that's it

No more posts for this blog - at least for a while.

All photos have been sorted (see box with links to the left),
all video clips have been assembled (see below),
all lyrics have been typed (see below below).

Adios, Good Bye, Auf Wiedersehen.

Bettina and Sigi

here's the proof

reluctant survivor

apologetic connoisseur

video clip: Swiss sailors at the Horn

Video and text from  http://www.sailinganarchy.com/index_page1.php (please visit the original), here is the copy:

"Bravo to Swiss sailor/adventurer Yvan Bourgnon and crew Sebastien Roubine on their successful rounding of Cape Horn aboard their modified Nacra 20 “Terresen’s Cape Horn Challenge”, and here’s some info from the skipper’s mouth, translated from an AFP piece.
"It's the hardest thing I've done,” Bourgnon said the day after his arrival in Ushuaia (Argentina) after rounding the Horn. The Swiss sailor acknowledged that it took "a good dose of insanity" to make the attempt. "All the dangers were present," said Bourgnon, though he stressed that the expedition was “very well prepared to minimize the risks." The sailor and his Swiss teammate Sebastien Roubinet Ushuaia landed Thursday at 8:45 p.m., 60 hours and 30 minutes after pushing off on their Nacra F-20, a sports catamaran designed to sail into sheltered waters. “
The two men lived in their dry suits for just under three days, sleeping in snatches of a few minutes on a trampoline drowned under the spray. "It was exceptionally hostile,” he recounted in a telephone interview with AFP. “At the end of the Beagle Channel, entering the Pacific, we sailed with hundreds of whales. It was magical! " “The hardest time was the 12 hours of running in the Pacific,” he said. “The sea was rotten. We risked being ejected at any time. We clung, concentrated to avoid capsizing. We tried to slow the boat ... "
After Cape Horn, the wind increased to 50 knots, and Bourgnon “started to overtake the waves – it was surreal,” he said. “We had several near-death experiences, doing everything we could to slow the boat, but still sailing 15 knots. For an hour and a half, we spoke nothing. We knew we could count only on ourselves in a sea where you can measure life in two hours.” After passing Cape Horn, Bourgnon and Roubine rested for a few hours in a sheltered bay. “ We huddled against each other, sheltered under the collapsed canopy." ... "

back home

We are back home and hence this blog ends.

The house to the left does not quite resemble our current home, however, you never know where renovations might lead us.

return by plane

the good old 767 from Santiago to Dallas

after check-in line-up wait-up
a US security check, and another security check (somebody got paranoia?)
breathe-out squeeze-in breathe-in hold-breath
eat-up swallow-down line-up use-washroom
breathe-out squeeze-in breathe-in hold-breath
land in Dallas - aaahhh

and then 757 from Dallas to Vancouver

line-up wait-up
another security check, (somebody got paranoia!)
breathe-out squeeze-in breathe-in hold-breath-longer
eat-up swallow-down line-up use-washroom
breathe-out squeeze-in breathe-in hold-breath-longer
land in  Vancouver - aaahhh


luggage allowance 23 kg per person in one bag, in two bags US30 extra;
check-in time 2-3 hours prior to departure;
preparation of travel and hotels by Lillian from Travelcuts.

Thursday and Friday

Thursday, Jan.12: Last full day in Santiago. We have booked the aforementioned 3 hour walking tour through the inner city area with an English speaking tour guide. A hotel taxi took us to the Mercado Central where we met with Felipe, a young tourism student who gave it his all to explain history and politics of Chile to us while guiding us through the lunch hour crowds of the city. We saw all the historic government buildings, many churches, parks, the university with protesting students singing socialistic songs in front of it, gypsies, the old and modern parts of Santiago, many statues of formidable warriors and leaders and remembrance stones of killed soldiers and anti-government rebels in the pavement. It was very mind boggling and exceedingly hot...

After we bade Felipe farewell we went for a late lunch in the “Calle de London” and then got 2 taxis. The Foos went to the hotel to meet their friend Michelle while Sigi and I drove back to the “Patio Bella Vista” for some copper jewellery and a nice big cool Chilean beer. After that it was the pool for us to relax and cool down.

