Puerto Natales - Puerto Montt - Lenca - Puelo - Llanada Grande - El Bolson (Argentina)
Friday, Feb. 9 - 6:30 am: A blazing sun illuminates the sky from those with power between horizontal layers of clouds, it floods the air of this bright orange, stroked Puerto Natales coming out of his torpor allowing the escape of hundreds of chimneys meager wisps of smoke that slopes gently toward South. So at this magnificent spectacle I right in parting of the deep south, I'm here on the deck that will leave a few minutes to Puerto Montt.
The Deep South! This strange magnetic force that pulls you into his arms at the same time as you chase a sudden wind, rain and cold. So this morning the end of two and a half months of this strange story of love and hatred, enchantment and abatement, joys and sorrows ... Something whole and wild is happening on the merits of guts!
The Deep South! This strange magnetic force that pulls you into his arms at the same time as you chase a sudden wind, rain and cold. So this morning the end of two and a half months of this strange story of love and hatred, enchantment and abatement, joys and sorrows ... Something whole and wild is happening on the merits of guts!
I could never forget those incredibly powerful winds, these landscapes, these lights unique, beautiful skies, the view of Cape Horn majestically draped in its mist, the huge silent steppes of Tierra del Fuego the wild beauty of the Strait of Magellan. What other feeling then could I have a mix between the infinite sadness of leaving and the immense joy of having overcome my way!
But back on the boat, the night was punctuated by loads, back-up alarms on trucks, these chains that tie the bridge troll, the hissing of the maneuvers, the agitation of the horses in trailers ... Because the ship is primarily a responsibility ro linking south to north since there is no hundred percent Chilean road between Punta Arenas and the rest of the country. Aboard therefore, calves, cows, pigs ... 120 passengers and almost all Germans, Americans, Switzerland or French.
But back on the boat, the night was punctuated by loads, back-up alarms on trucks, these chains that tie the bridge troll, the hissing of the maneuvers, the agitation of the horses in trailers ... Because the ship is primarily a responsibility ro linking south to north since there is no hundred percent Chilean road between Punta Arenas and the rest of the country. Aboard therefore, calves, cows, pigs ... 120 passengers and almost all Germans, Americans, Switzerland or French.
finally this morning the sounds have changed, the boat vibrated differently, this time for sure, we leave, the anchors back slowly, amares join the boat and, inch by inch we get away from this thin pier. Fjord Ultima Esperanza which washes away Natales and the magic begins in the narrow gully where we feel able to touch those forests which rise suddenly out of the water. 1500 km ahead of us and 10 parallel, 3 days and 3 nights between islands, peninsulas, channels, fjords and peninsulas ... A final gift from the great south! 
The first day is exactly as I had imagined, we sail under a sky low and menacing, powerful wind sweeps the bridge north of its 45 knots, we are temporarily swallowed by grains but despite this sad time of magic and a real charm emanates from this kingdom of rain ... We double to starboard islands Diego Portales, go up the Strait of Collinwood, and the alignment of Andres Canal, opposite the islands Madre de Dios. the evening, we suddenly veer to the east and a few moments later, one begins to hear small noises against the hull, low and spaced first and then more and more frequent and sound ...!?! 
we navigate in the middle of a fjord which is thrown a glacier that flows into the waters clear of ice thousands of bigger and bigger as we approached. .. then the boat slowed, and s'imobilise is silence before the glacier witnessed another era or part of the world was under ice. A magical moment, just before night falls!
The day begins with a sunrise shy but mostly by the arrival in Puerto Eden, a small fishing village lost in the canals, hidden in a small bay, protected Canal Messier by a screen of fine islands. Post weather, the bay has become a village built from scratch by the government for the last sédantariser native who lived sailing between the islands on their boats. The village is beautiful, houses and boats a beautiful deep yellow or red. Our boat came to rest in the Bay and goods that end there are repackaged on small boats which then earn a tiny pier. We land in the same disposont manner and with too little time for visiting the village that stretches around the only street that connects the stilt houses.
When we leave the village, the weather gets really perfect, not a cloud, we cleave channels transformed into mirrors, the wind fell, and here the scenery becomes impossible to describe until you navigate to print in a marine paradise, navy blue channels, the thousand shades of green on these islands pristine, pure blue of the sky, the flight of albatrosses who accompany us, the entanglement in the infinite sea of these arms. . I thought I implore the gods of metaphor, personalization, the oxymoron or whatnot, all these beautiful figures of speech which only the French teachers hold the real secret to refuse mine! The god of metaphor says he's a little easier to do implore that after spending so many adjectives in so few lines in the second paragraph! Others tell me that when I'd do more of spelling, they take care of me. So sorry it will do more than settle for a few photos that I go back and wait for me to try to tell you all this.
