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Next day we were on the move again, but just a short minibus ride to Puerto Montt to check onto the Navimag for our cruise.We used our time before the 3.5 day sail through the Chilean fjords on various wild goose chases to attempt to pay for some flights we had on hold, thwarted at every turn, by systems crashing, long latino lunch hours,and booking accommodation for various options of locations after our arrival in Puerto Natales.We weren't quite sure of how far were going to get so booked some contingency options too (Ironically the only one that took credit card details from us to secure the booking, was the one we turned up to and they'd never heard of us and were full!)Accommodation was proving harder and harder to get and even though we were booking 4 or 5 days in advance we were drawing blanks at even the "impersonal" or "shabby" places described in our guidebooks.
At last our chores done, so boat ward bound and almost 96 hours of waterways ahead.Cruising down fjords sounds idyllic doesn't it, well it was beautiful, and lots of people said it reminded them of South Island in New Zealand, but for almost 4 days any failing unchanging scenery, however picturesque gets monotonous.The boat, a converted cargo ship was not over laden with entertaining things to do.Copies of Lonely Planets in a multitude of languages were consulted everywhere as people, devoid of diversion, planned what the you would do when they got off the boat or maybe even what they could have been doing had they not got on it.The breakfast announcement was our wakeup call, a la Butlins stylie, and then it was up to us to while away the time until the school canteen like lunch.A Masseur, Beauty Therapist, Hairdresser, Fitness Instructor would have made a bomb on board, but alas there wasn't any of that, but our attempts at DIY beauty treatments, face packs, plucking eyebrows etc… took up at least 30 mins.I was glad I had 3 books on me. People watching became my fave activity.4 days with the same people couped up made for some interesting behaviour and conversations.Anne and JA were suffering far worse than I, being the Energizer bunnies that they are, the confines and lack of activities became torturous.People's hearing became fine tuned to the click of the PA system coming on to announce either a meal or a documentary on Patagonia.When, on day 2, there was an announcement of the sighting of whales off the starboard bow, it felt like we were going to capsize with the stampede of everyone to that deck.We did glimpse the whales, and seals and glaciers.People had fun shouting "Iceberg" only for us to discover that the said iceberg was about a metre in size, not too threatening to our massive ferry.We did have one stop on the journey at a remote village called Puerto Eden, to drop off supplies, we weren't allowed ashore, but I managed to reel off about 38 frames, with the excitement of something to look at other than water and hills and a bit of action.The last night heralded the highlight of the ships social calendar - Bingo night.I could hardly contain myself (and here for once I'm not being sarcastic!)I've got to say though that I'm a sucker for some R & R and was generally pretty happy to laze around, stroll on deck, and open a bottle of wine, and had I known what was ahead I'd have been doubly glad to charge my batteries.We docked at Puerto Natales, and headed the next day to Torres de Paine, or as we've come to know it, Towers of Pain.
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