Nearly ten years ago Cathy and I holidayed in Venezuela and thus, for the first time, set foot in South America. That seemed to complete our tally of continents visited. There was still one we hadn’t been to, Antarctica, but that seemed way beyond our means. Since then, however, tours to Antarctica have become more affordable. We decided last year to go for it.
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| Casa Rosada |
The Company has been expanding more and more into tourism and now offers a cruise to Antarctica and the Chilean Fjords. This might at first sight seem a rather offbeat choice. However, it makes a good deal of sense for its vessels to make their way to the other side of the world, when it is summer down there but winter in Norway. Moreover, Norway has close ties with Antarctica: it is one of the countries which maintain a territorial claim to the White Continent and it was of course a Norwegian who first reached the South Pole. Geographical shape gives it something in common with Chile: both countries are unusually long and thin and have coastlines that are inundated with numerous fjords.
This trip was to be a wonderful experience. The only really negative aspect was the flight. Travelling out to Buenos Aires and back from Santiago de Chile, changing both times in Madrid, we were in the hands of Iberia and its po-faced staff. Quite the worst airline we have travelled with. In my recent article about a weekend in Poland, I remarked that the old Communist era airlines had had very poor reputations. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if even these were an improvement on Iberia! The passenger must always remember his place when flying on this airline: it is the convenience of the staff that matters above all.
Even Iberia could do nothing to spoil our landing in Buenos Aires, one of the most spectacular we have had anywhere. We descended over the River Plate from the Uruguayan side, and then over the city itself to the airport on its far side. The transfer to our downtown hotel included an orientation tour which showed us many of the main sights, among them the Presidential Palace, from where Eva Peron, and some few decades later Madonna, harangued the crowds. Somewhat unnecessarily our guide translated this for us as Pink Palace: thanks to Tim Rice’s lyrics, we too know it as the Casa Rosada. Another unnecessary translation was Fireland for Tierra del Fuego!
Malvinas for Falklands was not however translated for us, at least in Buenos Aires. A memorial stands close to our hotel, depicting a map of the islands. The English visitor is not in any way made to feel uncomfortable about the Falklands and can hardly object to ordinary soldiers who lost their lives being commemorated. In contrast to Britain’s Task Force, these were conscripts forced to fight for a dictatorship. An outcome of the Falklands War was that democracy was restored in Argentina. The next day, in Tierra del Fuego, a different guide did translate Malvinas for us: “We are not allowed to say ‘Falklands’ but I am the only Argentinean on this bus and, myself, I couldn’t care less.” The driver was Chilean so certainly wouldn’t have minded! I had not realized that the Spanish variant is in fact derived from St Malo, in Brittany.
We had just one afternoon to explore Buenos Aires, as we were flying to Ushuaia the next morning. We had an excellent lunch in a steakhouse, or parillo – Argentina is a meat eater’s paradise. We then went for a walk along Florida, the long pedestrianized shopping street, which eventually brought us back to the Casa Rosada. Buenos Aires is a sophisticated city with far more of a European feel than other Latin American cities we had visited (I would say the same of Santiago). Argentinians rather like to think of their country as a detached part of Europe and referring to them as part of the “Third World” definitely doesn’t go down well. Indeed, former President Menem took the country out of the Non-Aligned Movement, as he did not think it belonged in what he saw as an organisation for Third World nations. Sadly, though, the economy has been in freefall of late and hard times were being experienced by ordinary people at the time of our visit. Before WW2 Argentina ranked among the wealthiest countries in the world, but there has been a seemingly inexorable decline since, despite the country’s enormous potential.
In the evening we went to a tango show. This took us to a different part of the city, to a stylish dance hall named from Carlos Gardel, who has an important place in the history of the tango. An excellent meal was included. Despite the huge number of people present, we were allowed a choice of five starters, five mains and five desserts all dealt with expertly by waiting staff who seemed in no way harassed. This was an enjoyable experience though I have not been really been converted into a tango afficionado.
