Puerto Montt, Chile February 8

We arrived in Puerto Montt on schedule (for a change)!  Since we had been here before we decided to not take a tour but to just go ashore and walk around the port area.

This is a small tourist town, mostly for people from Argentina, and since schools are on vacation there were lots of Spanish speaking families walking around. There was about three blocks of small stalls selling handicrafts.  They all seemed to have most of the same items, lots of alpaca sweaters, ponchos, hats, scarves, etc.  There was also carved wood items, copper things and Lapis jewelry.  At the end of the street was in interesting market with stalls selling fish, fruits and vegetables, cheeses, sausages, and colorful candy.  We went back to the ship in time for a Chinese lunch in honor of Chinese New Year. The weather was overcast and it did rain a bit in the afternoon.

This was a busy main street with lots of traffic and this horse was just standing there untied. 

 There were about three blocks of these venders stalls on both sides of the street.

Lots of different types of cheese and sausages in the market area

They have hundreds of varities of potatoes in Peru and Chile

Before dinner there was a lecture by an interesting speaker who had served as a military aide in the White House for five different presidents.

We had dinner in Prime 7, the specialty steak house.  Since we are both still fighting colds we skipped the evening entertainment and went to bed early.

Sea Day for Super Bowl February 7

We spent the day at sea and it was a little rough with more wind than we have had in the last few days.  We had a two day winning streak at trivia but did not do well today.

We had dinner in the French restaurant that was not a great experience, not because of the food, but because of the guests at the nearby table.  There is a couple on board with a 20 month old child that they take on all the tours and into the restaurants.  The father looks to be over 60 and the mother looks about 40 and they let the child do as he wishes including running around loose in the restaurant and crying if he does not get his way. Makes it tough on the crew and the other passengers.  This same couple with the child was on one of our recent tours, the one where we were in the high speed boats.  The kid screamed and cried the whole time we on the boat, about two hours.  Luckily we were at the rear and they were close to the front and we only could hear him when we were moving slowly.

There was a party for viewing the Super Bowl on the large movie screen in the theater.  Originally it was to include "tailgate" food but becuse of the continuing code red they changed to just providing popcorn and nachos.  The game did not start until 8:30 pm our time so we only watched the first half before calling it a night.

Theater was decorated for su[er Bowl Party

Valparaiso, Chile February 6

We were finally able to dock in a port, Valparaiso.  Noel was still battling a cold so Tom turned in his tour ticket (8 hour trip to Santiago) and used Noel's ticket for a four hour tour of Valparaiso.

Pablo Neruda was a Nobel Prize winning poet and the tour visited his home which is now a museum.  We also stopped at a small cafe for and empanada snack and a drink.  Valparaiso is made up of steep hills surrounding the small flat area around the port.  There are over a dozen funiculars with the oldest dating to 1883.  We rode one of these up the hill, had a short walk and rode a different one down.  The port is the largest in Chile and is home to the Chilean Navy.

Steep hillsides are covered with colorful homes

The Mariner as seen from top of hill














Much of the city is in disrepair but there is an effort to refurbish many of the old buildings.  They have also made an effort to cover some walls with murals but the graffiti has taken over.  The graffiti is everywhere.  There are also thousands of stray dogs which are fed by the residents but you have to watch where you
walk!

Even the Starbucks has graffiti

At least some of the graffiti is colorful!














Chile had a large number of Europeans arrive around 1900 and you still see sections where Germans, British, Italian, French and others settled.

Our ship was taking on a lot of provisions (four large containers and several truck loads) and fuel but it took a very long time as there was still a large swell coming into the harbor.  They normally use a fork lift to load the supplies but because the ship was going up and down so much they had to use a crane and man power.  We left the port almost an hour late

We obviously use a lot of bottled water!

At sea February 4 and 5

After being unable to go ashore in Iqueque, everyone was looking forward to getting off the ship, especially the crew.  Unfortunately that was not to be.  The captain made an announcement before lunch that the port of Coquimbo was closed because of the heavy swell.  He also told us that the port of Iqueque was still closed to all shipping.  He also told us that he tried to arrange to dock early in Valparaiso but they did not have any open spots until tomorrow morning.  So we had another day at sea running at a slow speed to kill time until we can dock.  The swell was up to about 15 feet but it was not windy so the ride was just a lot of up and down.

Both of these closed ports would have been new stops for us so we were really disappointed to not visit them.

The cruise director quickly put together a new schedule of events, games, wine tasting, trivia and even a lecture.

Our team finally tied for first in trivia!

