The Navimag experience

As a compromise to not being able to book the 4 day trip on the Navimag cargo ship from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt (nb: due to its popularity), we settled on boarding the cargo ship from Puerto Chacabuco, west of Coyhaique, to take us to Puerto Montt. After a couple of local buses, one of which the lights didn´t work and the driver was breaking world records to try to reach the town before dark, we hit the docks and watched trucks and livestock being loaded into the ship all the while thinking how surreal the whole operation looked.

After the initial excitement of boarding and sorting out our dorms, it quickly dawned on us that there was not much to bloody do on the ship and boredom quickly settled in. After all, the ship is primarily a cargo ship and only decided to take on passengers when one too many backpackers kept pestering them for a ride. Also, the weather was not too great and it rained the whole time so viewing what we could of the Chilean coastline and fjords was a very cold and wet experience. Luckily, the trip involved 2 nights and 1 day so we kept ourselves mildly amused (ie: slept a lot!).

**Dorms: Can be good and can also be very bad. We unfortunately got stuck with 2 yee-har americans, one who was very imposing, and the other who stank like there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately, our tiny curtains covering the beds did nothing to keep out the stench.