On the Navimag ship heading South through Patagonia

Although it was annoying to be woken up by the shuffle of geriatric slippers ambling down the hallway to the bathroom – right past my bunk which was in a hallway (C Class) – I was awoken early enough to see the sun rising over Patagonia. An old lady down the hall loudly asked someone: “qué hora es?” – to be answered with, “Diaz a las siete!” – Caray! I think to myself… it’s 10 minutes to 7am. Weren’t you up showing off your merengue skills in the dining hall last night until midnight?

On this morning I was able to step outside onto the deck and be greeted by relatively still air and a deep blue cloud-cover of matching hues to the surrounding water and mountains onshore. The clouds were already breaking and I could tell the sun would cut through them nicely as the sunrise progressed. Our ship, the Evangelista from Japan built in 1979, motored along peacefully through calm waters Northern Patagonia. Breakfast was still an hour away.

When someone told me about this Navimag tour, which is actually a cargo ferry that also has passenger berths, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see Patagonia in this unique way. We boarded in Puerto Montt, walking on catwalks to the passenger area over tightly packed tractor-trailers that were here for the journey down to Puerto Chacabuco through the narrow channels of the Chilean islands. After unloading, we would head further South to the glacier in Laguna San Rafael.

The scenery changed back and forth as we headed South: jagged snow-capped mountains on both sides of the channel then reverting to dense untouched forests on surrounding hilly islands. Although the landscape was immense and beautiful, I was reminded that, indeed, one can have too much of a good thing. It was funny to see half of the passengers on the ship, including myself, run to the outer deck to view a fresh new landscape that we encountered, only to fully retreat inside and ignore hours more of the same beauty once the image had been sufficiently consumed.

While the surrounding landscapes were amazing and beautiful, the social interactions on the ship were just as interesting. Most of the passengers, I’d guess 70 to 80 in total, were with their Chilean families that included grandparents down to grandchildren in their teens. It was fun to see some of the older passengers perform a little tango dance or merengue in the same room where their children or grandchildren would later tear up the dance floor to some reggaetón (South American hip-hop). It appeared that the younger passengers enjoyed watching the older dances; and many of the older passengers certainly enjoyed watching the younger ones as well. There were a few moments when you forget this is a tour for people interested in seeing Patagonia by sea. There was a lot of eating, drinking, dancing, and partying—often times late into the night. It was difficult to not end up in the pub in the evening. There weren’t many places to go, bunks were small and unwelcoming, and the weather outside was always cool, sometimes cold and usually raining. Our trip on the Navimag from Puerto Montt to Laguna San Rafael and back lasted 5 days and 4 nights.