Just after the trivia the captain made an announcement that more than 2 percent of the passengers and crew had become ill with an intestinal problem so we were going into "code red" mode.  Anyone that was sick could have a free visit to the doctor.  All the crew was on "sanitation" duty.  They removed the salt and pepper shakers, you could not longer serve yourself at the buffets, they closed the public restrooms and the laundry rooms.  They were cleaning everything including the games like chess pieces, mahjong tiles, even the jigsaw pieces.  It is too bad that some people do not use the utensils at the buffets.  Noel has seen people picking up cookies and a woman was even picking up dried fruit with her fingers.  Tom saw one person picking up a bagel with her hands.  No wonder illness spreads on ships.

Matarani, Peru February 2

We arrived at our last Peruvian port of Matarani just after lunch time.  This is a small port that serves the large city of Arequipa which is about 2 hours inland.  The last time we were here we visited Arequipa which is a colonial city of the Spanish from the 1500's but it had previously been home to the Incas and other civilizations dating back to the BC period.

Our tour today included a trip to "Lagunas De Mejia" which is a national bird sanctuary.  Unfortunately El Nino has a drying effect in this part of the world and the lack of rain has caused the marshes to dry up and there were very few birds.  We did see a few different types of ducks, some flocks of seabirds, one osprey, and a lot of turkey vultures.

Wide sandy beach in front of the marshes

Large flocks of sea birds on the beach

We saw a few ducks in marsh area

There is a lot of agriculture in the area















On our way back to the ship we went through the town of Mellendo which our guide referred to as a resort (not much by our standards!).  There were large numbers of people enjoying the beach but the waves were huge and no one was really in the water.

The beach area at Mellendo

There were huge waves pounding in

From the overlook above the beach














Peru has many problems.  Poverty is rampant, oil prices are down and corruption continues.  The thing that everyone noticed was the amount of trash at the sides of the road.  There were tons of it, it was like driving through a landfill.

Iqueque, Chile February 3

Last night we had to set our clocks two hours ahead so it was a short night for everyone, especially the crew who have to work late into the evening and then be up for the early morning shifts.  We did not wake up until 8 am but we were not scheduled for a tour until after 1 pm.  The docks in this port had been damaged in a recent earthquake so we were supposed to anchor and then use the ship tender boats to reach the buses on shore.  The first group of about 80 passengers were able to make it ashore but the captain came on the speaker system and stated that the swell had increased and shifted a bit and it was much too dangerous to get anyone else ashore.  It took a long time to get the 80 passengers back on board.  About 2 pm the captain came back on and said we would leave when the ship was cleared by the local authorities and two more people were back. We had not sailed by the time we went up to the observation lounge for drinks before dinner and about 6:30 we finally saw the tender coming back to the ship.  Noel and a few other passengers went out on the deck to see who was on the tender.  We were surprised to see that the platform used for getting on and off the tender boats had been already stowed and we wondered how the two people and the crew would get back on board.  The next thing we saw was a rope ladder being lowered to the tender (this is the way the pilots get on and off the ship).  Then the first person grabbed the ladder and climbed up, surprise!  it was the young man who does the specialty act and then his female partner climbed up the ladder.  This couple had no problem getting up the ladder as they are really strong and do all sorts of acrobatic skills and strength moves during the shows including her (she must weigh about 80 pounds) supporting him.  Good thing it was not two passengers!  We got under way immediately and were able to sail a bit slower as we have a day at sea before reaching our next port.

The city of Iqueque

Port area with the hills beyond

Pisco, Peru February 1

We arrived at the dock in Pisco at about 6:30 am.  It is striking how barren the landscape is in Southern Peru and Northern Chile.  They get very little rainfall here and it has been made worse by the El Nino.  Peru has no welfare of any kind and many people sell items ranging from trinkets to food items.  Some local people had already set up booths to sell souvenirs and as there was another cruise ship at the dock they were doing a brisk business.

Our tour was to Ballestas Islands, which was a half hour by boat across a rough and windy channel.  The boats held about 30 people.  Noel was sitting against the rail on the windward side and really got soaked from the spray. Our first point of interest was huge ancient impression in a sand dune that is related to the Nasca Lines.  The guide called it a candelabra but it really looked more like a cactus.  It was amazing to think that this feature has survived hundreds of years on the face of a sand dune but it was placed so the prevailing winds to not reach it and with the sparse rainfall it has survived.

"Candelabra" on the dune is hundreds of feet tall

The islands are home to about one million sea birds and hundreds of sea lions.  We saw pelicans, boobies, terns, cormorants, and several types of gulls.  There were also some Humboldt penguins.  The sea lions were virtually piled on the rocky beaches with the huge males trying to protect their harems of females with many pups.  We were told that tons of  bird guano is collected about every five years and sold as fertilizer.

Humboldt penguins and cormorants 

 Thousands of sea birds flying and sitting on the rocks

One of several structures used when they collect the guano

There were several beaches like this that were covered with sea lions 

Our ship 

Typical fishing boat at anchor.  The pelicans must be a real nuisance. 














This was a spectacular site and we enjoyed the tour although sitting in an open boat getting drenched with spray was not much fun.