Archives for posts with tag: cruise experiences

Puerto Montt

January 18, 2026 //

Two days ago now we were in Puenta Arenas. I had been looking forward to this experience. I actually thought that, compared to Ushuaia, Puenta Arenas might have more going on and be a better place for expats. I was wrong on that, but more on that tomorrow.

Puenta Arenas is a nice port city typical of what you would expect at the intersection between the pampas and the fjords and mountains of the South America cone. It’s likely the best place to stock up anything you may need for the nine day stretch between Ushuaia and Puerto Madryn – the next time you’re in port with easy access to a supermarket. Puerto Montt is also cheaper than Ushuaia, but more on that later.

We booked an excursion called Puenta Arenas sights and Patagonian Estancia. This took in a city tour that included five stops in town, some scenic wildlife viewing, and then a visit to a Patagonian Estancia, or rather a sheep station or ranch.

My ratings on the excursions we’ve taken since we’ve been down here:

Chef in Puerto Montt – two thumbs up from both of us.

Fjord cruise and hot springs experience – One thumb up from one of us, one and a half from the other. We’d give it more but unless you were the one booking the excursion you never saw the notes for logistics.

Punta Arenas Sights & Patagonia Estancia excursion – two thumbs up from both, although I’m wavering on mine. My second thumb up would be more firm if it were a 20 person bus instead of 40. 40 HAL cruisers – try to sit towards the front of the bus next time.

They picked us up on time at the port on time and fairly early in the day as it was nine hours as scheduled. One thing I wish we could do more easily is this – get off the ship prior to excursion and meet the bus on the pier after some shopping. We had an errand to run at UniMarc the supermarket we may have wanted to handle in the morning rather than when we were tired. Anyway. I don’t think we can do this unless we return to the ship to queue up in the theater.

After picking us up, the first stop was a viewpoint in town.

The weather was beautiful at that point in the day – intermittent sunshine. My mother was actually with us for this excursion. Anyway, we all piled out of the bus, and then we all piled back on.

Then, like all South American cities, there was a Plaza Des Armas.

In the plaza there’s a big Magellan statue. It is said that if you rub his foot you will return someday. I had heard this prior; unfortunately I did not rub his shoe. Nonetheless, this would be a great place to return to.

Farming implements at Museo Maggiorino Borgatello

Our third stop was the Museo Maggiorino Borgatello, our first museum of the day and our first of the journey. This was a fascinating history of the region from Magellan times to modern times. It was very thorough but I wish they had spoken a bit more about the culture of the indigenous people before diving into “and the missionaries converted them.” We learned a lot about the settlement of the region as well as its resources in modern times.

Speaking of missionaries, then we went to the cemetery.

**Cemetery of Punta Arenas Sara Braun** is the public cemetery of the city of Punta Arenas, Chile

The land for the cemetery was donated by pioneer Sara Braun. I won’t write about it here and they didn’t speak of it on the tour, but Sara Braun, like many of her era, is in retrospect rather controversial, as some of her actions inadvertently caused genocide amongst the indigenous population of Patagonia.

Traditional Latin American mausoleum – similar to what we have seen in Cusco

The cemetery has been ranked by CNNas one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world.

The cemetery has walking avenues of sculpted cedar trees which are not native to this part of South America; their cultivation is designed to reduce the wind flow through the cemetery as it is literally almost always windy here.

After visiting the cemetery, we piled back on the bus for the short drive to the Patagonian Institute Museum, officially the Museo del Recuerdo (Museum of Remembrance).

This museum is an open-air heritage museum in Punta Arenas, Chile, showcasing pioneer life with historic buildings, farm machinery, and artifacts from early settlers, part of the University of Magallanes. It features reconstructed pioneer houses, a shearing shed, antique vehicles, tools, and shops like a pharmacy, offering a glimpse into the region’s development from the 1880s to the 1950s. Frankly it seems like a place where people donate their old stuff so they don’t need to find a different home for it.

A few things of value –

An old Peugeot (can’t say I’ve ever seen one before), a Model T, and a Martini (I know I’ve never seen one of those before!). The Martini, the blue car on the left, was made in Switzerland. There were only a few thousand ever manufactured, so how one got down here, who knows.

