February 10, 1998 San Javier, Chile - {Hotel _______} We visited the Balduzzi winery just outside of San Javier which has about 25 hectares of vineyards, and does only about a half million bottles a year. It was a nice winery with the edges of the vineyards surrounded by a high brick wall making a tranquil garden. Inside the atmosphere was much like the wineries of Napa or Sonoma valley in California, however without the traffic. In their tasting room, we tried their '94 and '97 Savignon Blanc, '96 Chardonay, and a '95 Cabernet. Afterwards, they pointed out their '97 Savignon Blanc had won a gold medal at the most recent Mendoza wine competition. Mendoza is the main Argentinian wine growing region just on the other side of the Andes from the Chilean wine growing region. Their Chardonay is made in American oak barrels, and as a result have a nice smokey oak flavor. If I remember correctly, most American oak barrels are made for the more lucrative whiskey business around Kentucky, and as a result are charred inside for more smoke flavor, more than is usually preferred for Chardonays, however at a fourth of the cost of the limousine barrels made from the oak of the limousine forest in France that are made especially for wine. I could definitely taste the smokiness in the Chardonay, but thought it wasn't over done, and could imagine it going nicely with a big honkin slab of smoked salmon and capers. After the tasting, for the next hour and a half Gregory took Sharon and I around the winery showing us every aspect. Gregory who had come from France two months ago, had just recently finished his studies of ?oneology? (study of wine making), and was now working here as were several other young French. The way he explained wine making their sounded very business oriented. 70% of the wine Balduzzi produces is for export. As he rolled his eyes and flared his hand he said that for some reason the Chileans have a stigma attached to wine thinking that it's only for the upper class, and so drink more pop or beer. Chilean wine in Chile, is about the same price as Coca Cola despite the 30% local tax on wine. Gregory, who is a native Frenchman, said that even in France wine is becoming less popular because of growing lack of acceptance of public intoxication. I find that hard to believe after so many centuries being part of the French culture. However, in his field, he naturally needs to be more sensitive to the trends. Most of the wine produced by Balduzzi is exported to the orient, primarily Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, and some to Europe. The wine is created with a slightly different process or ingredients depending on which country it is produced for, to best fit the general palates of that country. He showed us the giant wood fermenting barrels that are resin lined, and kept around primarily for their looks, and then in another room, the stainless steel tanks where most of the wine is produced. They had a machine pumping refrigerated water over the giant steel fermentation tanks to keep them cool. The thermometer read 16 degrees Celsius (60 Fahrenheit). Gregory pulled out a glass and a valve key, and then poured out a sample of this Chadonay for us to try. Gregory attempted to explain how they remove precipitate from the wine by chilling the wine to -5 Celsius, however something was lost in the translation. We then went into the bottling room, and then to where they press the wine where they have a huge auger at the bottom of a huge stainless steel rectangular funnel. The auger squeezes the grapes, and separates the stems and skins from the grapes. We later went into the underground cellar. In California, I was use to seeing cellared barrels of wine. Here, all of the wine was cellared in bottles. In another section of the cellar, there were four woman working. One was wiping each bottle clean of dust. One was applying labels by hand, another was applying the shrink wrap plastic wrapper over the cork end with a donut shaped heating wand, and finally another was wrapping each bottle individually in tissue paper and placing them in boxes. They work 12 hours each day, 6 days per week, and complete 1200 bottles per day. Gregory said he had never seen this done by hand before he came to Chile. Usually wineries have a machine to do this. We met another French guy and his French girlfriend who worked at the winery. Hugo was planning to work until April when he would then take off on a trip overland up to Napa, California. He asked us about our trip, and about all the concerns he had that were weighing on his mind for his trip. He gave us his business card with his address in Bordeaux, France, and a note on the back asking his parents to put us up at their winery should we make it to Bordeaux. We were thinking we just might have to go to Bordeaux with an offer like that. We later went to vineyards were we saw and tasted the Chardonay, Savignon Blanc, and a local grape called Pais(sp?). We skipped the Cabernet since they were at the other end of the vineyard. Gregory said the Pais just happened to be here when the current owners bought the vineyard, even though they are not used for making wine. They are a red grape that are nice for eating. The vineyards had Chardonay and Pais vines intermixed