Sailing Past the Chilean Fjords with Three Bikers from the Bronx

Who would've thought I'd be bunking with bikers from the Bronx for three nights? I'd booked a shared four-berth cabin for the four-day boat trip from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales, where most travelers begin their visit to Chilean Patagonia.

It'd been a cause of slight anxiety for a while: who would I end up bunking with through the barren glacial narrows of Chile???

When I unlocked the door to my cabin I found three steely-faced Latinos unpacking, who didn't seem too glad to have me as their roommate either. Turns out they were doing a motorcycle trip circling South America, beginning in Colombia and ending in Rio. They'd bought their bikes in the States, had them shipped to Colombia from Miami and already have buyers (at 3x their original cost) for them in Rio before they fly back home.

That said, the trip was very loose and mellow: the anti-cruise, without frills and with a palpable feeling of adventure. The vessel, the Evalengelista, was a cargo/passenger freighter which mainly ferries supplies and other industrial equipment to Patagonia. There is almost no other way to send supplies to except through this shipping lane (other alternatives: by plane or drive into Argentina and then back again into Chile).

Fellow travelers came prepared with much boxed wine, rum, books,and playing cards/board games for those long days and nights on the water. Because there were only thirty passengers (ship capacity: 200), the vibe was quiet, friendly and quick camaraderie was forged (especially after a few bottles of wine/pisco sour).

The food was surprisingly good - freshly prepared simple, but tasty, dishes (baked salmon, pot roast, hake... all the seafood seemingly fresh) and seconds were ungrudgingly given when requested (obviously, I did this many times). Believe it or not, these were some of the best meals I've had in Chile. (But then again, I didn't want to have unnecessarily expensive meals by myself. When alone, I'd rather have street food or something more expedient.)

The weather was unpredictable and became wilder and windier as we headed deeper into Patagonia. Sunny one minute, blustery the next moment, the landscapes just as dramatic. Small glaciers peeked through misty mountain tops. I can only imagine what it must be like farther south.

However, if this is what it's going to be like to camp and hike through Torres del Paine National Park I might have to consider other options!

Highlights: just lazily cruising past the fjords the entire day, the scenery slowly rolling past the windows; nights playing poker with other travelers; doing nothing active but seeing at a lot; stunned by the scenery and the dramatic Patagonian weather.

Another highlight: after dinner a distinguished film director (whom I'd been spying throughout the trip; he just looked very different from all the other travelers, plus he had a couple of guys with him handling film equipment, etc., while his was the eye behind the viewfinder) invited the travelers to a screening of a documentary of his which had been screened at Cannes and which I'd seen in SF. I nervously approached him and told him I'd actually seen it and that I'd liked it very much. He asked if I could introduce it at the screening. (I politely declined; I said I didn't have the words to appropriately do the task justice. I was also too starstruck. Plus, a few glasses of wine already consumed would've guaranteed botching the effort.)

Other notables: saw some dolphins & seals, sailed past a Greek ship stranded (1968) in the middle of a pass and which now serves as a lighthouse.

Arriving into Puerto Natales was fraught with excitement. The ship approached port tilted because of the wind and everyone went on the bow to "fly". Also, we waited for two hours a few hundred feet away from the pier - we couldn't dock immediately because of the current/s.

And the bikers? We became poker buddies.

Chilean Patagonia/Lake Region: Bavarian Wonderland, Bourdain-Approved Meal & Horse Jerky

Puerto Montt, Chile: foggy & gritty port city with barking dogs, scallop-shingled houses with chimneys filling the air with the smell of burning wood. It's hard to believe I was just in a dusty town in the high desert. That's what's amazing about Chile: it has amazingly varied landscapes because it stretches halfway South America down to the frozen tip of the continent.

Also visited the nearby more picturesque Germanic villages of Puerto Varas & Fruitillar.

Bottom line: Bavaria by the bay, quaint affluent Teutonic villages by the lake which borders Argentina, populated by descendants of mid-19c German settlers in a place which reminded them of home. I couldn't wrap my head around how German the place was. Even the dogs have blue eyes. Maybe such places no longer even exist in Germany.

Tonight we actually sail through the Patagonian fjords for four days. Thirty travelers on a transport ferry which can accommodate two-hundred.

Adios San Pedro de Atacama: Excursions, Empanadas & Dogs

Five days in San Pedro de Atacama are over. Before coming, I was worried that spending so much time in a town of 2000 would leave me bored and restless. Instead, I was anything but. There were things (ok, tours) to do everyday, even back-to-back tours for those with deep pockets and a lot of energy.

On my first day, I did the requisite Valley of the Moon tour, basically a survey of the spectacular lunar landscapes not too far from town. This is also the most popular tour so different types of vehicles carrying various types of visitors (including an older Brazilian lady bearing an umbrella and an iPad to take photos on top of a sand dune) were on the same trail. Verdict: go with a small company, even if it's not the best (and certainly the most expensive) and you'll likely meet more independent travelers.