There was a whole barn full of horseless carriages. The porch of it was falling down so they had it roped off so you could not properly view it, but I took a look through one of the windows on the end.

Somebody donated an old time pharmacy setup to the museum. They also (not the same person most likely) donated about three or four cinematic projectors to the museum and a collection of old movie posters.

At first I thought these were cameras until my brain awakened

Eventually we left the museum and started heading north on the main highway out of town – and towards the rest of the continent. This was like a regular expressway, but from time to time they herded you all onto one side or the other and often pavement ended entirely as they were regrading it and adding in drainage. The older pavement appeared as if it has been here forever and a day. And it also doesn’t seem as if they need an expressway.

Anyway, this is where the real fun began. Whenever our driver saw something interesting he pulled over so we could take pictures.

There were rheas everywhere, aka ñandú in the indigenous language.

We saw an Andean condor flapping around, purely by luck. There was another excursion that travels to the cliffs simply to see the Andean condor so I would recommend that if you actually want to see multiple condors. I felt that would be a drag so we took this excursion instead (I did not know we were going to see so much wildlife).

We saw a lot of horses. Interestingly they all were dragging their leads. Fairly tame, I believe the purpose of the horses is for herding sheep, patrolling the ranch lands, and participating in rodeos.

We saw a lot of crested caracara birds. I snapped the photo above from the window of the bus.

We also saw upland geese, and a whole lot of sheep (not as many as New Zealand, but a lot).

Our destination was Estancia Olga Teresa. Quoting from the ranch’s web site –

Estancia Olga Teresa is situated in the Río Verde (Green River) commune, 78 km northwest of the city of Punta Arenas, in the Region of Magallanes and the Chilean Antarctica.

This Estancia is a typical Chilean Patagonia place where visitors can enjoy the ranching traditions, typical of the Magallanes Region, and have an encounter with nature in a unique and welcoming atmosphere.

In 1922, the Estancia was acquired by Don Fermin Berjoan Roca, pioneer of Frenchorigin, who gave it the name of his two daughters, Olga and Teresa. Currently, the Estancia belongs to his grandson Rodolfo Concha Roca, together with his wife Yvonne Paeile Jordan and their four children, Rodolfo Luis, Lorena, Cristián andRodrigo.

I believe Rodolfo’s mother was present at the ranch and provided us with a greeting. Rodolfo and his wife were there to lead our tour and manage the barbecue operation. And yes, lunch was barbecue.

I presume they raised everything we ate on the property although they did say they are there only in the summer. I found at least a few similar ranches around some of which also allow a stay.

It was sublime and accompanied by several bottles of red wine. We ate outside under shelters designed to keep us dry if it rained (it did not, at least not immediately) around a courtyard designed to keep the wind away. And it was a beautiful summer day – temperatures in the mid-fifties Fahrenheit, or around 12 Celsius. It doesn’t get any better in this part of the world.

It turns out this was the warmest, nicest weather we would see for a while. Also, about ninety minutes later it started raining again.

After a hearty lunch, they herded us out to the pastures for a sheepdog demonstration.

Sheep of course all stick together because who wants a dog barking at them?

He demonstrated the various commands for the dog which come in the form of whistling in various tones.

Shepherding

And we also paid a visit to the sheep shearing shed!

The sheep was rather docile in the upside down position – much like our greyhound at home when you pick her up.

And then clean shaven.

Unlike sheep in much of the world they only shear sheep here once a year aside from some hygiene trimming later on. The purpose being there really is not a very long-lived warm season.

As I said earlier, horses here exist for ranching as well as rodeo. It’s one of the ways the ranch earns money. The family participates and performs well in rodeo. And they have a stallion who I think earns decent stud fees (I believe that’s what I heard).

We think the stallion’s name was Salto Chico. Anyway, he ignored me, and then they took him out into the aisle where he hung around with our audience of forty.

After tromping around the Estancia for a few hours we were certainly ready to sleep on the bus ride back to the port. Nine hours on a tour, in my opinion, is a bit much. By that point I want to wander off on my own to decompress.

By the time we returned to Punta Arenas it was raining. We took a stroll to the local UniMarc for supplies unavailable on the ship and successfully navigated the self-checkout independently, much to the dismay of the cashier who wanted to be helpful, and we were back on board about 35 minutes between all aboard time.