just because, he said, that just happened to be where the seeds fell. Gregory said that the Chilean grapes were not susceptible to (I've forgotten the name) disease that French and American vineyards suffer from. In one region the roots are susceptible while in the other only the leaves are, so as a result, roots are grafted with the stems in France and America. However, this is not necessary in Chile. Later, we hopped on our bikes and went to visit the Concho y Toro winery near San Javier, but found it only to be a plant not suitably set up for visits. Concho y Toro has vineyards all over central Chile, however the visiting center is near San Pedro de Maipo. Afterward, we went to the Sam Clemente winery, which seemed like a backward run winery but in a nice rustic building. We tasted an '87 Cabernet which tasted like it had been held due to it being a tar tannin vintage. After holding back for 11 years, they now sell it for $3 per bottle. They sold a sweet red wine that we tried... For dinner, we stopped at the grocery store and picked up a hunk of goudha, and some bread to have with our bottle of that Mendoza gold medal winner 1997 Balduzzi Savignon Blanc that we chilled in a plastic bag full of ice. It was too hot to sleep with balcony door closed, so we left it open. Street activity picked up around 10:00pm, and went on until 1:00am despite it being a Tuesday night and this town has only a population of 30k. February 11, 1998 Villarica, Chile - {Campsite du Lac} R80G/S 37275 R100GS 26893 Expecting it to be cool, we left town wearing a liner under our jacket. A little later, we pulled over to take it off since it was so hot. The temperature continued to get hotter and hotter. In the shade it was 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 Celsius). When we arrived in Vina del Mar, it was quite a bit cooler. However today's driving has all been in land away from the cool antarctic current ocean breeze. Fortunately, it's dry, so the heat doesn't feel nearly so bad, and there is usually a breeze in the afternoon. >From 11:00 until 7:30pm, we drove over 310 miles. Despite the roads being as good as any in the world, we drove through some construction areas. The road South of Santiago is being turned from a two lane highway to a four lane with median. Construction on the two additional lanes is on going for 100s of miles with almost all Caterpillar equipment made in Peoria, Illinois almost the whole way. Unlike in other latin American countries North of here where we have to worry about cows, horses or goats wandering into the highway, in Chile, this hasn't been the case until today. On the opposite side of the road I saw a Clydesdale running along the highway, as if it was enjoying it's freedom having just broken away from the Anheuser Busch Budweiser stage coach wagon team. A little way further, we came across a huge big headed bull standing on the shoulder of the highway that looked plenty big enough to cause a problem for semi-trailers. It looked like it had also just escaped into freedom, but was content to just stand and watch the vehicles pass by. Villarica is the Western most town on Lake Villarica, and is a popular tourist area for Chileans on the North side of the lake district. On one East side of the lake Villarica, opposite the town of Villarica is a beautiful snow capped conical volcano called Volcan Villarica. We stopped in a camp ground just on the East side of town situated on the scenic lake. While better than many of the designated campgrounds we had seen in Northern Chile, it didn't compare to our wild camping we did in isolation in the desert. Like many popular camp grounds in the states, people set up there tent on their little plot of grass for the night. However at 8,000 pesos ($18) per night it's among the most expensive. While expensive, it still didn't compare to the worse value we saw at the KOA campground just outside of Denali in Alaska... there it was $22 for a 10'x10' plot that felt like a slumber party for strangers. One thing interesting about our campground was the number of TV sets. Of the 15 campsites I walked by to the bathroom, I probably passed by 6 portable TV's playing the soccer game. I went back into town and picked up a bag of bread rolls, and two one liter bottles of Paulaner beer brewed in Munich Germany that sold here cheaper than in Germany at just over a $1 per beer. Guiness stout from Ireland is another import in liter bottles at an incredibly cheap price at just over a buck. The wine selection in the grocery store noticeably dropped from when we were in Curico. Sharon made a nice camp dinner of cheese tortellini with a pepper parmesan broccoli cheese sauce made from parmesan cheese and a broccoli soup packet. February 12, 1998 Villarica, Chile - {camped at du Lac} We ate the leftover tasty bread rolls, bananas, and coffee. Sharon had found a particular kind of coffee maker we have been looking for since Costa Rica. It's a cotton cloth bag that is held open by a metal wire ring and held by hand with an attached handle. Similar to a coffee press, one boils water, adds the coffee grounds to the water and lets it steep for five minutes. Different then a coffee press at this point, the coffee water and grounds are then poured through