Friday, Jan. 13th: The hotel granted us an extended stay till 2 pm when we had to leave for the airport. A very comfortable hotel taxi van took us to the airport where we had to kill time for about 4 hours before we were allowed to check in our luggage. The line-up at American Airlines was huge, and they had only 2 counters open. The Foos who traveled with Air Canada were through very fast and had to wait for us. After security checks we decided to have one last dinner together before they left for Toronto an hour and a half before us.

Thus our very impressive adventurous trip came to an end and we arrived almost on time to snow and ice in Vancouver. What a difference to 33 degree hot Santiago. A bit of a shock to the system…

Santiago from ...

... San Christobal

foreground: Santiago city

background: Andes

more background: more Andes





Ricardo: Man, it is hot in Chile, too. We are still trying not to look like tourists.

Sigi had to get up at 7 this morning in order to be ready for his 2nd presentation. I slept in and met the Foos for breakfast at 9.30. Our plan was to go up to the San Christobal statue, take a taxi to the funicular first and then go up the mountain. It turned out to be good timing because we were early before the masses and the big heat. The funicular was a more modern affair than the one in Valparaiso, having at least 4 or 5 cars like a train instead of only one wooden cart. Also, there were 2 funiculars running, one up the hill the other down. They met at one short stretch of double rails in the middle to pass each other. Up on the mountain we checked out the big statue and many more smaller ones, the church and souvenir shops. We had a super view of the city of Santiago as well as the Andes mountains in the background, some palm trees and exotic flowers in the foreground. Many pictures later we descended the hill by ‘ascensor’ again and walked right down to the barrio of “Bella Vista” where all the students of the “Universidad San Sebastian” hang out as well as tourists. We took lunch in a great restaurant at the “Patio Bella Vista” and went on to the shopping district of the Lapis Lazuli which is only found in Chile and Afghanistan. Shirley and Frank bought a few pieces for her and the kids, I still have my eye on a very nice set of a copper necklace and earrings adorned with a lapis stone. Maybe tomorrow…???!!! (She got that set and more ... - Sigi)

It was getting unbearably hot around 3:30 p.m., and we hailed a taxi that took us straight back to the hotel, in typical Chilean neck breaking manner, weaving in and out of traffic as if the devil was on our tail….

At the hotel I found my hubby taking a siesta after his presentation waiting for us to return.

Dinner was – again – on Sigi’s wish, at the Argentinian Beef House, and we had a great time enjoying steaks, wine and pisco sours…

Tomorrow we will be going on a 3 hour guided walking tour through Santiago, much to the chagrin of Sigi who is fearful of the heat and getting blisters. He was, however, overruled by the majority at the dinner table, yeah!

-- and I, Sigi, was right: got blisters, can hardly walk any more, am completely dehydrated, speak slowly in a slurring voice, etc. --- if the gods would have wanted me to walk large distances they would have given me wheels ...

creepy crawlers from ...

the Pacific

first the show

then the action

to the bitter end


Sigi is ‘off’ today, and we all decided to take a scenic city tour on a “Touristik Bus” that drives around the most interesting sightseeing points all day long. It is a so-called hop on, hop off bus where you can either go around the same tour all day long or just once to get an impression and then explore points of interest. We did just that – had a go-around once and then got off the bus at the “Mercado Central” to sniff some local air. First we went for lunch in the market, eating the famous congria eel soup plus a giant southern Pacific crab (see picture). What a feast. We needed to walk off the calories and then checked out the rest of the market, went around the area outside and the market across the street with many vendors of veggies, fruit, clothes and gadgets. Frank and Sigi got their shoes shined in one of the pedestrian zones, and the shoe shine guy asked Sigi if he was Frank’s “papa”, since he paid the bill…Needless to say the Foos still crack up about this question. Sigi – NOT!!!

We caught the almost last bus at 5 back to the hotel and took a cooling swim in the hotel pool before a short siesta. Went to dinner at the “Argentinian Beef House” at 8, had a pisco sour and very nice Chilean wine along with our excellent steaks.

