Friday 10 Feb 2023 - Farewell Santiago - and not a moment too soon. The air quality here has been unhealthy for the past week due to the massive wildfires 6 hours south of here. Thankfully the air conditioner in the apartment has been working hard so at least it's better indoors. Our driver turned up 'Spanish' Early - only 5 minutes. We invariably book drivers for a particular time and they arrive 15-20 minutes early then cause havoc rushing us to get down to the car sooner than we expected to. This time we were down there with our lorry-load of bags 20 minutes early… and cooled our jets for 15 minutes. The drive to Valparaiso was a lesson in contrasts. When we arrived 11 days ago the Andes were crystal clear with distant snow against a blue sky. Today the thick smoke haze intensified as we drove out of Santiago to the point of us saying Andes? What Andes?

We had an excellent driver which is hugely important here since most think road rules are guidelines rather than laws and surprisingly the public bus drivers are the worst. They are all red/green colour blind it seems and even if you have the lights, they come barrelling through no matter if their light is green/orange or red. Laying on the horn is the bus driver approach to obeying road rules. But that's by the by. The traffic ground to a slow crawl about 15 minutes into the drive as there was an accident ahead on the freeway. And as sure as night follows day, there was another accident about 200 metres beyond the first one, a rear-ender caused by lolly-gaggers. We were 15 minutes behind time at that stage but he caught most of it up with the lead-foot driving method.

We were immersed in the chaos of MSC boarding procedures which felt like time travel - nothing is apparently on computers in the late 1990s of MSC Magnifica… suffice it to say, aside from Hurtigruten, first days are always chaos to one degree or another… but these guys were worse than Costa - which I never thought I'd say out loud. At the very least the ship has been rechristened the Magnifi-can't. (Pictured leaving Valparaiso, Chile.)

We got somewhat settled in, visited the Aurea Spa area as we splurged $8 a day each for a Thermal Suite Pass for the duration of the voyage and made a booking immediately for 8 pm on Day 1. We had dinner, had a bit of a look about and then headed to the luxury of the thermal area. We did this once before on a Holland America cruise and and squeezed the pips out of the experience. Neither of us want to be out in the sun and this way there are three jacuzzis, 2 saunas and 2 steam rooms at our disposal with limited people. Bliss. Figure it will be a twice a day endeavour and we'll turn into prunes by the end of 5 weeks onboard.

Saturday 11 Feb '23, Hard beds. Always hard beds. Thankfully our memory foam toppers are something we don't travel without, and we'll deploy those for tonight. We had a 10 am spa, a 2 pm gym workout and a 3.30 pm second spa session. It smoothed some of the rough edges. Dining has been pleasant so far and the staff take the edge off what is essentially an old ship. Today's entertainment included a wonderful flute/piano/cello concert at 4.30 pm, a bit of sorting out of excursions and what not as they've cancelled the Peru outings. Very disappointing for the folks who were shelling out for the Machu Picchu extravaganza, but Blind Freddy could see it coming when they declared a State of Emergency a month ago. We only booked the Gold Museum and Lima by Night as the port of Callao is a bit of a hole and we wanted to fill our two days in Lima. So happy days indeed as we're getting another full day in Easter Island. The evening saw us dancing, visited the jewellers for the raffle (unsuccessfully) and then the evening show which was an all-singing, all dancing, affair with a bloke who reminds us of Michael Buble and two outstanding ballroom/latin dancers. Wow. Finally off to bed. Another Sea Day tomorrow which we're looking forward to immensely now that we've settled in.

Sunday 12 Feb '23, Sea Day - en route to Arica, Chile. Getting into the swing of things now. We headed up to the buffet today to get the lay of the land. As it turns out, keep walking. We eventually got to the very end of the ship and found a quieter, snazzier, open and fresh area to sit, happily close to the omelette station. We'll save the buffet for days when we are in port and just want to accomplish breakfast with minimal fuss - otherwise we'll stay in the main dining room where it's generally less feral and more civilised.

Breakfast and exploration accomplished we repaired to the Spa area, jacuzz'ed and relaxed - exploring options for Easter Island. Life is good. Have cancelled the ship's tour in a huge coach with numpties and booked a small group tour with an island operator - 6 hours instead of 3 in an 8 person group… for the same price and seeing the equivalent of three of the ship's tours in one fell swoop. Yippee. Dinner was 'American' night - Not bad… but the snickers cake with salted caramel sauce was just freakin' wicked. No show for us - knackered. Early to bed.