Category Archives: attractions

58 hours on a ferry, and then a town without roads

We passed through many fjords on the ferry

Our long string of rest days is finally over! We are back riding – much to everyone’s relief. We will get to the riding days later. First we have to share what it was like to spend 58 hours on the ferry from Puerto Natales to Caleta Tortel. This ferry is run by the Chilean government to keep the villages of Puerto Eden and Caleta Tortel supplied, and to make it possible for cars to connect from the Carretera Austral to the southernmost provinces of the country. All of the road routes require crossing into Argentina.

The boat is not fancy – it’s not a cruise ship – it is very much a long-haul ferry. There is a car deck that fits about 30 cars (31 on our trip), and on one side of the boat there is space for passengers. The lower deck has a seating area for 30 people along with a 30-person lounge that doubles as the dining hall. The tickets include all meals, which are utilitarian but perfectly fine. The upper deck has seating for the remaining 110 passengers. Our seats were in the quieter, lower deck. I can very much recommend choosing this lower area if you ever plan to take this ferry. Not only was it more spacious and also quieter, we also got to eat first at every meal. Mealtimes were 9am, 1pm, and 7pm, but each set of 30-seats has a half hour. The highest numbered seats ate at 11am, 3pm, and 9pm!

The ferry was scheduled to depart on Wednesday, Feb 3 at 5am. However, all passengers were required to be on board the night before by 10pm. We happily got on the boat at 9 and found our assigned seats in the lower area of the boat. The seats are better than airplane seats – they reclined pretty far. Alice and Jason were next to the windows and their seats were nicely spaced. H and I were across the aisle, with less space. We basically had the people in front of us reclined into our laps! It was fine though, and in the end we slept ok.

The morning of departure I felt the engines turn on at 6am and thought… how nice, we are moving. At 8am I peeked out the window to see that we were still at the dock! Apparently 5 of the 8 bathrooms were not working, and the boat needed to wait for a maintenance crew from Punta Arenas. At 9 am the crew was done and the boat left the dock to cheers.

Then… at 10am… the boat turned around. It turns out the problem with the bathrooms was back and it was now worse. In fact, it wasn’t until 3pm that the bathrooms were cleared of what had been blocking them: yerba mate, diapers, and a pair of headphones. The boat’s actual departure was 10 hours late!

There was nothing to do on the boat but read, socialize, watch the scenery, play video games, or sleep. The kids thought it was in fact quite delightful to have absolutely no limits on screen time. They weren’t always thrilled with the food choices, but we had brought an immense amount of snacks. The route took us through the Chilean fjords. It was stunning and lovely, but still long. We were lucky and the water was very calm almost the entire journey. No dramamine was needed. The long ride was interrupted by two exciting events.

The first exciting thing to happen, about 34 hours in, was a stop at the tiny hamlet of Puerto Eden. This village is only accessible by boat and relies on this ferry for all supplies. We watched the villagers come get everything off the boat and we were allowed to disembark. We were restricted to a tiny little welcome area where locals were selling specialty foods, knitted hats, and other handicrafts. We bought lobster empanadas!

The second exciting thing was later that evening when we passed a shipwreck! The boat had been deliberately stranded there in 1968 when the captain tried to commit insurance fraud. Instead of sinking it was stranded. The crew were all rescued, the fraud was found out, and the boat has been there ever since. It has trees growing on it and birds nesting in it. It was an incredible sight!

We arrived at our destination, Caleta Tortel, the following morning. The tailwind and a couple shortcuts had cut our delay from 10 hours to 2! Best of all, we were met at the dock by some new friends. Jenny and Curtis read our blog eleven years ago and happened to be on cycle tour and actually in Caleta Tortel at the same time as us! It was such a delight to spend the morning with them, swapping tales and hearing about their adventures. I hope we can see them again either further down the road or back in the US when we are all resting between cycling trips.