Santiago

Santiago: On Sunday we had to leave Valparaiso for Santiago and hired a taxi van to take us there. Since the Foos had tons of luggage a normal taxi wouldn’t have cut it so a Mercedes Sprinter showed up at 1.30 and drove us the two and a half hours to Santiago. Along vineyards we went (now we can picture them when drinking Chilean wine at home), through dry desert like areas and up into the Andes mountains towards the capital of Chile. What a difference compared to Valparaiso! We found a big modern clean city that reminded the Foos of Singapore. Our driver had a few problems finding the Hotel Intercontinental (no GPS here) which provided us with a little sightseeing tour of Santiago and a first impression.
The (conference) hotel is huge and impressive with marble and mirrors everywhere and staff galore. Our room is a very luxurious corner suite with 2 big corner windows on the 7th floor, well-appointed with couch and coffee table, flat screen TV and a big desk with very fast wireless internet connection. Even the bathroom blew us away – huge and marble, is all I can say…
Our first Santiago dinner was taken last night just around the corner from the hotel in one of many super restaurants. We chose one that specialized in Chilean seafood (sea bass in particular), and we were not disappointed! Good food and wine, funny waiters who tried to teach us Spanish and a singer and guitar player whom we offended by sending him away – unsung so to speak…. A little funny anecdote that Frank found offensive, but we cracked up about: One waiter compared Sigi’s Spanish to Tarzan’s English ("Yo Tarzan, tu Jane")!!! Har, har, har!!! Differences of culture and humour…
Sigi is presenting his first paper right now while I am typing this. I will explore the pool on the roof of the hotel in a few minutes and then find the Foos to go for lunch. BTW, it is hot enough here to turn on the A/C in the room, 29 degrees today, phew! Hasta la proxima amigos!

Here I am again. Pool is great, water temp just right, fountains for water massages and a big enough “piscina” for length swimming. The Foos and I met up in the lobby to find the Sushi restaurant across the street from the hotel which we had already spotted the night before. Went there, saw no other guests, place was too hot, so we left. Walked the same route around the corner that we had taken last night in hot pursuit of the other Japanese restaurant we had seen. Walked and walked, didn’t find it, went back and forth, couldn’t understand it until Shirley had the brainwave to realize we were on the wrong street. Sure enough, we hadn’t realized that the ‘avenida’ had a fork in it, and we took the wrong prong. At long last we did find the restaurant and had a good meal. Not as good though as in Vancouver – we are very spoiled!!! We also made another observation – as with dinner people here eat lunch late, not much before two o’clock in the afternoon. That explained the gaping spaces in many of the restaurants we saw on our unintended excursion. Now we know better and behave like real Chilenos – lunch after two, dinner after eight…
The Foos had contacted a friend of their kids who lives and works in Santiago. She called back, and we all met for dinner that same night at the “Argentinian Beef House” just 2 blocks from the hotel on foot. Michelle is a young woman who works here as a volunteer for the UN, and knows her way around as well as Spanish fluently. She had no trouble ordering our food, wine and pisco sours and chatting with the waiters who on their part, liked a young good looking woman. She told us about the intricacies of Chile and their inhabitants, how to get around, what to avoid and so on. After dinner we all walked Michelle home to her apartment that was just a few blocks from the restaurant. As a reward she invited us to her flat that she shares with her landlady and another lodger. Very interesting for us to see. Cluttered common rooms, with lots of religious décor as well as self-made art work of many different designs and pictures on the walls, tiny kitchen overflowing with too many gadgets, chairs and other clutter and a small bedroom and bath that Michelle has to share with other mates. The rent is $400 a month though, and one can’t beat the location – 10 minutes on foot to work, and well connected to the city center by SUBTE (Subterraneo-Underground). We were happy to having been given a glimpse into a typical Chilean apartment. Michelle has to write an exam on Thursday morning, but will meet with us again in the afternoon for sightseeing and dinner. We are already looking forward to meeting again with this lively intelligent young woman.

