Tuesday 3rd February Puerto Montt We arrived this morning at our second port in Chile - Puerto Montt. We are again at anchor so it was a tender boat to the shore. The morning was cloudy and when we got off the tender it was raining. Our guide for the morning told us they had 200 days of rain a year! As we left the port and drove to Lake Llanquihue the clouds started to clear and the sun came out. Our first stop on the lake was Puerto Varas. Over the lake the c...

Sunday 1st February Chilean Fjords Yesterday morning we left the Pacific and sailed into one of the Chilean fjords. Although the air was cold it was a clear sunny day. We sailed through some rugged scenery to reach our first glacier. All the glaciers we are seeing are tidewater glaciers - they descend into the sea and the ice breaks off into icebergs. The picture shows the first glacier we saw - the Amalia Glacier. The ice at the edge of the glacier is blue as ...

Friday 30th January Punta Arenas, Chile Since leaving Montivideo we have been sailing south and on Tuesday we were lucky enough to see some whales from our cabin balcony. We think they were humpback whales. Yesterday afternoon we took on a Chilean pilot and we entered the Magellan Straits. The waters in the Straits are very calm and the ship sailed slowly along until we came to Punta Arenas. We anchored there late in the evening. Today the ship's small tender b...

Sunday 25th January Montevideo Early this morning we sailed into the Rio de la Plata and into the harbour of the capital of Uruguay, Montevideo. We are here for two days as this is the end of the first sector of our cruise. The city was fairly quiet today as it is Sunday. We went on a city tour that started with the old town. Our first stop was at the Plaza Constitucion, a small square by the cathedral. We then went on to the main square -the Plaza Independenci...

Thursday 22nd January Rio De Janeiro We have sailed south along the coast of Brazil to Rio de Janeiro. From our ship we can see the place we are visiting this morning - Corcovado Mountain which is 2,400 feet high. To get to the top we took the cogwheel railway and then walked up a series of steps to reach the 150 foot high statue of Christ the Redeemer that looks over Rio. It's an amazing statue. The views from here are also wonderful and we were fortunate as i...