The remote and wondrous place where you feel like the only people on earth
We are in the waters of Patagonia when suddenly this massive, majestic wall of blue ice shards reveals itself. This, I think to myself, is bucket list cruising.
Think of it as breakfast on the rocks. We’re in Bernardo O’Higgins National Park in Chile, surrounded by floating ice and the looming El Brujo glacier, and happily supping on the rear deck of our cruise ship. It’s a cool summer morning in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, and, with the sun beaming from an enormous blue sky, it’s hard to imagine a more chilled breakfast location. Not that we’re actually supposed to be here.
The best laid plans can come awry when nature intervenes. Which is how we have found ourselves on this unscheduled stop five days after embarking on a cruise around the bottom of South America, from Santiago to Buenos Aires via a succession of bucket list locations: the Chilean fjords, Patagonia, Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands.
Given that this pristine territory is also largely remote, there have been warnings from the outset that access to some ports, where tenders are required, will be subject to the region’s precarious weather. What we do not expect, though, is a delay before we’ve even set sail, with rough seas preventing our initial departure from San Antonio, near Santiago, for nine hours.
To keep to our 14-day schedule, this means spending an extra day at sea before stopping at uninspiring Puerto Montt, as planned but 24 hours late, and then skipping our second stop, tiny Puerto Chacabuco. As compensation, our Dutch captain announces that we will instead visit the El Brujo glacier. But to arrive in time at this unexpected treat means speeding up, so we spend another day at sea, rather than gliding through the Chilean glaciers, while strong winds see the outside walking deck closed to passengers for three days.
Of course there is plenty to keep us occupied in the meantime: live music and nightly concerts, including standout performances by a pair of South American artists who together play a four-handed version of Tico-Tico no Fubá on the guitar, plus several swimming pools, table tennis and pickleball, a well-stocked library, and of course an endless supply of food.
Still, by the time we finally pull into the fjords, days into the cruise, and with just one humdrum stop under our belts, there is a whiff of cabin fever. And as we finally approach the El Brujo glacier, sailing through a sea strewn with ever bigger ice floes, expectations are high, given what we have forfeited en route. Judging by the collective intake of breath from the hordes gathering on deck this morning, and the silence that ensues, those expectations have been exceeded.
The glacier is majestic, a massive wall of blue ice shards seemingly pouring down to the sea on which we are floating in splendid isolation. There may be thousands of us on board, but this morning we are the only vessel around and for a luxurious hour, bar the local wildlife, we have the area to ourselves. Sure it’s freezing, and admiring the spectacular scenery outside for more than a moment means donning multiple layers on this midsummer’s day, but it’s hardly a hassle for the privilege of being here.
And that, from a faltering start, becomes the theme of this journey as we are conveyed between a succession of otherwise tricky-to-reach destinations. Yes, we could have flown south in three and a half hours from Santiago to charming Punta Arenas on the Strait of Magellan, with its dusty Belle Époque mansions and its fading history of international trading routes before the construction of the Panama Canal. But the sea journey, although considerably longer, also involves a sedate sail through the magnificent Chilean fjords.
From there, a bus might have ferried us across the Argentinian border to our next stop at Ushuaia, in stunning Patagonia, in 11 hours. But that would have meant missing an early morning glide along the extraordinary Glacier Alley, with its succession of icy wonders. And nothing can really match the opportunity of rounding Cape Horn just after dawn, and spying its rocky outcrops from your balcony.
The stops that follow are equally enticing, though more accessible. The frigid Falkland Islands, with their isolated coasts and rich recent history, have limited flights and may not be everyone’s idea of a beach holiday. But a day in port allows plenty of hours to see colonies of king penguins in the wild, plus a round or two of beers at the local pub. One day in Montevideo, similarly, is enough time for a morning walking tour of the Uruguay capital, before a long parrilla lunch at a local barbecue restaurant.
By the time we arrive at our final port, the quiet of the far south of this continent is hundreds of kilometres away. From Stanley to Montevideo, we have been eased back into city life over several days, and when we alight in bustling Buenos Aires we happily embrace its swarms of humanity and its general joie de vivre.
We find an old cafe, sit at a marble table, and are served by a gracious team of elderly waiters dressed in black suits and ties. And even over a glass of the finest malbec, with tourists swarming outside the cafe’s windows to catch a nearby tango show and cars speeding past incessantly, some of the stillness of the past two weeks, with its tableaux of snow-capped mountains and quiet stretches of water, prevails.
Checklist
Getting there: Qantas and Latam Airlines have regular flights between Sydney, Melbourne and Santiago.
Stay: Holland America’s cruise season in South America runs between November and March. Prices from $3130 per person.