Our flight the next day took us to Ushuaia in Terra del Fuego, the world’s southernmost city. The community of Puerto Williams, on the opposite side of the Beagle Channel in Chile, is actually further south but it is not a city so it’s Ushuaia that gets the kudos. We were straight away taken on a tour of the Tierra del Fuego National Park, an area of great natural beauty. In places we could see into Chile, the island of Tierra del Fuego being divided between the two countries. They have a long border yet there is not a great deal of love between them. They nearly went to war back in the seventies, over two fairly insignificant islands in the Beagle Channel, which we were to see on our way back from Antarctica. Only papal intervention saved the day. Later Chile was virtually the only Latin country to support Britain during the Falklands War. Tour guides on either side of the border enjoy having digs at the other country. We paused at the southernmost terminus of the Pan American Highway, which from here goes all the way to the north coast of Alaska, with just one break in the impassable Panamanian jungle. We had not quite made it to the opposite end but had travelled along a section of the Highway from the Yukon into Fairbanks. “It takes a while to go all the way along the road to Alaska,” deadpanned our guide, “So our company doesn’t do the trip very often.”
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| Ushuaia |
We had otherwise prepared fairly well for the Antarctic cold. I’d even invested in a pair of long johns, an article of clothing I’d always vowed I’d never wear. In the event we found we had, if anything, over-prepared. The temperature in Antarctica was in the low thirties Farenheit - Celsius sounds colder as it put us at around zero. The overtrousers were indeed useful, but I was pleased to find that ordinary underwear sufficed!
Our boat was the Nordnorge. We had twice been to Norway and in a way this felt like a third visit. It is a country that we greatly like: we had felt sure we would be in good hands on this trip and were not to be disappointed. Like their countrymen back home, the crew were friendly and efficient. If I were to quibble I would say that the onboard shop might usefully have stocked books about the places we were actually going to rather than about Norway, and the information folder in our cabin was fairly useless (“where to stay in Trondheim” and so on). But I was able to buy a tie with penguins on it! The boat was very well appointed with panoramic lounges in which one could sit back and soak up the scenery, though more often than not we went out on deck. There were not – thank heaven! - the trappings of larger cruise ships so no casino, no bingo, no karaoke. The meals were good, the food being wholesome if not for the most part adventurous, though reindeer was served on one occasion. Breakfasts and lunches were buffet style. Dinner was served by Filipino waiters with a good sense of fun. A perennial problem for me is that I don’t like fish or seafood. There was to be rather a lot of this but it was no problem to fix an alternative, this being just as well as, every other evening, there seemed to be some type of fish for the main course. We had a table right by a window. Sitting back and enjoying a good dinner, not to mention a glass or two of wine, as we sailed through glorious Antarctic scenery, has to count as one of life’s great experiences.
One very sad incident marred the end of our first night on board. One of our fellow travellers was a charming lady in her eighties who was very excited about the trip; she had wanted to go to Antarctica for some time but until now had not been able to find anyone to go with. On the flight to Ushuaia she had realized she didn’t have her passport. This didn’t matter on an internal flight and she assumed she’d inadvertently packed it. But on board she discovered that she didn’t have it. Albeit she had taken a copy of the main page, the authorities decreed that the boat could not set sail if she was on it. So this poor lady had to disembark, stay overnight in Ushuaia, then fly back to Buenos Aires. We learnt this when we saw her sitting by reception on her own – her friend, strangely it might be thought, had taken herself off to bed – naturally looking very dejected. We stayed with her until her taxi came to collect her.
The captain came and saw her off and was obviously very upset. He had done his best to resolve the situation but had been defeated by officialdom at its most callous. Surely in this one instance the rules could have been waived. It would be good to report that she was subsequently well looked after. But the British Embassy in Buenos Aires does not come particularly well out of the episode either. Furthermore, she had hoped that, armed with her new passport, she could rejoin the cruise in Punta Arenas, its first port of call in Chile. However she fell foul of the Chilean Government’s curious rule that anyone doing a coastal cruise through their waters must embark in a different country. The good news is that she has since been able to get the cost of her holiday back from her insurance company - and has rebooked the cruise to Antarctica and the Chilean Fjords!
From Ushuaia we sailed across Drake’s Passage, the shortest stretch of water separating Antarctica from any other continent. It is known both as Drake’s Lake and Drake’s Shake. On our outward journey it was the former, a remarkably calm journey. We were to have the opposite experience on the way back. Rough seas are in fact far more common. This is after all where one rounds Cape Horn. Our sailing time to Antarctica was around 36 hours. The programme of onboard lectures commenced. I recalled my days as a student: there are lecturers who can make a boring subject interesting – and those who can make an interesting subject boring. One of ours came into the latter category but mostly the lectures were of a high standard. We were particularly impressed with Ian. He had a good sense of fun. He enjoyed telling us of some of the reactions he receives when he tells people he works in Antarctica. For example: “Oh, do you have family living down there?”