Valparaiso

no comment needed

you wish you were here - Shirley and Frank are!

listen! - can you hear the dogs?

Valparaiso: We arrived at 7 am in this port city and disembarked around 10. All went very smoothly, and we said our good byes to passengers and crew. A taxi took us via the scenic route up the hills to our boutique hotel Cirilo de Armstrong which overlooked the hillside houses, valley and the sea. Being too early to check into our room we left the luggage in the ‘oficina’ of the hotel and made our way to downtown on foot. Luckily we were located only blocks away from many restaurants, sightseeing spots and the famous ‘ascensor’, a German made funicular that takes tired visitors and shoppers from the waterfront up the hill. There are 4 of these old machines – they all have wooden box carts in which about 20 people can squeeze into standing up. Apparently the funicular was built in the early nineteen hundreds, and we just hoped that technical maintenance was kept up over the last century… We took a late lunch at a fantastic pizzeria in an atrium garden with real Chilean beer (‘Kross’) and cool ambiance. Hotel check-in done we enjoyed a long siesta in our great abode – on 2 stories with the most modern furnishings, Chilean art on the rough plaster walls and hand woven rugs, cushions and wall hangings as decoration of the minimalistic rooms.
Dinner was eaten in a typical Chilean ‘resto bar’ on recommendation of the hotel receptionist Elisabeth. The ‘Vinilo’ was just a hole in the wall with simple furnishings and a juke box from the fifties, a tiny kitchen that turned out fabulous authentic Chilean food. There we enjoyed our first ‘Pisco Sours’ as an aperitif and great Chilean red wine later with dinner.
Next morning at 11 am the Foos arrived at our hotel, ‘fresh off the boat’ (they had taken a month long Princess cruise from Europe to Chile), and we had a noisy great reunion with lots of talking and laughter that went on the rest of the day till after midnight. We had a lot to catch up on since we saw each other more than year ago in Vancouver.
A curious thing occurred to us in most of the South American cities and towns we had so far seen: There are a LOT of stray dogs. They seem to own the streets, nobody takes notice of them except to avoid the mounds of their ‘doo’ on every sidewalk. In Valparaiso the number of these dogs culminated into almost stratospheric numbers, and the worst thing was, they all started a barking concert that lasted from sundown to the wee hours of the morning. Every night!! You cannot be a light sleeper in Valparaiso, you have to move!

back on land

We are in Valparaiso! Internet connection is great and a gallery of photo shows is available. Please find links in the box to the top left.

At present we are in our hotel, waiting for our good friends Shirley and Frank to arrive. First order of business: Bettina talking to her sister by Skype.

