Feb 20 Puerto Chacabuco Chile

Lots of things happening on board Insignia this day.  Late last night Oceania sent out a letter to travel agents cancelling the last segments of our Around The World Cruise (for those clients who had booked the individual segments).  And, of course, it was posted online almost immediately.  So those of us onboard found out we weren't going to any Asian ports (pretty much the last third of the ATW trip) without knowing anything else.  People were not happy.

I can't blame the Insignia people, because they got the same meager information from the Miami head offices at the same time we did.  And since it was 10 in the evening (we're currently 2 hours ahead of NY time) there was no time for a letter to passengers.  But, since we're arriving late in Puerto Chacabuco, there was a previously scheduled Coffee Get Together for the ATW group.

 At 9am we got together in the lounge with lots of breakfast items, including a very tasty, cream cheese filled pastry with a Christmas theme.

 General Manager Damien shows why he gets paid the big bucks by standing up and telling people everything he knew, and quite a few "I don't know".  Based on a letter received later in the day, Oceania is canceling our itinerary after April 19 and instead of continuing around Singapore, through Asia and Japan and Russia and Alaska, instead will proceed to western Australia, New Zealand, French Polynesia, Hawaii and finally to our original destination, San Francisco.  Details to follow.

Oceania is discounting our fares by 50% for the affected portion of the trip, which is slightly less than half of the 180 days.  Travelers have the option to disembark in Capetown with a full refund of the remaining portion of the trip.  I know some people are seriously considering doing that -- including a number of Australians aboard.  We'll stay aboard -- the discount makes it an extremely cheap Oceania cruise.  We like Australia and New Zealand, and there's nothing else we'd be doing anyway.

 At 11am we come to our port stop in Chile, anticlimactic though it may be.

 We are now into the Patagonian fjords.  Our tour today is a bus trip into the interior, up into the beginnings of the Andes.  It's mostly bus touring, with only three stops in 6 hours.   

 First stop is at a national park on the Simpson River.

 Back on the bus, climbing up into the Andes.

 There was lots of road construction underway.  We got to wait 5 minutes or more at several places where the road was one-laned through a construction site.  But it's summer road building season.

 We visit the capital of the region.

 There was some sort of street festival going on when we arrived. On a Thursday. 

 The locals were happy to see us.

 Coyhaique must be a gateway into the Patagonian wilderness because there were a number of people carrying trekking packs, most young people were wearing performance clothing, and there was both a Patagonia and a North Face store right near the town square (which is actually a pentagon).  And we couldn't find a store that would take US $ for a Coke.

 Back in the bus, we head out of town for a "snack".

 We stop at a tourist hacienda a little ways out of town.

 Our snack was two empenadas, a skewer of grilled meat, a skewer of fruit and a chunk of tuna on cracker.  I ate the grilled meat and empenadas, and my stomach didn't like some part of it.  Much bloating and gas later on that evening, though no lasting effects.  Perhaps it was that we were on the sunny side of the bus during the two hour return journey, it was very hot day, the bus's AC was not working, and when stopped for road construction it got quite hot.  Even though we got up to over 4000'. 

 We shared the tuna (but not the cracker) with a local inhabitant.

 Trampolining must be a high latitude activity.  We saw it in Greenland (http://drdavebradley.blogspot.com/2019/08/aug-14-tasiilaq-greenland.html)

 Our return to the bustling port of Chacabuco.