the cloth bag which strains out the grounds leaving a nice tasting coffee. This is the smallest coffee making device we have seen, and it makes excellent coffee. Great for travelling through these NesCafe-phile countries. Digression: Nestle rules Latin America. Disgruntled Germans we meet usually mention the president of Nestle as being the true president of the world. It's nice while travelling, to find the Nestle brand, because there is a certain quality assurance. compared to a no name Peruvian brand of canned spam. Pre-USFDA stories of 19th century meat packing plants in Chicago cross my mind. However, it sucks that often even in parts of Colombia, restaurants serve only NesCafe. We just hung around in our camp ground catching up on our journals and resting. We walked down to the shore after dinner and enjoyed the lake view... February 13, 1998 P______, Chile - {Camped} R80G/S 37595 R100GS 27203 At 7:48am, I woke up and felt a minor earthquake. I woke up Sharon, and told her, but she couldn't feel it. She said I was full of beans and thought I was causing my own earthquake. The Volcano Villarica is not visible from our campsite, and so couldn't see if there was any activity. It's a snow capped volcano, that always seems to have a white stream of smoke that looks like the surrounding cumulus clouds. After a breakfast of cinnamon covered oatmeal and coffee, we paid our 16,000 pesos (US$35) for two nights of camping, and then headed off to Pucon. Our plan was to drive to Pucon which is at the other end of lake Villarica to check out the scenery, and then head back by the town Villarica and onto the Pan American where we would go further South to another lake P------. We stopped along the road to take some pictures of the smoking white capped volcano. Further down the road, we passed two motorcycle travellers, and pulled over to the side of the road. I could see in my mirror that they did the same. We did a U-turn, and drove up along side. They were Christian Andersen, and Tone Jacobsen from Oslo, Norway riding a '90? BMW R100GS and an '81 R80G/S. They were riding on basically the same motorcycles we had. Christian said he had heard of us from Jim two weeks ago in Puerto Monte, and had hoped they would run into us. Jim had told him I had done some research on the R100GS drive shaft failures which he had just recently encountered at the start of his trip between Buenos Aires Barroloche. He had 90,000 km (56k miles) on his odometer when this happened. I expect mine will fail between 30k to 60k miles, since they almost always do. Currently our R100GS has 27k miles. It cost him $450 for parts plus shipping from Norway. He was held up in Barroloche, Argentina (a nice but expensive touristy place) for 3 weeks because of this problem. They need to be back home in May, so this was a big chunk of time for them. I'm hoping ours will fail while we are still in Europe (preferably Munich :-)), before we drive onto Africa. Jim had also told them we had Ohlin shocks on both our bikes which is what he had outfitted both of their bikes with, however he was having a problem with one of them. The problem was, that he bought them second hand, and had a spring that was way too stiff for the weight of Tone's bike. I sat on the bike, and it felt like sitting on a steel bench. No give. No adjustment would fix this other than to replace the spring with a softer one which he had back in Norway. As far as luggage, they were travelling light. Actually only Greg Frazier, and maybe Doug Ruth had more stuff on their bikes than us. Christian and I talked about modifications to the bikes, and problems we have had. He also had problems with the kickstand. Tone's bike had a stronger looking custom made kickstand that they are still modifying. Christian's side stand broke off and is missing. We were talking on the side of the road for nearly 2.5 hours, and then prompted by hunger, we drove into Pucon to have some lunch together, and talk some more. We found we knew of a common circle of travellers. Feels like a small world when we run into other motorcycle travellers on the road who know other people we know or have heard of. We told them that driving up Norway through the fjords is a must for us. They gave us their address in Oslo, and offered us a place to stay, and a place to work on the bike. He passed on some addresses in Germany to get cheap repair work done on the BMW's should we need. Sharon showed Tone her electric jacket liner, to which Tone was excited to see that such a thing existed. Having just come up from Patagonia, Christian said "You're going to need those." They had _all_ of their clothes on, and were still cold. By 4:00, we thought we better get on with our day which had just started. We said goodbye, and headed onto P----. Before we did, we drove around Pucon. It's an attractive town, very touristy, and a bit nicer than Villarica. From most streets, the snow capped conical smoking volcano is visible, and makes for a beautiful backdrop against the clear blue sky. When we turned onto the PanAmerican highway, a Chilean police (here called Caballeros) waved us over. Typical of about every other day of driving in Chile, we were pulled over for a random check. The police ask to see our international drivers license, and