land in sight

Day 16: Arrived in Puerto Montt at 8 am, anchored in the bay and awaited our call to depart by tender boats to shore. It was the same procedure as in Punta Arenas – coloured stickers, times etc. and as many people having signed up for various excursions on land too. This time we weren’t delayed by customs officials but by the sea!! There was a high swell and strong winds so that it was not safe for the tenders to take us ashore. So we waited – another 90 minutes before getting the all clear and go ahead. The 10 minute ride to the pier was still very wobbly, and I did not like it at all!!! Once on land we found our blue stickered bus #10 with guide Loreto and driver Oskar. Soon we made our way into the quite run down city of Puerto Montt (130000 pop) which is situated beautifully on hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean but has suffered economically. Most houses are in dire need of a coat of paint, there seems nothing flourishing, not even the gardens which were yellow and brown instead of the usual lush green because of a prolonged dry spell. After a sightseeing tour through Puerto Montt we drove inland towards the towns of Varas and Frutilla. Both are located on the biggest lake of Chile, Lake Llianquihue, surrounded by many snow-capped volcanoes of the Andes mountains. The most famous of them is the “Osorno”. Varas and Frutilla have a rich German history since many Germans immigrated to the area in the mid eighteen hundreds to make the dry undeveloped land arable. The Chilean government of the time sought out these German settlers and gave them each a parcel of land to plow. It took the Germans only about 10 years to develop the land and be able to raise their large families there. Today many hotels, cabanas, stores and restaurants still have German names, and in the famous café “Chocolate” in Frutilla you can buy real German “Kuchen” with Streusel on top…
Going back to the ship in early afternoon was a far smoother ride than the one in the morning. We ate lunch in the Lido and enjoyed a quiet afternoon in our cabin and walking the deck outside, taking many pictures of “volcano alley”. Dinner was superb again, and the nightly entertainment provided us with some great operatic music by the Italian composers sung by a tenor and soprano, accompanied by the HAL CATS and their great conductor and pianist Matthew. We enjoyed the music and a glass of wine after the show. At 11 pm we all congregated again in the showroom at sea to watch the “Indonesian Crew Show”. We were supposed to see this earlier during the cruise but it was cancelled then due to very stormy weather (think Cape Horn!!). Now we were dazzled by the various acts and costumes worn by the HAL staff who wanted to show off the traditions and customs of the Indonesian Islands. The theater was packed, and all had a GREAT time! Lots of fun and laughter!!!
Day 17: Our last full day at sea. We got the disembarkation instructions for tomorrow from Michael, the cruise director, after breakfast and are now all set to enjoy the last few hours on board. There will be a “Master Dinner” tonight (we can’t think of getting even better food than we had so far) and more entertainment. Unfortunately our suitcases will have to be packed tonight, and this is always the least fun part of any trip.
As of tomorrow morning we will be back on “terra firma” and later at our hotel where we hopefully are able to connect fast and easy via wireless internet to our blog and post these comments and many more pictures. See you then…