I didn’t necessarily come to South America to learn about farming and old machinery, but my dad would have loved it. And the barbecue was great. It was good to get back on board the ship though, and after a steady diet of Chilean cuisine and cruise ship banquet food it was nice to have things broken up by Holland America’s Morimoto pop-up.

The Boss had a sushi appetizer and I had pork dumplings. I also had Kamikaze Seared Yellow-fin Ahi.

As you can see above this consisted of slices of ahi tuna seared against the side of a cast iron bowl and then mixed with rice as well as the tender greens of bok choi.

We had one more port day before heading across the Drake Passage. I’ll do my best to write that up tomorrow – it was Ushuaia which seems to be Aspen, Colorado, or Queenstown, New Zealand, but on the water.

Tags adventure, cruise experiences, cruising, Foodie

Categories Automobiles, South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel

Hot Springs in Puerto Chacabuco

January 14, 2026 //

Monday morning started off with a full English breakfast in the Pinnacle Grill. Sadly they ceased having the ability to make fried eggs and everyone else (literally, aside from me) was served poached eggs as the grill had broken.

There was a nice selection of excursions available in Puerto Chacabuco. We went on the “Patagonian Fjord Cruise & Hot Springs.” My mother went on “Patagonia Nature in Depth.” I haven’t debriefed with her yet but probably will tomorrow if you’re interested.

The Fjord Cruise was nice and you would think from the above that there were maybe twenty people on it. In reality, it was about 80 people. We tendered ashore, walked into the port building (which is smaller than my house), and sat in a room. At a certain point when no HAL tenders were coming in they walked us down the pier past the tenders to a catamaran.

Note – this is the first port where they took security seriously, both outgoing and incoming. I still didn’t empty my pockets though.

We took a nice cruise out through the fjord to Termas Ensenada Perez. This hot spring consists of three cement ponds that were built to collect volcanic hot springs. Two of the cement ponds were about 100 degrees Fahrenheit (30.5 C) in temperature; the third was about 104 degrees Fahrenheit (32 C) in temperature. They warned us not to spend more than 10 or 15 minutes in each cement pond and encouraged us to take a break by showering under the cold springs water (about 6 degrees C or 42 Fahrenheit). I only did this after sitting in the really hot springs.

This hot springs experience was great. We thought it had the opportunity to be a drag as it was over an hour ride out there and well over a ride on the return. We figured we might go out there and get bored after thirty minutes and then just sit on the boat and read, but we were wrong. We cycled in and out of the tubs four or five times; I stayed in the hottest one only briefly though at which point I went and successfully stood under the very cold mountain spring water for a couple of minutes. It was very therapeutic.

It almost did have a 1980s science fiction film feel to it though.

After the hot springs we went back on the catamaran and they took us around a national monument area (they had to serve us wine and drinks before entering the area, and then again after leaving the area). Coming south from Santiago the scenery was still spectacular; since then we have seen more so we may end up being a bit jaded.

The experience reminded me of visiting Milford Sound, New Zealand in 2015, and sitting on the back of a similar vessel listening to the diesel engines as most others had grown weary and were settling back into their seats with cocktails inside.

While we were in Chacabuco, we also strolled around a local shipwreck.

The Vina del Mar vessel is apparently Chacabuco village’s sole attraction. I don’t think there is much else within walking distance other than a few dozen homes, a mini-mart, maybe a small cafe or two, and a small hotel. All of the excursions largely went elsewhere.

But I liked Puerto Chacabuco itself more than Puerto Montt. It was a good day.

Tags adventure, cruise experiences, hot springs, nature, travel

Categories South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel

Puerto Montt – Sunday, January 11

January 14, 2026 //

So, On Saturday I wrote a teaser:

We’re not going ashore so early tomorrow so I’m going to try and write in the morning after breakfast.

We came into Puerto Montt this morning and it was gray and gloomy but not raining. That managed to hold up until 1 or 2pm in the afternoon then it started raining miserably. Finally, as we were leaving, the sun came. It was a beautiful sunset.

Anyway. We went on what I felt was the best excursion we’ve been on ever, “A Taste of Chile: Fresh Fusion.” There were only twenty of us. We were driven to the local market in Puerto Montt where we met a chef and he took us around and we learned all about the local Chilean produce as well as seafood. And then we rode in the bus with him to a private dining room.

