Navimag is a Chilean ferry company that
among other trips sails from Puerto Montt through the fiords (and for a section
the open sea) to Puerto Natales over 4 days. We’d heard and read lots of
conflicting stories, from excellent to nightmare trips that took twice as long
as usual due to the rough weather. See this link to see how bad it can get: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPdiAI1-dTs&playnext=1&list=PL756C8D931D6AC958&index=10
The Navimag is more of a cargo and vehicle
ferry but does takes some passengers (about 50 on our trip). Hence it is pretty
basic with small cabins, canteen and sparse lounge, definitely not a cruise
ship. We were pretty happy we splashed out for a private cabin or it would have
been rather cramped.
In typical South American style it took
most of the first day just to leave. We had to check in by midday then be back
in time to board at 2, once abroad we had to wait till for all the cargo to be
loaded before leaving around 6pm. Getting aboard was a bit different, as
instead of a gangplank we were herded like sheep onto the lower vehicle deck
then took the cargo lift to the upper decks. There were a few horses and cows
that did the 4 day trip too – stuck in their stock trucks.
On the first night we began wondering about
what sort of people we were doing the trip with when 4 of the girls pulled out
knitting (not your usual backpacker hobby) but it turned out to be a pretty
good group of people and we had a lot of fun. The next few days fell into a of
routine of eating, going up to the top deck to look at the scenery, playing
cards and other games and generally not doing much. I really enjoyed waking up
each morning and from my bunk looking out the porthole at the fiords and
mountains going by. Though we didn’t get great weather there was still some
great scenery on the trip especially the narrow sections through the fiords.
The narrowest section was only 45 m or barely twice the width of the boat.
About 6pm on the second day we had to go
out to the open ocean to get pass a headland then across the bay of pain. This
section normally takes about 12 hours but in bad weather and heavy seas can be
a lot longer and apparently has taken more than 2 days on some trips. We got
relatively good weather but the ship still got quite a roll going for a while.
I think most people (including Dusk) felt a bit sick as everyone went to bed
early leaving me and a couple of others watching the movie in the lounge. I
felt fine but when I did go to bed was able to go to sleep because I kept
almost rolling out of my bunk.
Because of the long trip, idle hours and expensive
bar onboard most people had brought a stash of alcohol with them. We took a
couple of bottles of wine and a bottle of port. The first night was pretty
quiet (possibly because of knitting club) and with everyone feeling a bit sick
the second night everyone still had a lot of alcohol on the third day. So with
little else to do most people started drinking around lunch and by the evening
among other shinanigans there was some pretty questionable dancing going on.
We had a day and a half in Puerto Natales
getting sorted to go tramping (hiking for any non kiwis out there) in Torres
del Paine and bumping into everyone from the Navimag. We also enjoyed some good
food after the hospital style navimag food including some really good pizza and
craft beer which we dreamed about all the way around Torres del Paine.
Tramping in Torres del Paine was quite
different to the tramping we are used to back home;
Firstly it was a lot more expensive. Park
entrance US$30, bus $30, boat $22, shuttle $5, pay campsite $10pp (there are
free ones but with few facilities – some without even a long drop), dinner in
refugio $20 (we had one to see what it was like – but was rubbish), beer $5
(hard to resist after a long day hiking). So about US$200 for both of us, quite
costly compared to what is a cheap exercise in NZ.
The scenery was pretty amazing. Huge
white/grey granite towers rising straight up some topped with a layer of black
metamorphic (is that correct Dusk?) rock which made them especially cool. Our
favourite section of the track was the French valley side trip but we almost
missed this as we forgot to set the alarm and didn’t wake up till about 10 am,
resulting in a very rushed trip up and down the valley. On our last morning in the park we had
planned to get up early and walk up to the Torres view point and catch the
sunrise. We had heard rain at times
throughout the night but were quite surprised to find it lightly snowing when
we woke up. The cloud was coming in and
out when we got up to the view point (after a steep 45 min climb) but we did
catch quick glimpses of the Torres.
We weren’t impressed with the amount of
rubbish around the park, particularly around the Campo Italiano free
campsite. This campsite also did not
have an operating toilet at the time (it looked like they were building new
toilets) so there were bits of toilet paper lying around where the old toilets
used to be. The Chillian parks service don’t
seem to be doing much with all the money they are making from the entrance
fees. We never saw any park rangers walking
around the parks. This is in contrast with the Argentinian park service in Los
Glaciers national park, we saw several rangers on the trail, one even stopped
and talked to us in English making sure we knew the rules about taking rubbish out,
burying toilet waste etc. In saying this
there are a lot of lazy tourists out there. At each refugio there were bins to
get rid of your rubbish, which meant that you would only have to carry rubbish
for a day at most , instead people were just leaving bags or rubbish behind in
the cooking shelter. I think some education and enforcement of the rules is
required by the parks service.
There was a lot of ill prepared people on
the trail, walking in jeans and with multiple items (including sleeping bags)
hanging off their packs. We had really
good weather on the trail, to our surprise....we were expecting at least one
day of rain and the infamous Patagonian wind, lucky for the ill prepared
tourists. I actually almost wished for a bit of rain to see how they coped.
Dogs in South America have provided
constant entertainment for us and have been an added bonus on the trip. Just
about every town has them roaming the streets. Some are strays but others are
pets that people seem to be happy to let wander during the day. They are very
street wise, in the crazy streets of Peru and Bolivia they were much better at
crossing the road than we were. They are also mostly very mellow and friendly –
the only ones that are aggressive are either those that are tied up or
obviously protecting something like property or livestock. However they don’t
seem to like bicycles which just about always get chased but most of the time
they just lie around sleeping (normally in the middle of the street).
For some reason they also like to follow
the gringos (tourists) around. A few times
when we’ve been strolling around town we’ve had a pack of dogs going along with
us. Kind of like canine tour guides. The
only way to get rid of them is to offload them on other tourists or go into a
cafe and hope they are gone when you come out.
