Disembarking in front of the Pía Glacier, in the Darwin Mountain Range, is one of the most exclusive experiences of the trip.
There are places one may have never thought of traveling to, but whose names evoke a melancholy lodged in a very close place in memory. How many times have we imaginatively reconstructed through the stories the expedition that Magellan and Elcano began in Seville in August 1519, which for the first time completed a full circumnavigation of the Earth, after discovering the strait that now bears the name of the Portuguese sailor. Or the adventures of pirates (the feared Drake) and shipwrecks (10,000 souls, they say, rest in those waters) of those who tried to reach the Pacific from the Atlantic by rounding Cape Horn, a place both dreamed of and feared at the same time, a true end of the world that is not actually a cape, but the southernmost island of a small archipelago that its discoverers, Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten, charted in 1616 with little precision, as the end of the continent and named it Kaap Hoorn, in honor of the Dutch city from which they began their adventure.
Just a few meters from the tongue of the Porter Glacier, you can admire all its beauty.
On that islet, a member of the Chilean Navy lives all year with his family, responsible for monitoring maritime traffic, sending weather reports, and taking care of the southernmost lighthouse in the world. Isolated all year round, José Luarte, Pamela Tranamil, and their children Gael and Sofía (who have decided to stay for another year) eagerly await during the austral spring and summer (in winter, communication is almost non-existent, broken only by the military ship that brings them supplies every two months) the arrival of the Australis company cruises, whose passengers, weather permitting, will descend in their Zodiacs to visit the island, the lighthouse, a nearby small chapel, and the albatross monument located at one of its ends. "I am the albatross that awaits you/ at the end of the world," wrote Sara Vial, friend and accomplice of Pablo Neruda. "I am the forgotten soul of the dead sailors/ who crossed Cape Horn/ from all the seas of the earth/ [and] today fly on my wings,/ towards eternity,/ in the last crevice/ of the Antarctic winds."
The expeditioners will then receive the diploma for reaching the southernmost point of the world and will take home one of the watercolors that Sofía creates during the year and sells for a few pesos (you must pay her in cash, though). There are not many ways to reach those ends and breathe the cold wind and light rain in the privileged and well-protected environment of the Cape Horn Natural Park. The two cruises available from the Chilean company Australis travel there every week between the months of September and April as part of the expeditionary and exclusive routes through the fjords of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, as Magellan himself named it, since all he could see were the incandescent flames, which he believed to be great volcanoes, but were actually bonfires and smoke signals that the indigenous people made to communicate.
One of the routes starts from the Chilean town of Punta Arenas and ends in the Argentine city of Ushuaia. It can also be done in reverse. The itinerary is very similar. Both cities, the two most populous in that region of the world, divided with a square and compass between both countries in the 1881 treaty, which kept Chile and Argentina at odds until the 1970s, have a similar origin, as penal colonies first, and then as a settlement for those who settled there, either desperately searching for non-existent gold (or at least scarce), or to exploit the large sheep and cattle ranches that were the result of great fortunes of landowners and the dream of many entrepreneurs, who to make their ranches profitable on the so-called Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego had to confront the indigenous people who had been living there for centuries, leading to the physical annihilation of several tribal ethnicities.
One of the mausoleums in the impressive cemetery of Punta Arenas.
The cemetery of Punta Arenas, one of the most impressive in the world, houses sumptuous mausoleums through which the city's history can be reconstructed and also includes a small tomb, known as that of the "little Indian," which many descendants of those cultures that have now disappeared use as a place of religious pilgrimage.
From the port of Punta Arenas, the Australis cruise departs to take us to the Argentine city after four days of sailing. Before that, we have walked through the streets of the city and the Plaza de Armas, where there is a monument dedicated to Magellan, visited some mansions like that of Sara Braun (which houses the spectacular Magellan Museum), or that of José Menéndez, pioneers of the 19th century who made the city prosperous. And we dined at Sotito, the restaurant run by José Sotomayor for over 40 years, where you can taste southern hake, Magellanic lamb, and above all, the King crab from the Strait, which is enjoyed in different ways there. We also drank a Chilean wine made from the Carmenere grape, almost extinct in Europe.
One of the daily Zodiac excursions to see dolphins in the Beagle Channel.
And that wine (but also the Merlot grape or Pinot) and those Chilean specialties would not leave us throughout the trip, because one of the reasons to travel with Australis is their refined gastronomy that honors most of the typical Chilean products and dishes. But we did not come here just to eat and drink. During the four days of sailing, we make at least, weather permitting, two landings per day in Zodiacs, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, in inaccessible places from land, thanks to the ship's ability to navigate even in shallow waters.
Every day, two landings are made in Zodiacs from the cruise to places impossible to reach from land.
The first landing, after sailing through the Strait of Magellan, takes us to Ainsworth Bay, a beach whose waters are fed by the Marinelli Glacier, discovered in 1904 by the Salesian missionary Alberto de Agostini (who gives his name to this natural park) and which has retreated at least 15 kilometers in 100 years. There, with no one else around us, we walk through one of the most recently created southern forests, that is, since the last glaciation took place about 12,000 years ago. We walk among beech trees (nothofagus), and discover the canelo, a sacred tree for the Mapuche and a remedy for the Spanish expeditioners who used to die of scurvy, as the bark of its trunk is slightly citrusy.
In the following days, we will approach the Tucker islets to see the penguin colonies (where they come to mate and care for their chicks once a year; 70% do so with the partner they had not seen since then), visit several glaciers, and feel, as we approach in the Zodiac, the pure cold emanating from that great icy mass, next to which we will be, listening and watching from a privileged grandstand the icefalls while one of the glaciologists of the crew explains the origin, development, and current state of each of the glaciers we visit.
The two main Magellanic penguin colonies are on Tucker islets and Magdalena Island.
Also, on the ship, during mornings and afternoons, there are historical and biological talks, documentaries, and recreational activities. Finally, after sailing through the Beagle Channel, the third of the interoceanic passages discovered by the English captain Fitz Roy, we arrive, after visiting Hornos, at Wulaia Bay, a spectacular place where Darwin disembarked and wrote his groundbreaking Patagonia Journal. A plaque commemorates his stay, and an old Navy building has been converted into a museum about the indigenous extermination. Before leaving, from a small hill, we witness a unique experience: enjoying the unrepeatable Antarctic silence while contemplating the fabulous bay and, in the background, one of the more than 26,000 Chilean glaciers.
Spectacular view of Wulaia Bay on Navarino Island.