Leaving the broad channel Messier we are committed between the big island north Wellington and his little sister, little Wellington, on the far horizon and emerges in the afternoon we Reaches for the Gulf of Sentences and the high seas for contouring Taitao Peninsula. In the evening we are entitled to the most perfect sunsets on a peaceful incredibly quiet ... Two small feet to swell the boat cradle ... Night at the bow and leaned in just a quiet disturbed by the hum of machinery and noise of the water slides against the hull, to admire a beautiful starry sky above the channels which I dreamed.
Such a chance (It does what kind of weather 10 days per year after the captain) could not last two consecutive days, and yet the miracle is repeated the next day and naviagtion continues under an azure sky just for a few cirrus clouds streaked! This simple beauty, calm, virgin is moving! Portside on the islands are becoming lower. Successive entries starboard Aysen Fjord then Puyuhuapi. Behind the terrain rises quickly and now I contemplate the mountains as I walked by walking on the Carretera Austral ... Cerro Maca Melimoyu and soon the Corcovado volcano that gives its name to the Gulf and home to hundreds of blue whales ... Dazzled by the sun we see from time to time arise sprays of salt water from their timeouts, their backs graze the surface and then disappear again ... a moving dance, slow breaths ... we do not see them but guess they are there and that's good enough ...
the evening along the big island of Chiloe, vying for time comptempler again a fantastic sunset, sharing a glass of red with his shipmates ...
The next day when we wake up we are already in port, both bridges have been emptied of their trucks without being heard nothing, we would have drunk too much last night, the laughter of my shipmates still echoes in my head!
The Enchantment of the Patagonian Channels ...
Such a chance (It does what kind of weather 10 days per year after the captain) could not last two consecutive days, and yet the miracle is repeated the next day and naviagtion continues under an azure sky just for a few cirrus clouds streaked! This simple beauty, calm, virgin is moving! Portside on the islands are becoming lower. Successive entries starboard Aysen Fjord then Puyuhuapi. Behind the terrain rises quickly and now I contemplate the mountains as I walked by walking on the Carretera Austral ... Cerro Maca Melimoyu and soon the Corcovado volcano that gives its name to the Gulf and home to hundreds of blue whales ... Dazzled by the sun we see from time to time arise sprays of salt water from their timeouts, their backs graze the surface and then disappear again ... a moving dance, slow breaths ... we do not see them but guess they are there and that's good enough ... the evening along the big island of Chiloe, vying for time comptempler again a fantastic sunset, sharing a glass of red with his shipmates ...
The next day when we wake up we are already in port, both bridges have been emptied of their trucks without being heard nothing, we would have drunk too much last night, the laughter of my shipmates still echoes in my head!
The Enchantment of the Patagonian Channels ...
In Puerto Natales I found Neil, my U.S. bike which I told you about in early November! Three months later I therefore falls on him walking down the street. To think that fate always manages to do is join the paths of those who are made for each other. I've talked enough about him that you knew a little more. Here is the man, early fifties happy after 25 years working as an English teacher and travel around the world at a pace that I like it! Slowness and patience. We are definitely made for us to hear, I hope one day recrosses his way to hear it again devote myself one of the wonderful stories based in his brain! In Puerto Montt I found the heat and the sun was so lacking in the south. How fortunate to be able to walk into a T-shirt, sleeping in tents without socks or fleece, enjoying the balmy evening ... And then on the road I took I finally crossed over Chileans as European, American or Australian, and it is nice to share the evening fire with Chileans who speak their countries, which make you understand the why of things that they not included ... youth who speak of the problems of the education system, their vision rather sad but realistic latin america.
I sometimes feel uncomfortable when I explain that only 3 years of economics allows me to travel while in 9 months working 15 years someone would have the same kind of work that I will never travel to Europe five months! Where is the justice? Why the work is worth more to one side than the other Atlantic? Unfortunately the basic system is fairly simple, for there is rich ... there must be poor! And given that the North is trying to focus ever more wealth in the future is quite dark on this side of the world! The years go by, you always know more things but the looting of the continent that was probably the richest in raw materials continues. In another way, but finally with the same results.
therefore hope and make sure that another world is possible for young children that I met on the road could one day have a more optimistic view of their future.
The So back road but I've already written too much for you Save my latest adventures, I give you spot news in 15 days!
soon
Benoit
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