Wednesday, Friday 28, 2018- Cruise Day 36; Puerto Montt, Chile

Wednesday, Friday 28, 2018- Cruise Day 36; Puerto Montt, Chile

We awoke to find the ship gliding through smooth water as the ship approached Puerto Montt.  The sun was rising but there was a layer of clouds sandwiching the sky between the horizon and clouds.  We could see the outline of two volcanos looming in that space.  

After breakfast, we headed off for our excursion.  The tender transfers were very smooth and quick because the water was flat and the ship was anchored within a half mile of the cruise ship terminal dock.  There were 3 large tour buses on our tour.  The first stop was Puerto Vara, which is a city on lake Llanquihue.  The clouds had closed in, obscuring any view of the volcanos over the lake, which was large enough that you couldn’t see the north shore from the south shore.  There are numerous large lakes formed by the Andes between the border with Argentina and the Pacific Ocean in this part of Chile, so it is called the Lake District.  They say nobody knows how deep the lake is.  

Puerto Vara was established by German settlers, and it shows in the architecture, which is a bit more consistent than in other cities that we have visited in Argentina and Chile.  It is a quaint and walkable town, but it doesn’t come across as a german village, especially since the downtown is dominated by a large Casino and Radisson Hotel.  Leavenworth, in Washington State is a lot cuter and consistent than Puerto Vara if you want to see a little bit of Germany.  What is troublesome, however, is the lack of free public restroom facilities in a city that supposedly caters to tourists.  Even the huge casino wouldn’t let people in to use their bathrooms.  Any city that charges to use toilets gets marked down on my list of places that supposedly consider themselves to be civilized.  There are lots of small shops selling woven goods and small animals carved out of Lapis Lazule, a blue mineral that is found in Chile and in Afghanistan.  There were also shops selling woven baskets, but the quality of the baskets looked really cheap.  We ended up just walking around town and sitting on the lakefront until our 45 minute stop was over.  We got back on our bus, but there were two women who came back nearly 10 minutes late.  We had to give them the evil eye.  They apparently were having too much fun shopping.  

The next stop was the main attraction for this excursion.  It was a family owned ranch called Criadero Los Alerces.  We learned that Rodeo is actually the national sport of Chile, even though football (soccer) draws more fans.  Our tour started with an introduction to Chilean folk dances, and the Chilean rodeo.  They had a 5 piece band of talented musicians, and a troupe of children ages 11-17 who were competition folk dancers.  Several were state champions, and one was even a national champion.  The kids were frankly just adorable, and were quite talented with the folk dances, which feature the waving of handkerchiefs.  We had seen some of these dances at the Folkloric show we saw in Iguazu, but it added another dimension to see these kids doing them.  

We also got an explanation of the lives and gear of Huesos- Chilean Cowboys.  The spurs that are used are characteristically very large diameter with up to 40 spikes, designed primarily to enhance the dances with jingling sounds, but the horses can also respond to the sounds of the spurs as the riders shake their feet.  The capes that are worn, are color unique to each ranch, kind of like team colors.  When Huesos compete in rodeos, they can be identified by their capes.  There are also characteristic hats and lower leg chaps.  One of the most important skills is the ability to make the horses run sideways very quickly.  This is a skill used to direct cattle between two riders.  One rides forward, while the other rides perpendicular, pinning the cow between the two horses, controlling it as they direct it around the arena.  They introduced their Huesos, which included a 4 year old boy, who was so cute in the saddle.

While we were watching the folk dancing demonstrations in a pole barn, we were served Chilean wine and beef empanadas that were baked in a brick oven in the barn.  The empanadas were much better than the ones served in the Horizon Court buffet.  

We then walked to the rodeo arena, which is partially below the level of the surrounding ground so that spectators have an unobstructed view of the action below.  We saw demonstrations of trick riding with circles, figure 8’s and barrel riding, as well as the cattle maneuvering team riding skills.  The weather was perfect as the sun began burning through the clouds and the temperature was in the upper 60’s.  