It was like being at someone’s house with a long table and spending five hours prepping a meal and eating it. We even helped. So much wine, so much pisco, and so much food.

I never got around to writing the entry, at least not here. It was a busy weekend!

Yesterday was The Boss’s first tender ride – and they sat her by the open doorway. Fortunately it wasn’t raining and the boat wasn’t bouncing. I was jealous regardless, though.

As I said, our excursion yesterday was “A Taste of Chile: Fresh Fusion.”

We rode a bus (19 people) to a market and met a chef.

The market was primarily a seafood market but also had a number of vegetable and other vendors. Many of them started handing out samples even though they knew we weren’t going to buy anything, such as in the above she started handing us spicy pickled olives which I could have eaten all morning.

Sadly, the oysters were not fresh enough or purchase. The chef has his own standards for buying things such as these which make sense. “Tap it and if it moves, however small, it’s good.” I don’t know if that works for us at home as nearly everything is on ice.

Lots of good fish. Hake and Sea Bass were common.

I mean, the garlic here was as large as the eggs – each clove was

This wasn’t the garlic he used for cooking. In their market they have both Chinese garlic (identical and the same price as the packs of four we get in the supermarket for a buck or two) as well as local, Chilean garlic with a little dirt on it (identical to the garlic we buy at the farmer’s market, or what we’re trying to grow ourselves but keep failing at).

Eventually we made our way to Puerto Varas where his private kitchen is that he’s using this year. We were given the option to stay and cook – or drink wine. The alternative was to go shopping in Varas. Only one person chose to join the guide for the shopping excursion. The rest of us drank. Eventually he invited us to join us with prep and five or six of us all got up to assist – all men. We split tasks between shelling beans, splitting clams, and cleaning mussels.

Eventually. He started handing us food to sample (mind you, we’d been sampling since at the market – where vendors handed us grapes, pickled spicy olives, cheese, and a number of other treats).

One of the things I tried was the raw clam. Our second dish after we sat down was actually the cooked version thereof – put under the broiler briefly enough to cook it in butter but that’s it, as it gets tough quickly. It’s the same delicacy that’s required to cook shrimp just until where they’re done as well – something I’ve managed to capture at home in the saute pan but not yet on the grill.

His team also deboned and fileted their own fish removing the parts to keep for stock. The heads and so forth were simmered with onions, chives, parsley, and other stuff for a stock; he reminded us to never boil seafood stock. When the stock was ready he kept the fish heads and we ate the cheeks with our forks at the table.

His ceviche was majority sea asparagus which was cleaned by one of our fellow cruise passengers. We always have ceviche which is spicer at home and often is more tart, but Chef has a way of making it not so much.

His version of ceviche is more balanced than what we’ve encountered. Less tart than usual. He also served us pieces of hake that had been stewed with the stock and some apple cider.

I don’t remember what else we ate. We did have blueberries in custard which was good. Every time we turned around they refilled our glass. At one point they switched from Carmenere to a lesser-known Cinsault which was really, really good and a “reserve” bottle. We asked if we could buy a bottle and yes, they let us take one home. Or rather, to the ship. I’m told it’s definitely coming home with us.

It poured rain all afternoon until we were back on the ship at which point glorious sunshine returned. We spent much of the rest of the day and evening resting in our cabins and watching football – they have it available on the NFL channel, but otherwise on the ship aside from the casino bar not so much.

Tags adventure, cruise experiences, experience, Foodie, travel, travelogue

Categories Foodie, South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel

Travel day is here! Southward Ho!

January 6, 2026 //

Good morning! For those who have not seen it –

Holland America 22-Day South America and Antarctica

Today’s Dad Joke –

I don’t like people who don’t cover their nose and mouth when they sneeze. They make me sick.

It’s 10:30 in the morning and we’re due to depart for the airport in a few hours. I am busily finishing off the remaining Christmas cookies, chocolates, and other candies. That, and heading off a minor crises at the office.