The town of Caleta Tortel is unique. Boardwalks connect everything, with no cars allowed. Originally I assumed this was due to the steep terrain and the historical isolation. It was accessible only by ferry until 2003. Then Jason and I took a hike above town and found out for ourselves that the entire area is a bog! The ground was just completely saturated, even at the top of a nearby mountain.

We laughed at how narrow this “boardwalk” was, but then missed it when it was gone and our feet were sinking into the bog!

View from near the top of the sendero (trail)

We only spent one rest day in Caleta Tortel, but it was delightful. We walked the entire length of town as a family, accompanied by three friendly dogs (the dogs essentially serve as tourist guides). The girls named them ‘Blackfur’, ‘Patches’, and ‘Oreo’. We walked all the way down to the beach, where H threw sticks for Oreo.

Our intention was to spend two rest days… but as is our habit we left a day early. A cold snap with rain was coming and we had three days to reach the next town of Cochrane. You’ll have to wait for the next update to hear how the ride went!

Torres del Paine side trip

Last week we attempted to ride the ferry north to Caleta Tortel on standby and we did not make it on. In the end, this was not too disappointing, since we instead took a lovely 3-day trip up and through Torres del Paine National Park. It is hard to express how beautiful of a place it is. Not only were we happy to have gone, now it is on our list to come back to for a multi-day hike around the towers. Tonight we will be getting on the ferry with our original ticket reservation. It is hard to believe it will be most of another week until we are back on our bikes!

The Philtrons with the Torres del Paine in the background

When we didn’t get on the ferry last week, Daisy began to plan a multi-day trip to see the park by car (*gasp*, car, I know!). We reserved a campsite for two nights, park tickets for the Mylodon Cave and Torres del Paine, and a boat tour to Grey Glacier. It was both fun and very strange to be traveling by car instead of by bicycle. As we were bumping along the gravel park roads, speeding up the steep hills, and kicking up immense dust clouds, I was happy we weren’t cycling!

The Mylodon Cave Park was, as you might guess, a big cave where the remains of a mylodon were found. A mylodon is an extinct 2.5-m tall sloth-like creature. It was a pleasant stroll to the cave and then a brisk hike up to an overlook. We felt the view was grand, but we were just getting started.

While driving north towards the park we stopped at several overlooks to view the majestic mountains and pristine lakes. It was not lost on us that the very strong winds were not a problem in a car. Eventually we arrived at the park’s edge and saw the famous towers. It was a truly amazing sight. The rock formations rise 8,000 feet from the foreground. We soaked in the view of the towers from different angles throughout the 3-day trip.

West of the towers is Grey Lake, named for its color due to the glacier-fed silty water. Glacier Grey is at the end of the 17 km lake, and is viewed up close during a 3-hour boat tour. The water was calm and we saw all three faces of the glacier. We were told the height of the ice face is about 90 feet above water and up to 300 feet below the water. It is immense and the pictures don’t do it justice. I especially enjoyed when the boat pulled up next to an iceberg, and one of the workers got out a long harpoon to hack off a piece of ice to bring aboard the boat for photos and to cool down drinks.

The Grey Glacier is part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field

This was right before Jason was told to not touch the ice

The area is filled with lakes and rivers – water seems abundant. (Or else it is melting ice that is abundant!) We took advantage of the many, many viewpoints during our drive through the park. By the end, we were leaving A and H in the car for our quick strolls to beam in happiness at the views.

Back in Puerto Natales we had a day to repack and prepare for the ferry journey. We revisited a few of our favorite sites: a playground, a cafe, and the big grocery store.

Not spinning our wheels

Between Porvenir and Punta Arenas we’ve had a series of rest days where we have been waiting for a good weather window while getting a few chores done. We also had the pleasure of a penguin tour! After almost a week of not riding we are getting antsy. And by we I mean Daisy and Jason, not A and H. They seem perfectly happy to spend the day playing video games without a care in the world.

