola and the Fedele family who were exploring South America and teaching their pre-adolescent children about the world; Jorge and Pancho of the Chilean Navy now about to begin captaining ships like Navigmag; Jerome and Radak from Lyon; Megan and many others. Everyone of them fine and fascinating people.
Day 495 Navimag to Puerto Natales - Day 4
We sailed into the final channel that takes ships to Puerto Natales. We planned to debark at 3 PM, but from out on the mountains sustained winds of 40 miles an hour stopped the ship dead in its watery tracks. I stood at the bow and the gusts took my breath away, rocking me right and left. There was no rain, only the invisible and unrelenting hand of the wind. Great gray clouds swirled around the bay between bright patches a blue light.
We were no more than 2 miles from shore, but it may as well have been hundred miles. I heard the thunderous clank of the anchor chain as it crashed into the sea. The winds were not going to abate for hours and so the rest of the day and night we would remain, the gargantuan metal anchor holding the ship tight as it twisted south and north like a toy.
Day 494 Navimag to Puerto Natales - Day 3
More about the fascinating denizens of Navimag’s Esperanza. They come from all walks. They are truckers moving cargo; couples – younger and older, pre-marriage or empty-nesters; single wanderers, even a few toddlers; travelers from Switzerland, Chile, Germany, Argentina, Canada, the US, France and the Netherlands. They have traveled on vacation, or on week and months long excursions, some with plenty of money, others pinching their pesos. But everyone enjoys the astonishing world we all are witnessing, and as the hours pass strangers become friends.
Day 493 Navimag to Puerto Natales - Day 2
Day two on the Esperanza - Windy, rougher seas as we sail west back into the Pacific away from the channels of the archipelago. Saw some whale spout and two sweeping albatrosses, but they were too far away to capture with the camera. We passed through The Gulf of Corcovado and toward the Darwin Channel, named for Charles and among the places he explored as he developed his concepts about evolution.
Day 492 Navimag to Puerto Natales - Day 1
Day # 1-Navimag. We didn't have much time in Puerto Montt after returning to Argentina to find Butch Cassidy's ranch in Argentina. One night's sleep and the next morning our taxi is winding us along the city’s docks in search of our ferry - Navimag’s Esperanza which would steer us and 244 others for four days and 1200 miles through some of the remotest fjords and channels in South America. Next stop would be Puerto Natales, the gateway to southern Patagonia.
Day 491 - Bariloche, Argentina
After finding Butch we settled down to a great dinner at the Hosteria La Pilarica in Cholila and spent some time with Vive and Bill, the delightful owners. Bill’s grandfather ran one of the finest mule teams in Argentina where he regularly drove tons of wool to market in Port Madyn. 144 mules in the train. The next day we drove north along the Corderillo and grabbed a bite in Bariloche before catching our bus at the crammed Bariloche bus station to make our way back to Puerto Montt. Long day but the views … wow. The lake in Bariloche is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. At the border the dogs flagged us for drugs. False alarm but the police had our interest for awhile!! We finally arrived at 11 pm.
Day 488 - 489 - The Hunt for Butch Cassidy
On our drive to find Butch Cassidy’s ranch we headed South. The Pre-cordillera mountains at sunset were fierce and fiery. The sky felt like passion and love. We had finally made it to the charming tourist town of Bariloche. It sits along the glacial, alpine lake Nahuel Huapi. It is immense and absolutely pristine. It reminds me of Tahoe but prettier, deeper and bigger. We picked up our car to begin the search for the ranch of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and Etta Place in Cholila, 3.5 hours south. They bought the property with the money they made robbing banks in Montana and Utah. That was when The Union Pacific hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to bring them in dead or alive. The bounty was over $10,000 for the two bank robbers.
Day 486 - 488 Puerto Montt, Chile
Even in Puerto Montt we continued to work out Butch Cassidy issues, but we had a little more time to explore. You can see Puerto Montt’s logging roots in the city which is a mash-up of old and new, modern and dilapidated. The region is beautiful with an immense bay. We walked Puerto Montt Centro and sauntered along the port. In the 1880s, Chile encouraged German settlers to come to the region to help push the Mapuche out. You can see Germanic influences in its older buildings and places like the Club Alamein (Germain Club). We stopped for a bite to eat. The food was all local and very good, but didn’t find a single Weiner schnitzel!
On Thursday we did laundry, unloaded our rental car and explored Puerto Montt a bit more. The people of Chile are wonderful with their children. We have never seen anyone slap or yell at their kids. They are warm, unfailingly calm and patient. Downtown the city is a mashup of old and new. Many parts of the city are battered. Other parts are pristine and modern. Outside beyond the suburbs folks still farm and ranch and work like they did 100 years ago like this elderly woman we saw working on her small ranch.
On Friday morning the 27th, we headed to the location we had been given to board our bus to Bariloche, Argentina except it wasn’t there! Mayhem as we struggle to locate the right location. We found the right terminal and bus one minute before it left! Then the bus took us north and east into the Andes and the Argentine border. We rose through lush pine and then suddenly miles of skeletal forests of dead trees that I am guessing were destroyed when the Cordón Caulle erupted June 4, 2011. It was one of the largest in the 21st Century and affected all of South America. The area here is highly volcanic and still active.
Day 485 - Temuco, Chile
Trees were the thing as we drove 250 miles from Concepcion to Temuco. We were a long way now from the dust and rock of Peru and northern Chile. We were entering Patagonia and the land of the Mapuche, fierce native warriors that controlled this part of the world for centuries and refused to be subjugated by the Spanish or Chilean government for over 300 years. Finally in the 1880s, decimated by famine and disease, they succumbed. By some account 90% of the population was wiped out. The population has since rebounded but human rights are still an issue. Logging is the big industry here. The land is green and rich and pine, birch, willow and eucalyptus trees are everywhere, and so are the trucks that haul them. Pine is the “crop” of choice but the Mapuche want pine trees to be replaced by a more diverse ecosystem. They have traditionally been ranchers.