Yesterday I came downstairs just as The Boss brought her main luggage up from the basement. It’s HUGE and I didn’t realize how huge. Two years ago I had purchased a piece at the off-price section at Macy’s which I thought was the maximum limit for European carriers for our Queen Victoria Atlantic Coast Adventure. Well, she went to the same place and bought something bigger. So I pulled out the measuring tape and even with our upgrade on American Airlines it turns out we’re both in the $200 zone for oversize baggage. End result we’re heading to the airport a little earlier than planned in case something unexpected happens and we need to return home or over to the mall to acquire smaller baggage.

Nonetheless, we are excited. Meraz the Greyhound has been taken to her friend’s house. I made my last minute trip to the bank (walked halfway there once and turned around because I forgot my wallet and returned to get cash). Last night we checked in for our flights. This morning I filled out Chile’s SAG form online for agricultural declaration. In the interest of science I’m declaring my factory-packaged ginger chews and will report back here hopefully with them asking why I declared them; they aren’t plant or animal products!

I also received the good news yesterday that as my employment anniversary is this year I now have an extra week of leave each year!

Curious, who else tries to cram into one bag? I know there are people out there who would travel with carry-on only for a 22 day cruise. That’s not us. And this time we’re packing for three seasons.

I’ll share some of my own strategies for reducing clothing packed –

Get the laundry package. We plan to send out laundry for the first time either on embarkation day or the day following to beat the rush. We expect weather will transition from “summer” to “spring” by the first port day (third day of the cruise).
Use yoga shirts as under shirts and then work out in them the next day. Same with plain, dark t-shirts, for my chosen button down evening shirts they can be worn casually through the day but under a shirt to be dressier in the evening.
I have an LL Bean coat lined wind breaker which is rated for 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Liner removal means it gets used with a layer and a hoodie underneath at a handful of port stops, in addition to with liner and scarf and hat and three layers when doing the Antarctic drive-by. Will report back on success of this approach.
I’m packing three pairs of shoes. One, beach sandals to go to the pool and/or spa; two, dressy sneakers for most evenings; three, dressy boots which are good when polished for dressy nights (you may debate me on this). As the boots are wearing and may be retired this spring, I’ll wear them for Volunteer Point in the Falklands as they are still waterproof (again, you may debate me on this as well and point out the error of my ways).
I’m wearing my running shoes to the airport.

I think we’re both now of the opinion that for most adventures we need to downsize our standard luggage a little. These monsters are going to be unwieldy if we need to move them anywhere further from curb to cab, and even though we’re both relatively fit it’s painful for us to carry them loaded down a flight of stairs.

Tags adventure, antarctica-packing, cruise experiences, cruise-packing-list, cruising, cruising-tips, luggage, overpacking, packing, packing-essentials, relaxation travel, suitcase, travel-blogging, travel-packing-list, travel-to-south-america

Categories South America - Antarctica January 2026, travel, Travel Logistics

This story starts in Valencia

January 3, 2026 //

So we’re leaving for Santiago in a few days to join a cruise to Antarctica returning via Buenos Aires. This is a big deal – it’s something we started to dream about a few years ago and started to book 16 months ago. We’re in our mid-fifties; we started planning this when we were younger. This is our third cruise together. The shortest was 12 nights so we have certainly discovered that we are a younger demographic on longer duration cruise!

Questions I want to ask others are as follows. How did you decide to go to Antarctica? Why did you book on Holland America? When did you decide to go? Was this a long held dream or was it recent? If you have done it before, does the Drake Passage compare to other seas-of-drama? I’ve cruised the Bay of Biscay a couple of times and have touched a Cat 1 hurricane off the coast of North Carolina so I’m confident I will be fine – can it be that much worse?

For us, the story begins with a walk.

Walking in Valencia

When traveling and away from home we spend more time talking about things we enjoy. Often this happens when we’re sitting on a balcony watching the sea go by or when we’re on a long walk, or sometimes on a long run, because we do run. We talk about where we want to retire, how we want to live, or what we want to do next.

In 2023, we were in port in Valencia on a Cunard Queen Victoria cruise. We didn’t book an excursion because we felt we could explore Valencia on our own. Although Valencia port isn’t necessarily walkable, Cunard was nice enough to provide a shuttle to the City of Arts and Sciences. Valencia has a greenbelt built on the diverted Turia River bed that begins at the City of the Arts and Sciences and passes by the old town core so we used it as a conduit. It’s a two mile walk each way. We should have worn our running clothes and run instead.

