Scenic Sailing and Glacier Viewing



Beautiful tidewater glacier

After we left Ushuaia, we traveled north along the west coast of Chile. If you look at a map, you will see that the west coast contains many fjords. 

We had some outstanding views of the Andes all along this coastal journey. The Andes are a majestic mountain range which forms the backbone of South America. The range runs 5500 miles in length north to south, and takes an east-west turn at the southern tip of the continent. The Andes are the highest mountain range outside of Asia, with more than 70 peaks over 20,000 feet in elevation.

We traveled in and among the waterways close to the coast, including the famous Straits of Magellan. The scenery was beautiful, with lots of mountains rising from the sea to form the coast, many of them containing glaciers. This area is part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, which is one of the world's largest continuous ice fields.

We saw alpine glaciers, which are located in cirques, or bowls, high up in the mountains. And we saw tidewater glaciers, which come down to the valley in the fjords. Where these tidewater glaciers meet the bay, the water (of the bay) is a beautiful turquoise color, typical of glacial waters. There are many ice floes which have broken off from the glacier floating around in the bay. There was much sediment at the foot of the glaciers and many crevasses within the glaciers.







U-shaped valley, typical of glacial valleys

Ice floes

For much of the travel, we cruised along the coast near the fjords. But at certain junctures, we turned in and traveled up the fjords to view the foot of the glaciers. The first glacier we stopped to view was the famous Amalia Glacier. Our ship stopped for about a half hour while we snapped photos, took in the beauty, and enjoyed the serenity. 

Amalia Glacier


Amalia Glacier

Amalia Glacier

Three crew members got into a boat and collected a few chunks of ice. Later in this post, I will let you know what they did with this ice.


Next we traveled up the coast to the Brujo Glacier, with spectacular scenery along the way. 




 

Brujo Glacier

Brujo glacier

We continued our journey paralleling the coast of Chile with more non-stop spectacular scenery.





Later in the day, the captain made an announcement that if we wanted to see what they did with the ice they collected at the foot of the Amalia Glacier, we could come down to the Atrium. When we got there, we saw that they were using the ice to cool caviar that they were serving to the guests.







I was amused by this sign. I'm picturing the waiter asking, "Would you like some caviar?" and someone responding, "No, I just want to taste the ice."

We continued to travel up the west coast of Chile with the mountains just off the starboard side of the ship, same side of the ship that our stateroom is on (not by accident!). We continue to marvel at the beauty that is South America! 







Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 21, 2023 at 10:38 AM

    The Blue ice is the oldest ice. Denise

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousDecember 21, 2023 at 10:44 AM

      My friend's son is an adventure guide in Patagonia and lives in Punta Arenas. Beautiful part of the world. Denise

      Delete
  2. AnonymousDecember 21, 2023 at 11:10 AM

    Here in south Louisiana we have what we call flow-tahn. It’s french for floating marsh! Lol! What a beautiful place! No wonder it’s called chilli!
    Ellen Hutchinson

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Selaron Steps

Image
After we left the Metropolitan Church, we went to the Selaron steps. This world-famous mosaic of unique tile steps was done by Chilean born artist Jorge Selaron, hence the name. He called it "my tribute to the Brazilian people." Jorge didn't intend for the steps to become such an icon, he merely began by renovating dilapidated steps in front of his home. As Jorge was an artist, he thought it would be fun to use colorful tiles. At first he was mocked for the tiles, but as he continued covering more steps with tiles, ceramics, and mirrors, people not only began to appreciate the display, but visitors from all over the world began donating tiles to the project. There are 215 steps and over 2000 tiles that were collected from around the world. We happened to spot a couple of tiles from New Orleans. The artist - self portrait
Read more

Sambadrome and Metropolitan Church

Image
After we left the Christ the Redeemer Statue, we drove by the Sambadrome, where all the activities for the carnival in Rio take place. The Rio Carnival is said to be the largest in the world. Unlike New Orleans, the Carnival doesn't consist of street parades. Rather, all the activities take place within the Sambadrome outdoor arena. People gather there dressed up in costumes to view floats and celebrate before Lent begins. Various groups are responsible for the floats. In New Orleans, they're known as Krewes. In Rio, there are different classifications of groups, but they aren't called Krewes. They have the fancier groups and the less so, and are classified as divisions, according to Guilherme. He used the example of American college football, like Division 1, Division 2, etc. These groups decorate floats to display within the Sambadrome. The only street activities are street parties that happen within neighborhoods, with as many as two million people out on the streets eve...
Read more

Lapa and Santa Teresa

Image
Two well-known neighborhoods in Rio are the Lapa and the Santa Teresa neighborhoods. The Selaron Steps that were featured in the previous post straddle these two neighborhoods. After leaving the tiled steps, we drove through parts of these neighborhoods.  The Lapa area is a Bohemian neighborhood known for its art, bars, music clubs, dance halls, antique stores, and restaurants.  The Santa Teresa neighborhood is a hilltop village with winding narrow cobblestone streets and hairpin turns. There are beautiful vistas of the city below as you wind your way up to the top. Lining the streets are boutiques, hotels, artist studios, restaurants, and a few mansions. Guilherme took us to a restaurant in the Santa Teresa neighborhood. We didn't catch the name of the restaurant, but it was a small, quaint, open-air restaurant in the heart of the bustling neighborhood.  The restaurant where we ate lunch Since Guilherme was local, we told him to order for us, and that we wanted some auth...
Read more