This is my first trip south to South America and Antarctica – 32 days worth. Thirty-one of those days are a Bentours package: Santiago, the Atacama Desert, Buenos Aires, Iguazú, then Ushuaia to Puerto Montt aboard a Hurtigruten ship, then the Andean Lakes crossing and home. Nordkapp cabin grade P1 – otherwise known as the cheap seats down low and midships. Award business class round trip for 96,000 points each way, with a short stop in Auckland on the way out.
I had done the Norwegian coast on MS Nordkapp two years earlier, north from Bergen to Kirkenes and back in the middle of January, and had spent the whole voyage thinking about the other end of the world, and whether a Norwegian ferry was right for me. The same ship, as it turns out, works the Chilean channels in the southern summer, along with the sister ship Nordnorge.
The plan
Santiago for Christmas. Calama and San Pedro de Atacama for four nights. Buenos Aires for New Year. Iguazú for three days. Ushuaia on 5 January to board. Fourteen nights at sea, ending at Punta Arenas. Then north to Puerto Montt, the Andean Lakes Crossing into Argentina, Bariloche, and home the long way — Buenos Aires, Santiago, Sydney on 23 January.
Nothing about that list is unusual. It is a package, sold out of a brochure, and I am one passenger on it. What I am carrying is a Canon and rather more film-era habits than I care to admit.