Anyway, I don’t know what exactly we discussed that particular day, but sometime around then we started talking about future travels and I suspect on the long walk we discussed much of what we wanted to see in the world. Patagonia and Africa came up as being fairly high on the list. To be honest, we didn’t talk about Antarctica.

Flash forward and we eventually started reviewing options and talking about planning. We discussed the merits of Africa over Patagonia, and I was sneaky enough to slide Antarctica in there. The Holland America itinerary is actually one I planned for January 2014 back in 2012 when I was still married. It’s a great itinerary starting in Chile and taking in parts of Patagonia, the Drake Passage and Antarctic Peninsula, and the Argentine and Uruguayan coasts along with the Falkland Islands. But obviously I’m not married anymore so I ended up canceling – my mother went instead, and we’ll see how this works out because literally two days after we booked this winter’s expedition she joined her local travel group to do the same. She swears it was merely a coincidence, but we shall see!

Compared to expedition cruises it’s very cost effective, and compared to other main-line options it’s longer and takes in a wider variety of ports, countries, and cultures. I was also looking at an Azamara cruise that covered roughly the same territory but we agreed upon Holland America. If we’re going to be on a ship for 22 days, we want relaxation and recovery in a larger cabin with more options.

So here we are preparing to embark in six days, and preparing to travel a few days beforehand.

Tags antarctica-packing, cruise experiences, cruising, luggage, packing, port city, relaxation travel, suitcase, travel, travel-blog, travel-to-south-america

Categories travel, Travel Logistics

Why we go on cruises

December 15, 2025 //

This post is entitled why we go on cruises. It’s about the obvious. I’m the type of person – we’re the type of people – who actually enjoy doing things when we travel. We’re active. We run. We run in port. We walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to Kings County Distillery in the Navy Yard. We go on an architecture boat tour in Chicago. When we visit a city, we stay somewhere comfortable and wander around and try to be like locals. Well, we try. We walked to the top of Cadillac Mountain instead of driving. But we go on cruises. Why?

We go on cruises so we don’t drive each other nuts. We like to do certain things in the morning and we also appreciate a fair amount of downtime. Sometimes one relaxes while the other goes to the casino. We don’t like to haul our luggage back and forth constantly; instead, we want to pretend we’re home. We don’t want to sit in a place for a week or two or three weeks, at least not most of the time. We want to experience a place but also relax.

So let me start out by telling you how I started cruising.

In 2016, I took my daughters on a cruise. I drove to the cruise port with them and we sailed south for a week. Planned ports included Port Canaveral in Florida (a success, we visited Disney for the first time ever), Nassau in the Bahamas, and Freeport (fail, due to planned hurricane). Did I mention the hurricane? My worst experience at sea was my first one, the one where the ship was listing sideways as we skirted a Cat 1 hurricane off Cape Hatteras.

In 2017, I took them on a cruise with my mother. Or rather, we went on a transatlantic passage on Queen Mary 2. Again, the main reason I did this is because it allowed a degree of relaxation while also entertaining my family. It was to some degree tiring though – travel with family is often not about relaxation. We did go to Scotland though.

I went on one solo cruise on a ship called the Royal Clipper, and then I went on two more – one, another Transatlantic, on Celebrity Silhouette as a “first vacation since COVID,” and one on Queen Victoria at the edge of winter to Spain and Portugal. That last one was in many ways the best – we, meaning we and not my daughters, visited a number of different interesting ports and towns in Spain and Portugal. This is really where we established our cruising habits and learned some lessons.

Always dine in port, because the food in port is one of the strongest identifiers of a culture.

Always give yourself downtime. Don’t attempt to try every event on the ship. Remember, if you’re on a ship for more than a week, just as you do with work at home you also need a day off to sleep in, rest, and relax. Also, don’t drink heavily before a day where the captain is telling you that you will have rough seas.

And move into your cabin. Act as if you own it. Find that one spot on the ship you find relaxing and keep coming back to it. Watch the sunset, watch the waves change day after day. Look for whales and dolphins. And enjoy yourself.

Tags cruise experiences, cruising, family vacation, port city, relaxation travel, travel, urban exploration

Categories Travel Logistics