One of Ian’s lectures dealt with the subject of tourism. He stressed that this is good for Antarctica. “He would say that, wouldn’t he,” one might be tempted to add, but this chap was very much his own man, in love with Antarctica and not at all someone to speak from another person’s script. Certainly if there is a responsible approach and care for the environment, as with our own tour company, there is no harm that can be done. On the contrary it was apparently the presence of tourists, appalled by all the discarded rubbish, which forced the various bases in Antarctica to clean up their act - literally. We all had to put on specially provided overshoes in order to go ashore, something of a chore especially if like me one is size 11.
Our first sighting of land caused great excitement, even though it was just icebergs we were seeing. These in fact are more beautiful than we’d imagined, not all-white but delicate hues of blue or green. Over the next four days we had a total of eight landings in Antarctica. We were very fortunate in that the weather was good so we were able to do all eight. Landings were by means of small zodiac vessels as unsurprisingly there are no piers or jetties. Mostly they were on offshore islands, starting in the South Shetland group. These of course still count as part of Antarctica, in the same way as Indonesia or Japan are still part of Asia - or the UK part of Europe. We were pleased, nevertheless, that there was a landing on the Antarctic Continent itself, at Paradise Bay on the Antarctic Peninsula. We really did feel we had earned the “been there, done that” T-shirt!
The scenery at our various landings varied enormously. I’d rather expected we would find snow everywhere but in only two instances was this the case: Paradise Bay and Peterman Island, the southernmost point on our voyage. (We had crossed the Arctic Circle on our way to the North Cape but did not quite make it to the Antarctic Circle.) Generally the terrain was rocky. Deception Island, a collapsed volcanic cone, reminded me of Tibet of all places: the grey, bleak and treeless surrounds seemed not dissimilar to the land traversed on our overland trip from Lhasa to Kathmandu. There are some lovely place names in Antarctica though I might not include among these Port Circumcision, our landing point on Peterman Island!
A common feature to all landings was the penguins. We saw thousands. They are delightful animals, at once dignified, in their white shirts and dee-jays, and somewhat comical as they waddle along. On Peterman Island they had made for themselves furrows through the thick snow – a sort of penguin motorway network. They are not really a land animal, spending most of the year in the sea but in summer they go onshore. There were three varieties: the Chinstrap, Adélie and Gentoo; the giant Emperor Penguins are to be found further south. On one occasion we saw a lone rockhopper penguin. The ship’s ornithologist was very excited as this type lives much further north, mainly in the Falklands, and is not supposed to be found in Antarctica. We, the ship’s passengers, were known as red penguins, due to the complimentary jackets we all had to wear when going ashore. As well as providing a much needed extra layer, their bright colour would have meant, in the extremely unlikely event of someone missing the last zodiac back, that they would easily have been spotted by the ship’s vigilant crew, who checked us all back in as we reboarded. Also seen in Antarctica: whales, dolphins, seals and albatross.
The first of our landings was at the Polish base on King George Island, one of many bases maintained by various countries. The Poles have the reputation of being the friendliest and the group ahead of us were treated to some impromptu Polish entertainment. We also called in at Port Lockroy, a former British Station now converted, somewhat incongruously, into a Fifties Museum. As a child of that era, and something of a nostalgia buff, I rather enjoyed it. One can post cards from here with a British Antarctic Territories stamp though they are likely to take ages to reach their destination, as they go first to the Falkland Islands and thence by periodic military transport to Brize Norton. VISA was the recipient of one such card.
There was much fine scenery to be enjoyed as we made our way between our various stops. Perhaps the most spectacular of all is the narrow and steep-sided Lemaire Channel, which runs between the mountains of Booth Island and the Peninsula. For whatever reason this is named from a Belgian gentleman who explored the Congo! The reason for its more colloquial name, Kodak Gap, is more obvious.
Politically Antarctica is interesting. It was a curious feeling to be somewhere that is not a country (and curious as well to think that the entire population of the world lived to our north, as there are of course no permanent human inhabitants of Antarctica). Seven countries maintain territorial claims to segments of the Continent; those of Britain, Argentina and Chile actually overlap in the Antarctic Peninsula. However all these territorial claims are currently frozen. Since 1961 the Continent has been governed through the Antarctic Treaty, which was negotiated in IGY (International Geophysical Year, 1957-58). This is a remarkable example of international co-operation, all the more so, perhaps, as it was drawn up at the height of the Cold War. Twelve countries were party to the original treaty, but membership has steadily grown and is open to any UN member.