transit papers for the bike. One time, I handed over my state drivers license to which the officer said that "When a caballero (Chilean cop) asks for your drivers license, that means international license.... Your North American license means nothing here." This is the first country my local drivers license was declined. At times, it can seem bothersome to run into so many cops, however according to Argentinians we've met, this is the safest country in South America due to the overabundance of strict, by the book, cops. They certainly have the most tame drivers of any country we've been to. We camped out, in a nice shaded private camp ground for 2,000 pesos per person ($4.40). Despite the closeness to our neighbors, it was nice and quiet. The techno camping fad of North America hasn't hit South America. They don't have brands like Mountain System Research, Mountain Engineering Inc., North Face, Marmot, etc. The tents I've seen look nice, but are heavy, not breathable, and not rainproof. Yesterday, when it looked like it was going to rain, everyone strung up tarpaulins over their tent. As far as camp stoves, people carry small 15 liter (4 gallon) natural gas pressurized tanks with two burner portable stove tops for cooking. Backpackers carry pressurized butane fuel burners. Of course, between the US and Chile, camping didn't seem to be a part of the culture, and rarely existed. More often than not people have portable stereos or portable televisions. Some have portable picnic tables, chairs, gazebos, and grills. Having not gone through a pyro stage as a child like I did, Sharon is lighter challenged, and can not flick her Bic. Lighting our camping stove when she makes a dinner is difficult for her. For her upcoming birthday, I told her I would buy her a Zippo, however to be consistent with her bad ass blonde in black motorcycle leather image, I told her I'd look for a Zippo with a Harley insignia on it. February 15, 1998 Puerto Montt, Chile - hotel Pacifico R80G/S 37700 R100GS 27306 As we were driving down the PanAmerican which was now for the most part two lanes. We ended up behind a luxury bus with toilet on board. We found this out when _water_ all of sudden started pouring onto the road right in front of us. We had no alternate lane or shoulder to drop into. We were stuck... It seemed as though the liquid just kept coming, and coming.... Sharon who was in the lead, noticed first, and swerved to the side. I fell back a ways. To my knowledge, no solids came out with this stream... Fortunately, it was the first time we've encountered this type of road hazard. after arriving in town... We were told that the boat trip was hurting for alcohol, and so b.y.o.b.. We picked up a couple bottles of wine, just in case. We also picked up some snacks at the grocery store. For dinner We had some wonderful locally made camembert, smoked turkey, Chilean bread and some Concho y Toro Trio 1994 Cabernet Savignon that claimed hints of Chocolate, cedar, casis, delicate menthol. Couldn't pick out the casis, but tasted the others and some black berry. This Trio was the nicest Concho y Toro we've had. Concho y Toro must have 30 or more wines of all different varieties and at a wide variety of prices. Many that we've seen here may not be exported. Later we had a watermelon which we split with our hotel neighbors Julie and Tri from West Virginia. For the first time. I used the machete that we purchased in Guatemala to cut open the melon. For possible future culinary inventory, it worked easier than any chef knife might have. Julie and Tri had been travelling for the past 6 weeks, and had 6 weeks more travel before return. We gave them some Newsweek and Economist magazines that we had accumulated over the past two months. They were very grateful, and since they had nothing to trade in return, G.C. Mills III, or "Tri", who was a professional boatman (river rafting guide), gave me a business card and told us he would give us a free white water rafting trip, should we ever make it out to his region. February 16, 1998 Chilean Channel, Chile - {Navimag's "Puerto Eden" boat} This morning as we were driving to our boat dock, I saw a turn that looked like the one I had seen yesterday, with the grand luxury liner, the Norwegian Crown docked. I indicated to Sharon that this was our turn. We got a little closer, and oops, nope, the sign said not that one... We drove further, and found our boat. While our boat was nice, It's probably best described as a very large nice ferry boat, but certainly not a luxury cruise liner. I later found out that the Norwegian Crown was sailing from Santiago (Vina del Mar?) to Buenos Aires. The Puerto Eden, our boat, has eight or more decks. Four of these decks are used for passenger sleeping quarters, while two are used for vehicles. We had not wanted to book our tickets too early, as we didn't want to be rushed. However, by the time we did, the only two classes available were economy and Class A cabins. Economy class was described to us as being below sea level, so of course no window; in rooms with up to 24 people sleeping in bunk beds, and use only of the public bathrooms. We were warned that sometimes the floor gets wet, and so it's best not to put one's belongings down there. No thanks. Above