1/23/2008 Puerto Montt, Chile

From: Sherman Rootberg
Date: Jan 24, 2008 7:39 AM
Subject: 1/23/2008

1/23/2008

Puerto Montt, Chile

We had to get up early this morning for a Virtuoso seven hour tour. We were up at six AM. It was only in the 50s outside. I could see we were far from any anchorage but got ready anyhow. We met in the theater and were promptly told that the ship would be about an hour and one half late to anchor.

I always love it when they lie to us. The reason given was strong currents last night. Bull feathers. We had been battling a head wind all day yesterday. The ship is unable to make enough speed due to a problem with one of the pods that turns the propellers. One is supposedly being built to replace the damaged one. It is supposed to be installed in April. Until then the ship cannot cruise at normal speed.

The area we are in is absolutely gorgeous. The scenery looks like a painting. Everything is very green and beautiful mountains are in the background. Many of these mountains are snow capped. This part of South America is a maze of river like waterways separating hundreds or thousands of fingers of land. This is called the Chilean Fjords or sometimes the South American Fjords. This is the lakes area where there are multitudes of salmon farms in the fresh waters. There are also many volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. They do kill lots of people from time to time.

Everywhere we went, they kept telling us how lucky we were. This area is much like the Pacific Northwest. It normally rains and is so foggy you cannot make out the many volcanoes and mountains. Today it is sunny and is getting much warmer then normal.

Finally, upon returning to the theater at about 9:30 AM, we boarded a tender for the trip ashore. Being so far from the equator, there are tremendous tide changes. Now it was low tide. We left the tenders at a floating dock and then had to walk almost straight up on a ramp from the floating dock to the land. It had gotten to the high 60s by now. Our next remarkable experience was a bus without working air conditioning.

First we visited a Chile style ranch. They had a Chilean style rodeo for us. They call their cowboys wasos. Sounds like wah so. Seven of these wasos did some amazing performances with their horses. The horses are a special breed. They were originally brought over by the Spanish but have been bread to act like quarter horses only they are smaller.

Now it was breakfast time. They served meat empanadas outside and then, brought us all in for a buffet of ham, bacon, cheese, etc, etc. While outside there had been three, very well taken care of, dogs. One is a St Bernard, one is a Belgium, and one is a toy poodle. The Belgium won’t leave the owner alone. She just stands touching him with a big dumb grin on her face. He has the Belgium and the Poodle do a trick, then the St Bernard does the best trick of all. Whatever you tell it to do, it just sits there and looks at you. The Poodle is a white one about the size of Spike and is also eleven years old like Spike. This one even walks with the same limp in the right front leg. One of the empanadas was dropped. You should have seen this old dog grab it and run. The Poodle, named Poopy, was the only one allowed inside. Naturally he walked around looking for food to be dropped. When he came by me I offered him a piece of roll. That was all that was on the table at the time. He walks over and takes a sniff and sticks his nose in the air and walks away. That is spoiled. Spike would have grabbed it and run.

Breakfast was very nice as was the ranch. The entire area could have been rural Iowa or Wisconsin. That’s how the countryside looks until you see the volcanoes and mountains in the distance.

When we got back in the bus it was now in the upper 70s and with the bright sun the inside of the bus was an oven. We made a lot of noise about lack of air until they found a way to get another bus after lunch. Meantime they got all the people from our bus into the other two busses.

We went for ride around the area and ended up in a tiny museum with an old mill with a water wheel. That wasn’t much.

Next we went a short distance to very pretty lake. The water was very cold but people were going in anyhow. There was a restaurant on the lake where they had lunch prepared for us. Steak and Salmon were the choices. Everything in Chile starts with empanadas. These were cheese empanadas.

After lunch they dropped us off at a casino with a local crafts place next door. We went in to the crafts place. Big mistake. Bobbi wanted to find more of the pretty blankets they make out of the local wool. We went into about seven or eight stands and no one had them. I thought I was in luck. As we were leaving, in front was a real store. It looked like just more of the same stuff but they did have some wool blankets. To make the story a little shorter, they do not speak any English here. But they did know enough to call me Santa as I schlepped this huge plastic bag to the bus. The worse part was getting it to the ship on the tenders.

The guide carried to the dock for me. A ship crewman carried it onto the tender for me and another carried it off the tender and up the stairs to the ship. To add insult to injury, when we walked into the store on the ship, after dinner, they had gotten the same blankets and their asking price was the same as the price I had bargained the locals down to.

As we ate dinner we sailed through these waters with the beautiful scenery. It was something to see.