LAST CHANCE: CHILEAN FJORDS & PATAGONIAN FRONTIERS

Welcome to Santiago, Chile’s elegant, energetic capital framed by the snow-capped Andes to the east.
Check in to your hotel and spend the evening in the Lastarria or Barrio Italia neighbourhoods, two of the finest urban eating and drinking districts in South America. The Mercado Central’s seafood is extraordinary, and the views back toward the Andes from the Cerro San Cristóbal hill at sunset are the finest introduction to Chilean geography possible. Tomorrow, Silver Cloud awaits at the world’s southernmost town.

Puerto Williams, population 2,500, is the southernmost town in the world, and boarding Silver Cloud here is one of the most atmospheric embarkations in expedition cruising.
The town sits on Navarino Island in the Beagle Channel, the same waterway that carried Darwin aboard the HMS Beagle in 1833. The Martin Gusinde Anthropological Museum preserves the culture and history of the Yaghan people, who inhabited this southernmost corner of the inhabitable world for thousands of years before European contact — their survival skills in a climate that regularly drops below freezing remain one of the most extraordinary stories in human history. The jagged peaks of the Dientes de Navarino rise directly behind the town, and the Beagle Channel stretches west toward the Pacific. Board Silver Cloud this afternoon as the Southern Ocean begins.

Ushuaia is the self-proclaimed “End of the World” and it earns the title: there is nothing between here and Antarctica but open ocean.
The Beagle Channel separates this Argentine city from Chilean Navarino Island, and the Martial Mountains rise steeply behind the town as if closing off the continent. Tierra del Fuego National Park, Argentina’s land of fire, offers some of the most dramatic hiking in South America with snow-covered peaks, glaciers and gaping fjords home to penguins, guanacos and Andean condors. The king crab in Ushuaia is extraordinary — hauled fresh from the Beagle Channel, it is one of the great seafood experiences in South America and the right last meal before the expedition deepens into the fjords.

Punta Arenas is where Patagonia and the Strait of Magellan meet, and the bronze statue of Ferdinand Magellan in the central plaza — whose toe locals rub for luck and whose feet explorers traditionally photograph — sets the tone perfectly.
The city’s late 19th-century mansions reflect the extraordinary wealth generated by Patagonian sheep farming when this was one of the most commercially important ports in the southern hemisphere. Isla Magdalena, declared a Chilean Natural Monument in 1982, is home to a colony of 150,000 Magellanic penguins who return each October to raise their young in burrows along the shore. Your expedition team will guide you through the colony at respectful distances, and watching pairs of penguins perform their seasonal changeover — fishing penguins returning to relieve their nesting mate — is one of the most charming wildlife experiences in South America.

A day at sea in the Strait of Magellan as Silver Cloud begins her turn northward into the Chilean fjord system.
The strait, navigated by Magellan in 1520 on the first circumnavigation of the globe, connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through a passage so complex and wind-scoured that it defeated most subsequent navigators. Your expedition team lecture on the geology and ecology of the Patagonian ice fields is essential preparation for the glaciers ahead. The Pio XI Glacier is just days away.

The Chilean Fjords are one of the least visited and most extraordinary wilderness landscapes on earth, and a day spent sailing through them changes the scale at which you perceive the world.
Mountains rise directly from the water on both sides, their upper slopes vanishing into low cloud. Waterfalls appear without warning on sheer rock faces. Seals patrol the dark water alongside the ship and Peale’s dolphins ride the bow wave through channels barely wider than Silver Cloud herself. The Zodiac fleet deploys for landings on shores where no road has ever reached and where the only sounds are wind, water and bird call. This is expedition cruising at its most elemental.

The Pio XI Glacier is the largest glacier in South America and one of the few advancing glaciers in the world — approaching it by ship and by Zodiac is one of the defining experiences of this voyage.
Also known as the Brüggen Glacier, its calving front stretches 4.5 kilometres wide and stands 80 metres above the waterline at the terminus of the Eyre Fjord within Bernardo O’Higgins National Park. The ice field it flows from — the Southern Patagonian Ice Field — is the world’s largest temperate ice mass outside of Antarctica and Greenland. Safe distances are maintained as the glacier calves without warning, sending towers of blue ice crashing into the fjord below. The forested shore shows Nothofagus trees typical of the Magellanic rain forest, and the rare and endangered South Andean deer (huemul) has been sighted in these valleys. Chilean and Peale’s dolphins, southern river otters, South American sea lions and a spectacular range of seabirds including Imperial Shags, Kelp Geese and Fuegian Steamer Ducks complete one of the finest wildlife assemblages in the southern hemisphere.

