Puerto Montt

Sunday night was Superbowl night on the ship - they had it in the cabins and also on the three screens in the Showroom at sea and in the Explorations Café. I watched the first half, but since we had a tour in the morning I went to bed at about 10:15 - Jim watched it all. Since we were pulling for New Orleans I’m sorry I didn’t see all of it. They had the showroom decorated for both teams and a ‘Tailgate Zone’ set up with munchies.

Monday we anchored at Puerto Montt. We had what might have been the best ship tour we have ever taken. We first went to a small town and had an hour to wander around and shop for handicrafts. It was lovely and very Bavarian-feeling - much German influence there. We walked a few blocks to a church up on a hill, took a few pictures and then headed down to the craft market near the bus.

After that we headed to a ranch called a fundo which is smaller than an estancia. It was a working horse ranch and we were treated to some folkloric dances by some children and then the cowboys (called huachos) did a rodeo type show. It was very well done, but we had to watch in from inside the dining room as it had started raining. This area gets about 10 feet of rain each year so they were well prepared for this. There were musicians playing traditional local instruments and singing. One of the dancers was a little boy, much younger than the rest of them… he totally stole the show! We were served wine and appetizers and then a full lunch with more wine and then dessert and a cordial… it could have been nap time on the way back to the ship, but we were only about 15 minutes from the port so there really wasn’t time.

It was dinner time not long after returning on the tender, but we weren’t hungry… we decided to have dessert and coffee. Then we went to the Crows Nest to listen to Buddy on the piano for about an hour. They off to bed… I think we only read about 15 minutes and we were ready for sleep.