I took a chance with an agency run by a very beautiful artsy lady (straight of the Mission) with really cool hair, spoke perfect American-accented (and idiomatic) English, wore tastefully discreet tattoos, and who kept on calling me "sweetie". To top it off, she seemed to have a great nose job and the company's name was "Maxim Experience" (vs. Andino this-or-that, Blah-Desert-Expeditions, etc.). In other words, she stood out. Not exactly the best criteria for making a choice but I took my chances and didn't regret it.

San Pedro is straight out of a spaghetti western: narrow dusty roads, cantinas, huge friendly (but, yes, dusty) dogs (think Golden Retrievers, St. Bernards...) that roam freely, blocks of adobe buildings, wooden street lamps, the odd gaucho on a horse. I was half-expecting Clint Eastwood to burst out of a cantina. But since this is also a very touristy town, there's a North Face store, artisanal ice cream (ex: violet flavor), trendy restaurants w sophisticated menus that would fit right in Santiago. Needless to say, I opted for the freshly-baked empanadas from the small mom-y-pop grocery shops for $2.50 each.

The Atacama desert is also the best (the highest & driest) place on the planet to observe "outer space" and is home to the ALMA Project (http://www.almaobservatory.org/), the world's biggest astronomical project funded by NASA, Japan, etc. to listen to things that happen beyond planet Earth. The Europeans have their own station.

Naturally, I now also needed to look up - at night. I went on a star gazing tour with a resident French astronomer who had 10 hi-tech telescopes trained on different things out in space. Saw distant stars/celestial bodies and even - the best - Saturn and its rings! He also used a laser light to point out constellations, stars, the Milky Way (very visible to the naked eye) in the sky.

His explanations of scientific phenomena were simple yet profound. It was amazing. It was the kind of experience I wish I had when I was a kid. Brilliant.

Other highlights: having as a view from my hostel a volcano range with snow-capped peaks ringed with strange cloud formations, eating llama on a stick, chewing on freshly-fried empanadas, swimming and floating in a salt lagoon, hanging out at the best/most chill hostel having pisco sours, enjoying the very cool travelers' vibe in San Pedro.

Now, off to coast by the Chilean fjords in Patagonia.

Bolivia: Salt Desert Rave, Pink Flamingoes, SUV Caravan

Bolivia seems to be the place to visit amongst more adventurous travelers to South America - It's dirt cheap, chockfull of natural wonders and edgy with lots of surprises (it's best not to stick to a tight schedule).

It's where Fidel Castro grassroots populism meets the altiplano.

Crossing into Bolivia was quite the contrast from leaving the frontier town of San Pedro, Chile where I'd already spent two days (but going back there from Bolivia so more on that later). The Bolivian customs house was a mudshack from which travelers spilled out into the dusty space outside.

After clearing Bolivian customs travelers climb into an armada of SUVs with Bolivian plates - maybe 15 or so Toyota Land Cruisers.

In the four days of crisscrossing the high altitude plains in Southern Bolivia we saw multicolored lagoons populated with hundreds of pink flamingoes, (against the backdrop of the snow-capped Andes), a cool train cemetery (relics from a thriving 19c saltpeter mining industry) and goofed around for photos in an otherworldly 12,000 sq. km. salt desert where we found a mini-Burning Man party (complete with techno DJ, miles of dreadlocks, psychedelic-colored magic buses/campers) in full swing at high noon.

Accommodations were at very spartan refugios (or more aptly, "shelters"... four walls, a roof and a bed) sometimes with no showers. One night, temperatures reached minus 6C/21F at an altitude of about 4200 mts. Everyone slept in every piece of clothing packed, complained of nausea and throbbing headaches throughout the night.

Needless to say, there wasn't much conversation the next day.

Roads ranged from poor (certainly not paved) to non-existent: the drivers knew which potholes to clear and which flooded ponds to cross, often going at top speed on sandy roads which offer little or no traction. Mishaps: a blown out tire, a busted tail light from overtaking and cutting off another jeep on a dirt road at 5am.

I've also never been to a country where petty paperwork was so important. Lose a fragile park entry stub and pay double (already $30 upon entering) when you leave. There are constant checkpoints and vehicle rosters to be cleared. (Took a photo of a sentry guard sitting inside a container-cum-office. Photo attached. Before I forget, apologies for not labeling the photos. I'm using a very rudimentary iPhone app which doesn't allow it - much to my frustration. But hopefully you'll be able to at least get a feel for the experiences and guess what they're about. I'm now sitting in a doorknob-less room in a refugio, but at least there's a light bulb on and I don't have to share anything with anyone - at least for tonight.)

Food? All prepared at the refugios -simple but healthful and tasty vegetable soups, llama chops (they claimed it was beef but we saw not a single cow in almost 500 kms. whereas llamas are as common as chickens are in a Tyson poultry processing plant) and the creamiest mashed potatoes I've had anywhere. One Brit even wondered if it was packaged because it was so creamy.

The companeros: the usual Eurozone mix with the odd Asian or two (myself included). Got along best with the Latins - Italians & Spaniards. Weirdest question so far (from a Brit): "It must be hot where you come from?" I did not "go there".