The English Narrows are one of the most dramatic passages in the Chilean fjord system, a channel so tight that Silver Cloud navigates at reduced speed with the rock walls close enough to touch from the deck.
The passage takes its name from the British naval vessels that charted it in the 19th century. The temperate rainforest closes in on both sides, waterfalls appear without warning and the silence, broken only by the ship’s engines and the call of Magellanic woodpeckers, is total. This is the kind of passage that puts all other experiences of the Chilean fjords into context.

Tortel is one of the most unusual towns in South America: a community of 531 people with no roads, only four and a half miles of cypress boardwalks connecting its houses, piers and public spaces above the water and through the forest.
Declared a Picturesque Zone of National Heritage by the Chilean government in 2001, Tortel exists in a state of beautiful isolation at the mouth of the Baker River, Chile’s largest river by volume. The town’s history stretches back to the nomadic Kawesqar people who inhabited this coastline from as early as 1520. Walking its boardwalks above the tidal flats, with the temperate rainforest pressing in on every side and no sound of traffic anywhere, is one of the most quietly extraordinary experiences on this voyage.

A second full day of fjord navigation as Silver Cloud works her way north through the Patagonian channels toward Puerto Cisnes and Puerto Montt.
The landscape changes as the expedition moves north: the glaciers give way to forested islands, the channels widen and the wildlife shifts to black-necked swans, South American sea lions hauled out on isolated rocks and Andean condors riding the thermals above the clifftops. The Zodiac fleet continues to deploy for shore landings throughout the day. Puerto Cisnes, one of the most remote fishing communities in Chile, may be reached today — a village where the catch comes in daily and the smoked salmon is among the finest in the country.

Puerto Cisnes sits at the mouth of the Cisnes River on the northern edge of the Chilean fjords, and Silver Cloud is almost certainly the largest vessel ever to call here.
The town of around 2,000 people subsists on salmon farming and commercial fishing and represents a very different side of Chilean Patagonia from the wilderness of the previous days. The wooden houses along the waterfront, the fish-smoking sheds and the schoolchildren who come down to watch the ship anchor are all part of an authentic community encounter that expedition cruising specifically seeks out. The transition from the southern ice fields to the northern lake district is visible in the landscape here — the Patagonian steppe begins to reassert itself above the treeline.

Puerto Montt marks the northern boundary of the fjord system and the transition into the Chilean Lake District, one of the most beautiful landscapes in South America.
The city has been shaped by German immigration since 1852 and the legacy is visible in the architecture, the bakeries and the cheese-making traditions of the surrounding countryside. The small fishing port of Angelmo, just minutes from the pier, is lined with stalls selling regional handicrafts, dried seafood and smoked salmon alongside some of the finest empanadas on the Chilean coast. The volcanoes of the Lake District rise to the north and east — Osorno, with its perfectly symmetrical cone, is visible on clear days from the harbour.

Valparaiso is one of the great port cities of South America and one of the most visually exhilarating disembarkation points in the world, its forty-two hills covered in colourful houses, street art and century-old funicular railways tumbling toward the Pacific.
Founded in 1536 by Spanish conquistador Juan de Saavedra, the city has survived rain, wind, fire and earthquake to emerge as Chile’s most bohemian and culturally vital city. Pablo Neruda’s extraordinary ship-shaped house La Sebastiana, now a museum, captures the city’s artistic soul perfectly. Disembark Silver Cloud at 9am and transfer to your Santiago hotel for three final nights in Chile.

Today’s included winery tour takes you to Concha y Toro, Chile’s most famous winery and one of the most visited in the world, located in the Maipo Valley an hour south of Santiago.
Founded in 1883 by Don Melchor de Concha y Toro and still family-connected today, the estate’s historic cellars, beautiful gardens and the legendary Casillero del Diablo cellar are all part of the guided visit. The tasting of the estate’s premium range, including wines from the Don Melchor and Almaviva labels, is an exceptional introduction to Chilean viticulture at its finest. Hotel pick-up and drop-off are included. The remainder of the day is free to explore Santiago.

Your Chilean Fjords and Patagonian Frontiers journey draws to a close today with a private transfer to Santiago International Airport.
From the world’s southernmost town to Patagonian glaciers, from 150,000 penguins on Isla Magdalena to the bohemian rooftops of Valparaiso and three final nights in one of South America’s great capitals — this has been a voyage of genuine scale and beauty. Ask your Cruiseabout specialist about extending your Santiago stay if there is any reason to delay the flight home.

Your holiday comes to an end today. Interested in extending you stay? Ask us about our amazing range of packages available or speak with a Cruise Travel Advisor who will be able to customise your holiday with you.