We were scheduled, after our return journey across Drake’s Passage, to visit Cape Horn. We had been warned that landing there is rarely possible, due to inclement weather conditions. So we were not surprised when we ourselves were unable to land. Having had all our landings in Antarctica, we did not feel too hard done by. In any case looking at it across choppy waters somehow seems the right way to view Cape Horn! Our journey took us through the scenic Beagle Channel, at first following the boundary between Argentina and Chile before entering purely Chilean territory. Our first port of call was Punta Arenas. Save for a few colonial buildings, the architecture here is not particularly distinguished. The main interest in being in this city is its remote location. It is further north than Ushuaia, the southernmost city of all, but is a significantly larger town so it can still boast of being the southernmost this or having the southernmost that. The highlight for us was our excursion into the nearby plains of Patagonia. Here I must confess my ignorance of the geography of this region. I had thought Patagonia was exclusively Argentinian but the name applies to the southern part of the entire South American Cone so there is a Chilean Patagonia as well.
We visited a family-owned estancia, a large country estate where we enjoyed an asado, or Patagonian lamb barbecue. Entire lambs were roasted over the fire with mouthwatering slices carved off for us as we presented our plates. These were accompanied by other produce from the estate and washed down, naturally, with Chilean wine.
One is not supposed, I am told, to bring up the subject of sex, religion or politics when conversing with people in other countries. We did indeed eschew the first two but on our way back to the boat our charming young guide, Victoria, was happy to talk about the political situation in her country. I hold no brief whatever for the repressive right-wing dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. But maybe the situation is not entirely black-and-white. The overthrown and democratically elected President, Salvador Allende, is sometimes depicted as a benign Scandinavian-style social democrat but he was a good mate of Fidel Castro and many Chileans sincerely believe that Pinochet rescued the country from Communism – which might have been a worse fate. Victoria said that many wish Pinochet would hurry up and die. A view not spurred by malice but by a desire finally to draw the line under a painful era. Today Chile is a healthy democracy and the president, Ricardo Lagos, is a Socialist – the same party that produced Allende but nowadays more moderate. The Government forecasts that, by 2010, Chile will be a developed, as distinct from developing, country.
The British Government did itself no favours, in this most Anglophile of Latin American countries, in arresting Pinochet. Chileans see this as interfering in their internal affairs. Pinochet’s immunity from arrest, however regrettable, was part of the delicate compromise that enabled democracy to be restored. If one wants dictators to stand down - a current example that comes to mind is Zimbabwe - the threat of jail is not much of an inducement. Ex-communist countries in Europe for the most part allowed their former rulers to retire into private life.
The next few days were spent cruising the Chilean Fjords. This was very relaxing and enjoyable though the scenery was not, for the most part, as spectacular as I’d imagined (or maybe Antarctica was too hard an act to follow!) There were three landings. Firstly a fairly short one in Puerto Eden. From the sea this village looked picture postcard pretty, but closer inspection revealed it to be a very poor place whose inhabitants eke out a living from a day or two’s fishing each week. One gets around via boardwalks. They were rather slippery as it had not long stopped raining and – yes! – I fell over. Fortunately only my dignity was hurt.
From Chacabuco we did a trip that took us almost the width of Chile. Not much of a boast in this shoelace of a country - travelling its length would be a different matter. This took us through the fine scenery of the Aisen region to the fairly modern but pleasant town of Coihaique. Final stop was on the island of Chiloe where we explored its capital, Castro. This island wanted to remain loyal to the Spanish crown after Chile declared independence and, in desperation, offered itself to Britain. Fortunately the offer was turned down otherwise we might have had another Falklands situation on our hands!
Our cruise finished in Puerto Montt, from which there was a short but spectacular flight to Santiago. From one side of the plane we could view the coast, from the other the Andes. We had just one night in Santiago. It is an attractive city and we would have liked more time to explore. There was time to fit in a city tour which included a drive to the top of Cerro San Cristobal (St Christopher’s Hill), where we climbed up to the huge statue of the Virgin Mary and admired the fine view over the city. Next day we flew home. One of our most memorable holidays ever had come to an end.
First published in VISA issues 53A and 54 (Dec 2003 - Jan 2004)
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