We then went into a large party tent where we were served a banquet featuring Chilean beef barbeque.  While the beef was quite flavorful, and generous in portions, it was rather tough compared with the beef we had been served more recently in Brazil and Argentina.  We’d have to score the Brazilians and Argentineans above the Chileans for deliciousness of their beef.  There was more folk dancing and the dancers came through the tables and had guests dance with them, including Janet, who quickly learned to do a polka with her 15 year old instructor.  The wine flowed freely and we also had the regional coctail called the Pisco Sour, made from local distilled sugar alchohol mixed with sugar and lemon juice.  It was very sweet, and packed a punch.  Our tour guide got up and did a folk dance with one of the dancers.  You could tell at one point in her career, she was in those same dance schools, and still had some of those skills memorized.  It was a lot of fun, and everyone had a good time.  

We got back to the ship late, but because it was a Princess excursion, the tenders continued service until the last of our tour group was back on the ship.

We had dinner and then attended the early show of comedian Jeff Nease.  Much of his material was familiar cruise ship humor, and much of it, we had heard before, but most of it was still funny to hear, and he did bring a lot of energy into his show.  It had us entertained  for the evening, although if he has another show later in the cruise, we may or may not bother to see it.  

We attended a Movie Poster Trivia but played with Ted and Kathleen and Roger because the rest of our usual team as probably at their late seating dinners.  We scored 16/20 with the winners scoring 18/20.  There were some really young people on the winning team that nailed several movies that we had no clues about because they were more recent movies aimed at teen audiences.  Then we stuck around for a late night trivia called “What in the Neck is this?”. There were several categories of questions starting with obscured logos that you had to guess. Then they had Macro pictures of items you had to guess about.  Then there were sound bites that you had to identify.  Then there were visual puzzles where you had to identify a mistake or identify objects hidden in the images.  Then they had pictures of weird animals that you had to identify.  Then there were pictures of abstract art that you had to guess was either real art, or doodles made by toddlers.  Finally there were animated movie clips of cartoon rabbits re-enacting bits of movies that you had to identify.  We ended up tying for first place with 25/35 points, but lost the tie breaker, which was to guess how many Quokka’s are on the Australian mainland.  We had no idea what a Quokka even was until one showed up as a weird animal that we missed.  The host had said that Quokkas are only found on one of Australia’s island, but that some are on the mainland.  We thought it might have been a trick question because maybe there are only Quokkas in zoos on the Australian mainland.  However, it appears that they also exist in the wild and number in the thousands.  So we learned a bit about Quokkas today.

While we were sitting around between the two trivia games, we heard rumors that several people from the ship had been robbed and attacked while in Rio, and that one crew person was so badly injured, they were still in the hospital, while another had to be sent home unable to complete their contract.  The ship’s crew members who had been attacked were in a group, but were attacked by a gang of teenagers.  There were also passengers who had foolishly left the ship wearing jewelry around their neck and earrings, and they were injured as the jewelry was literally ripped off their bodies.  We also heard that during the course of this cruise, 3 passengers had actually passed away.  Hard to know how true those rumors might be, but seeing the condition of some of the passengers we have encountered over the last month, it wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t absolutely true.  There has been an ambulance on the dock at each port of call where we tied up to the dock, and we did see one woman in respiratory distress being whisked off the ship on a tender medical evacuation that delayed our tender operations that morning.  

We did lose our captain, who reached the end of his contract and flew home from Puerto Montt.  We have a new captain on board, but he hasn’t really introduced himself to the ship’s passengers.  We will certainly miss Captain Michele Touvo’s “Never the less, for now, Bye Bye!” announcements.  We also lost our cruise director Martin, who had to leave the ship in Puerto Montt to attend to a family emergency.  So it seems we have out-survived our first Captain and Cruise Director, as well as a number of passengers so far on this journey.  

Tomorrow we arrive at Chacabuco, Chile for our last tender port of call.  We have an excursion to visit a private wildlife reserve and eco park.