Economy class in increasing order is J, K, B, A, AA, and _the_ suite of which there is only one. Class A and AA are nice rooms on the top level with a window, and private bathroom. Class A has a private bathroom down the hall, while class AA has one inside. AA costs twice the price of A. Our class A tickets cost us 130,000 pesos (US$286) per person, meals and entertainment included. We paid 25,000 pesos ($55) per motorcycle. After we boarded our boat, and moved into our cabin, we thought we made the right choice. Nice sleeping quarters for the next 3 nights and four days. The economy class which was in the lower decks. had their own separate eating area, and were left on their own as far as entertainment was concerned. Being in the upper decks, we had a full time "monitor" or M.C. who constantly had interesting things going on. We drove the motorcycles on to the boat, and onto the giant freight elevator on board. We shared a slow ride up on the elevator with a semi-trailer to the upper vehicle deck, and were able to park our motorcycle in the most far forward and center area away from the most rocking, and salt water spray. A loader tied our bikes down to the deck as he did with all the vehicles that boarded. During the four day voyage, there is 12-14 hours out in the open Pacific ocean which we're told is pretty rough. February 17, 1998 On the boat, Chile We got a tour of the bridge. The boat was built in Finland, and powered by German made Mak engines which the crew seemed to hold in high regard. Navigation is all pretty high tech as it should be for navigating the narrow passes of the Chilean fjords. They don't navigate by GPS, but rather use it as a backup system since the navigation charts were made prior to GPS, and are not accurate enough for GPS navigation. They use radar to plot out the surrounding islands. They have a Sperry made gyro compass, and a backup magnetic compass which is used during power outage. If I understood correctly, they said that magnetic North seems to change from year to year. They had a device which counted off seconds of longitude change based off of how long the gyro compass bearing held and I guess the speed of the boat. The boat engine keeps a constant speed, they vary the speed of the boat by tilting the propeller blades. The boat has a forward propeller mounted perpendicular to the plane of travel which is used for tight steering. At the time, the boat was being driven on auto pilot. They have an air sampling panel for which acts as a fire alarm should the light based sensor encounter smoke in the air stream. Another system can then inject blasts of CO2 throughout the ship. They had several radio systems, the main being VHF. Marine channel 16 is used for initial communication. They carried a set of colored flags for various communications. However I suppose all of this is standard marine stuff. We crossed several narrow passes. We saw whales spraying air and water into the air from their blow hole as they came up to breath. We saw several dolphins however they were difficult to spot since, like the whales they only appeared at the surface for seconds at a time. We crossed little islands with seals basking in the sun. Sine Puerto Montt, we've seen penguins swimming in the water. So far they've been about as common as ducks on a duck infested lake. When they are at the surface swimming, from a distance, they look like sort of like a duck with a short neck. Getting out the binoculars, we could clearly see they were penguins. They would often dive and swim under the water looking for fish. At 7:00pm, Our MC made the announcement over the intercom, that now was the time to take the sea sickness pills, as the boat would be out of the Chilean channel and in the open sea in less than 2 hours. In Puerto Montt, we stopped in a pharmacy, and asked for "sickness of boat". The woman gave us a foil wrapped packet of "Bonamina". I asked to see the box it came in, however it had no directions. She said, take two or three or more if you feel like it 10 minutes before voyage. I'd look this up in a PDR if I had one, failing that, I asked around to see what other people had, and to see if the active ingredients were similar to what our Bonamina contained which was ________, and get a rough consensus on what the prescribed dose is for humans. For future reference, I found out that Dramamine is 50mg of Dimenhydrinate and is taken as 1 to 2 tablets 4 to 6 hours not to exceed 8 in 24 hours. I ended up asking Marcelo who was familiar with it and told me to take 1 pill now, and another in five hours if I like. He asked if I had hypertension or high blood pressure, which if nothing else, the act of asking gave me a little confidence in his directions. The next day, Sharon and I were both alive with no noticeable side affects. Neither of us got ill, likely because the ocean segment was relatively calm compared to other voyages the ship had made on previous trips. Before going to bed I spent the night out on deck dressed in full riding gear minus helmet and boots keeping warm in the 58 degree, ~30mph wind, taking in the fresh air, and keeping my eye on the horizon. Not because I was sick, only because I have a history of getting sick. Iron gut Sharon hung out inside where it was