mixed feelings

glaciers and vulcanos

Amalia Glacier

Desolation Sound on the Rocks? – NOT -
but the Chilean Fjords

looming power observed from Puerto Montt

cruising along

New Year’s Eve party was a blast from the past! The showroom at sea on deck 7 was decorated with black and white balloons, 2 dance floors were polished (one on stage) and ready to be used, and the ship’s band “The HAL Cats” were playing live. Totally cool music very much to our liking from the fifties, sixties and seventies. Twist, rock’n roll, swing. Elvis, The Stones and many more of that era were on the programme. The audience including us LOVED it – the dance floors were packed, and we danced till the official countdown by the captain one minute to twelve. Free champagne was served beforehand by the lovely and hardworking staff (kudos to them!!!!) so that everyone could welcome 2012 with a glass in hand to toast it! After midnight the band played on, and the late night buffet was opened on 2 decks for the hungry (??) dancers to enjoy.
Day 13 (New Year’s Day): Sunday – we arrived at the southernmost town of Punta Arenas (100000 pop) which is wedged between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that are connected by the Strait of Magellan. It was WINDY, and according to our tour guide Marcela, it ALWAYS is. Usually between 50 and 85 km/h but quite often up to 135. That means – “put a stone in your jacket” (Marcela). We had signed up for a land tour to a Magellan Penguin Colony, and so did about 1000 other passengers… The logistics of getting so many people on the 20 or so buses lined up at the dock was daunting – the brass tried to handle this with various coloured stickers, according to language requirements and chosen time slots. All would have gone pretty well had the Chilean customs officers not thrown a wrench into the plan. They searched EVERYONE and their bags too before leaving the ship. ONE machine! No wonder we stood in line for almost one and a half hours, showroom first, then down 2 flights of stairs and around the corner. Somehow it was almost funny. We Canadians weren’t fazed much by this, being used to queuing up politely and then starting a party in the line-up with others around us… We finally made it to a bus, not ours, which was supposed to be the blue stickered number 9. That had left without us. So we went into the pink stickered number 10 which was just as well because of our lovely guide Marcela who entertained us during the hour long bus ride to the penguins with historical, geographical and biological facts of the area. We first drove on a very nice paved Autobahn - like highway towards Punta Arenas but soon turned left onto a “secondary street” (Marcela) that was unpaved , rocky and very dusty. Most roads in Chile are secondary (Marcela!). Our driver Angil (pronounced AnCHil) drove like a madman (he must be used to the conditions), passing other busses (8+9) that were too slow for his taste. Soon we approached Otway Sound (Sena Otway) at the Pacific and the penguin colony. We had exactly one hour to walk to the beach along a cordoned-off boardwalk, take pictures of the lovely birds and make our way back to the coffee shack and 3 women toilets to be shared by a few hundred ladies before departing again… Check out the penguin pics on the blog. More will follow when we have more internet time on land.
Day 14: A day at sea! Sailing through Chilean fjords in cloudy and foggy weather reminded us a lot of our west coast climate and geography (sans tall trees!). We were aiming for the famous Amalia Glacier at the end of the Sarmiento Canal, but the captain came on the loudspeaker to let us know that we might not be able to make it there because of unfavorable wind and current conditions. The final decision was to be made a few hours later. That left us with more blogging, eating, sleeping. Sigi had developed a bad cold with nasty loud and productive sneezing attacks that left him and me exhausted in our cabin. So I “manned” the camera when we did indeed arrive unscathed at the Amalia Glacier in late afternoon. What an impressive sight! The glacier had made its way from the mountain top right into the ocean, gleaming icy blue in the afternoon light being flanked on both sides by 2 smaller glaciers. Everyone was on an outside deck clicking away with a combined camera arsenal of about a million dollars…
Sigi was still feeling miserable, sneezing like an elephant and not allowed to join the public. Therefore I went to dinner alone, and he ordered room service.
Day 15: It was a dark and stormy night – again!! Wind force 9 on the Beaufort Scale and choppy waves interspersed with long rolling swell – rollercoaster once more. I took my “Relief Band” set on ‘5’ to the pulse of my wrist plus a seasickness pill, Sigi sneezed a lot, and so we spent the night… The morning was somewhat better, but not Sigi. For that reason we took breakfast in our cabin. Then Sigi went to the doctor’s office down on deck 4. The lovely nurse checked him – Sigi – over and diagnosed allergies instead of a cold. Gave him “Benadryl” and sent him back to me. He was getting better after just one tablet, so it must have been the correct diagnosis. Sigi was even able to eat some lunch up on the Lido Deck. Phew!!! Now we just have to pinpoint the source of the allergic reaction (maybe too much food in general????? – totally inappropriate judgement of the situation (comment by Sigi)). In any case, we are approaching Puerto Montt, our next stop, sailing again in lovely calm fjord waters with grand vistas. Tonight is another festive dinner that requires us to adhere to the “formal dress code”. Sigi will come with me for dinner, he is just now sleeping off the drowsy making effects of the antihistamine. Later tonight there will be a lady saxophonist performing in the showroom at sea which is supposed to be spectacular. We are looking forward to this.
Our dinner was as usual – A plus with a gold sticker. The lady saxophonist from Germany Claudia Tesolini performed a great variety of music with 3 different sized saxophones for us. Delightful and very professional. She was accompanied by the HAL Cats band, and the team made for a memorable evening of entertainment.

after the storm

both boats after return from Antarctica, having mastered winds up to 80 kts (we were on the bigger one …)

note: the sailboat to the left is a sloop and different from the one below … the boat to the right is the one we are on …

sailing in the Antarctic?

possible: yes
desirable: no
type: adventure
We met this two-master close to Paradise Bay. At that time it really looked tempting, however, after having returned to the South American continent, past Cape Horn, experienced winds of strength 11 on the Beaufort scale, we can say without hesitation: No, thank you! Pacific Northwest and Salish Sea – we love you!
Ushuaia and Punta Arenas serve as recovery or base station for those sailboats. We saw a number of them anchored in the harbour, similar seriously outfitted as the boats we found two years ago in Resolute during our voyage on a Russian Icebreaker through the Northwest Passage. Do people do this for fun?

meeting Happy Feet

from the man of few words:

Magellanian penguins on the way to a personal meeting with Bettina & Sigi: Hola, Jose and Josephine!

Location: Patagonia, Strait of Magellan, coast line close to Punta Arenas

Happy New Year

Prost!

Haste mal Zeit?