Examples of A + H free time over the past week

We spent four nights in Porvenir, which we found to be a charming small town. Everyone seems to pass right by on their way to points further south (or north) and at most spends a quick meal or a single night here. We enjoyed eating at a local restaurant for lunch and having sandwiches for dinner. We visited the town museum and learned about some of the local history – from the four main tribes of native folks (who were sadly all killed or died of disease), to a local gold rush in the 1880s.

On our way out of town we took a quick detour to the Laguna de Los Cisnes Natural Monument. Once there we saw fossilized stromatolites. These are mounds of crusty cyanobacteria that represent an ancient life form from early in Earth’s history, billions of years ago. They are distinct mounds made of layers of bacteria that produced oxygen. Many looked like misshapen doughnuts, and broken spots showed holes inside the ‘dough.’ It is an amazing piece of living history which is only found in a few places on Earth. However, all that amazing information and understanding came from the internet, as there was not a single informational sign or label at the lake – simply a wooden boardwalk.

Fossilized stromatolite mounds at Laguna de Los Cisnes

We felt a real sense of accomplishment on the ferry, as we left Tierra del Fuego and crossed the Strait of Magellan. We arrived in Punta Arenas almost exactly 11 years after our first visit, which was the beginning of our Philtrons Pedal North journey to Colombia. Last time we were here we took a bus ride to see penguins, but those penguins no longer visit that area. This time we took a boat tour to Isla Magdalena to see a larger colony of Magellanic Penguins. We were lucky that it was not a windy day and the water was calm. However, that didn’t stop first A and then H from vomiting during the 80 minute ride to the island. Luckily they felt better afterward and were ready to do the 1-hour walk on the island.

We walked past hundreds, or thousands, of penguins, and enjoyed seeing them walk, swim, sunbathe, and honk their heads off. I noticed that some of the chicks were quite plump by this point – and looked larger than their parents! Human visitors are required to remain 2 meters back from the penguins. The penguins had no fear or qualms about walking towards or between us visitors, resulting in us having to stop and move backwards to get out of the way and give them space. The penguin population on the island is estimated at 60,000 breeding pairs. There are also (way too) many Kelp Gulls on the island, which produced additional noise and, well, bird poop.

Walking through a town is always an adventure and Punta Arenas is no exception. Within a block from our small apartment we can walk past an abandoned lot/building, a small convenience store, a hostel, and a fancy house that looks like it could be from Boulder, CO. The Plaza de Armas has these amazing, large trees. They are the same kind that we’ve occasionally seen out in the countryside in a very wind-swept form. In this case they have grown up strong and wide with the wind protection afforded by the buildings. A bunch of the parks also have what we’ve been calling “gumdrop trees.” We got a good laugh at how some of them have bad hair-cuts.

We are excited to get back on the road heading north! I wonder how much of the route ahead will evoke memories from a decade ago.

Ushuaia: the end of the world

The city of Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world. It has captured the imaginations of explorers for decades, and we are no exceptions. I (Daisy) have been dreaming of this place for many years. To actually be here, preparing to embark on our next big cycling adventure, is a dream come true.

Total travel time to get here from our door was about 26 hours. Miraculously, every bag and every bike box arrived undamaged. We spent our first day wandering the town and putting the bicycles together. Ushuaia is cold, windy, wet and full of art.

The city is perched on the edge of the Beagle Channel, surrounded by mountains. It was so dreary we didn’t see them until the fourth day, but they are stunning!

We discovered that both girls love empanadas and most particularly they love “submarinos,” which is the local approach to hot chocolate. To make one you start with steaming hot milk, then melt in a big chunk of dark chocolate before drinking it all down!

I learned the hard way that to buy groceries with a credit card you must show your passport here. Alice and I headed to the store with just a credit card and a few US dollars. At check out I was shocked when they asked for my passport! I tried to pay with the dollars, but they were all too ragged to be accepted. After a long back and forth, I learned that a *photo* of my passport would be good enough and luckily I had one! It was quite a scene.

Here are a few more photos of our time here. Tomorrow we start our journey on bicycles!