warm watching the Val Kilmer movie, called "The Saint". February 18th, 1998 Our breakfast this morning was a bit more appetizing than yesterday, and consisted of a grilled cheese sandwich, coffee, and cream of wheat porridge. Yesterday, we had some plain runny scrambled eggs, dry toast and runny oatmeal for breakfast. After breakfast, I took an interesting tour of the engine room. The engine room was noisy and warm, comfortable for T-shirt, shorts and headphones. Unlike under the hood of a car, there were lots of spinning, clicking metal gears and sprockets, moving latches and levers. Fascinating place... Sharon found my recollection of the tour a bit dry, and you too, may want to skip a few paragraphs.... They have two large German made Mak engines. Each engine has 6 1000kg pistons that can spin at up to 350RPMs and with a total displacement of 525,000cc. When it was newer they could spin at 375RPMs. They drive a magnetic based air clutch which then turns the electrically controlled pitch propeller. The engines runs off a thick dark diesel tar like fuel which must be heated to above 80 Celsius before it enters the engine. They use a boiler to heat it up to 40 degrees Celsius, and then heat it further to around 84 degrees by electrical resistance heating. When they cold start the engine they use an off white more viscous diesel fuel that doesn't require heating. Before they turn off the engine, they must first fill it with this thinner fuel or else they will have to disassemble the engine and clean it manually which takes about a week. The thinner fuel is much more expensive, and so is only used for starting the engines and running them until they are warm. The thick tar diesel fuel must be heated to 20 degrees Celsius before it can flow from the fuel trucks into the boat, however the trucks supply this heat. They carry enough fuel to power the engines for up to 30 days. One engine is used to power the boat, the other is used for the electrical generators. There are some smaller engines which are used for electrical generation and run off the thinner more expensive fuel. The boat can produce 425,000 kw of power. As I write this I notice some discrepancies in my recollection... The voltage and Hertz of the electricity is dependent on the speed of the engine turning. He said that on rough seas when the boat is pitching with the propellers coming out of water, the RPMs of the engine surge, and then so does the voltage... However I don't understand this since one engine is used for electricity generation, and the other for powering the boat, unless the engines must both spin at the same speed always. Finnish made control panels monitor and control electricity production. It appears they have four redundant electrical panels, of which only one was used at that time to power the boat. The boat runs 220volt, 50Hz power, However at the time, I noticed it was reading 45 Hertz from a strange meter which to me, reminded me of a vibrating tuning fork, with a separate fork type digit for each Hertz ranging from 40 to 60. Hot water for the showers is controlled down in the engine room and is usually at around 71 Celsius, however since it was morning and everyone had just taken a shower, the digital LED panel was reading 41 Celsius. Water is purified on board with some sort of purification system. Sharon's intestines says the water passes USFDA specs. Control of engine speed, and pitch of propeller can all be transferred to the engine room. The front side thrusting propeller which is used for tight space maneuvering is controlled by an electrical engine. Fallen liquid in the engine room (fuel, oil, water), is collected, and stored into a holding bin near the economy passenger lodging. The "black" water is separated from the fuel and oil, and then biologically treated and released back into the ocean after a week. The fuel and oil is burned in the engine. [End of engine room tour] Marcelo, who has been the officer in charge of passenger entertainment and who gave the bridge and engine room tours, gave a talk on the indigenous cultures of Patagonia. Patagonia which means "big foot" comes from the name given to the tall Selkman people who lived in Tierra del Fuego, and were around 6 feet tall. The Selkman crossed the Bearing Straights (Asia to Alaska) during the first ice age 50 to 60k years ago, and then were thought to cross the straights of Magellan during the last ice age 10,000-12,000 years ago. They numbered about 4,000 people in the 19th century, and the culture disappeared during from interbreeding with Spanish, and old world introduced diseases. It was the Selkman's campfire that burned smoke when the Spanish sailed by, and thus named the area Tierra del Fuego, (land of fire). The Yamana culture lived along the North East area of Tiera del Fuego, and hunted seals, and sea lions, eating high fat content meals which help in warmth. The Aoniken lived in Southern Patagonia, North of the straights of Magelan. They were Nomadic. Woman were responsible for all domestic things including folding up the homes made of animal skins, and carrying the house to the next destination. Qawaskga lived further North along the Western regions of Patagonia... They migrated away from Spanish settlement to keep there breed pure from the caucasian gene pool. After travelling through Central America and South America, and seeing the ratio of mestizos to indigenous, it's clear that the Spaniards were a prolific group. Most of the above four cultures believed in one god, the creator, that coexisted with a bad spirit or destroyer who was blamed for wind, snow, ice, etc. After the talk, the televisions played a Jacque Costeau documentary on the indigenous cultures of the region. In the afternoon, the captain took the boat on a diversion through a channel to view a glacier. We cruised up close enough to get some good pictures. The surrounding water was full of chunks of ice that had fallen off into the water. The glacier looked similar to those in Alaska. The ice is blue from being super compressed, and breaks off into fat spears as it is slowly pushed into the water. Like yesterday while going through beautiful passes, through the ships intercom, Marcelo plaid nice new age music to set the mood. Afterwards, I hung out the top deck as the boat drove through the Chilean fjord channels working on my palmtop on my journal, and e-mail. Meanwhile new age music with a Eastern Indian style chant played in the background. The water in this channel is like glass as there is little wind. Occasionally, a lone seal might swim nearby between us and the shore. The sky was clear, and the sun's warmth made it warm enough to wear just T-shirt. Later, our cabin mates, Tim and Jo told us they were hanging out by the bow where dolphins were swimming along side the boat playing in the wake of the bow. February 19th, 1998 Puerto Natales, Chile Again we had beautiful weather. In the morning, mist clouds lay on the channel off in the distance partially obscuring the mountains that protruded from the water. Later in the morning, the sky was clear and sun was bright. After breakfast, they played a National Geographics special on Pumas in the Torres del Paine National Park. This park is a highlight of Southern Chile, just like visiting Denali in Alaska. Uncommon to see like wolves are in Denali, so are Pumas in Torres del Paine, mostly because they shy away from humans. We passed through a very narrow passage where the normally calm water rippled like a slow river from the tide passing in. We found pods of seals here. They would jump out of the water and dive again as the boat passed. Especially around here, we could see the kelp beds below the surface of the water that they swam through. On one tiny rock island, there were probably twenty just sunning themselves. In the distance, we passed by several glacier capped mountains. As usual, the ship played pleasant new age music in these scenic areas. Our boat docked and began unloading around 6:00pm. Puerto Natales is a small town of 18,000 inhabitants. Figuring that every hotel in town is about to be full, Sharon went on ahead to find us a hotel while I waited on the boat. Since our bikes were well protected up front and on the second story with only one slow elevator, they were near the last to leave. She brought with her one of our 2 watt walkie talkies we use as bike to bike communicators, so we could keep in touch with each other in case I needed her for paper work which I later did. Just outside of the loading area, we met two pairs of motorcycle travellers. One was a Dutch couple on Honda Transalps who had just gotten married in a motorcycle wedding ceremony in Holland, and were now travelling for a month through Patagonia on their honeymoon. The other couple, Claudio and Catherine, were from Switzerland, and were travelling through South America. They were riding on nicely customized Honda XR650s. They had found an aluminum smith in Italy that made 35 liter gas tanks of which both of there's had. Claudio had purchased a Tesch luggage rack like our R100GS had for his Honda Africa Twin. He then later made one like it for both of the XR650s which were both carrying a set of aluminum boxes. Both XR650s they had purchased on a previous trip in the US. They seemed like an interesting couple that because of bad timing we didn't get as much talking in as we would have liked. Sharon had told them of our potential plans to leave the R80G/S behind when we cross Africa. They offered to let us store our R80G/S at their place while we do this since, they run a winery and have lots of space for long term store. They gave us their address, and invited us to visit. The next morning, they stopped at our hotel, and we exchanged information about roads up ahead. They were a day ahead of us in preparation for hiking in Torres del Paine, and so we decided we might meet up there. ---- Important Trivia Notes learned from our boat: The best dates in the world come from Yuma, Arizona. This information comes from a date importer/exporter who just happened to be on our boat. Etymology trivia: Puma is the _Inca_ name/word for mountain lion. 1 minute at 45 degrees S. Latitude = 1 Nautical mile = 1,852.4 meters Is this correct? I think it may be 1 minute at the equator rather than at a latitude of 45 degrees. 1 nautical mile per hour = 1 knot (in Spanish, knot = nudo) ----- Dave Thompson thompson@pdnt.com www - http://sdg.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~mag/Thompson Net-Tamer V 1.09 Palm Top - Registered