Alaska - June 2010

Arrived in Vancouver today, will fly to Anchorage tomorrow and drive to Denali National Park, then Delta Junction, to Glenn, to Palmer to Seaward and then board Sevensea Cruise to Vancouver.

Red King Crab

500kg Polar Bears

Our rental car

Sevenseas Cruise

Torres Del Paine National Park

Lonely Planet says "a trip to Chile is not complete without visiting the magnificent Torres del Paine National Park" which is situated in Patagonia in South CHILE. It is a rather strange name for many people. It is far away from most part of the world and is called at the end of the world. It took us 3 hour flight from Santiago, capital of Chile to Punta Arenas, then drive over 5 hours, 400 km through Puerto Natales - a small town. Only half of the road is paved. As I said before we saw very few people and cars on the way.

The park contains beautiful mountain and 3 pillars with 3,000 meter high (10,000 feet) which raises almost 2,500 meter from surrounding lakes. There are lot of lakes and glaciers. The famous animal is Guanaco (looks like a camel) which is not too scared of humans. Guanaco are not allowed to be hunted in the park.

The park is very big and there are not many road for cars, but lots of hiking routes. The famous one call "W" takes one week to walk. It is pity I had food poisoning on first day and had to cancel my walk to a glacier of 12 km. I walked only 5 and 7 km on 2nd and 3rd day with my wife. On first day she walk over 5 km. The weather during our visit was beautiful, but very very windy. The air was so clear and I took lot of good pictures.

We stayed at the expensive Explora which is a beautiful hotel and built with lot of timber. We had our room facing the mountain as above picture. The surrounding lakes are beautiful, but the water was very cold, 7 degree. I tried to swim, but gave up.

The town where our plane landed- Punta Arenas with population 125,000,was a very busy town before the opening of Panama Canal. At that time many ships passed there and stopped for supplies before crossing from Atlantic Ocean to Pacific Ocean through Straits of Magellan. At present it is still a very nice small town with colorful buildings. Nearby there are famous Magellanic penguins which are only found in this area and also Falkland islands. The size is about half meter tall. Penguins are very special and interesting animals. Male goes out for weeks to look for food and back to look after baby, then female's turn to go to the sea. Penguins come to this area in September and have baby, then will leave with baby to Brazil in April. From my photo you can see the difference between adult and baby - adult has a white strip on chest.

Punta Arenas is also a place to fly to Antarctic. There were few native there before Spanish. Nowaday we only see Europeans.

Pitcairn Island

The ship called on Pitcairn Island which is 1200 km west of Easter Island and 1,300 km to Tahiti. A small island , but it is very famous. At present it belongs to UK and has population 50 only. Most of them are white people - the only one in Pacific (Mostly Polynesian)..

I think many of you watched " Mutiny of the bounty" (there are 5 films). An English ship called "The Bounty" left England in late 1787 and took 10 months to arrive in Tahiti. The ship was supposed to bring breadfruit-tree to the Carribbean. On 28th April 1789 when the ship left Tahiti and passing by Tonga,the 2nd man Fletcher Christian in the ship mutinied with crew and sent the captain Bligh with 18 faithful crew into ship's launch (a small open boat). These 19 people took 41 days 5,823 km to reached Timor which was in the record book.

Christian sailed "the Bounty" back to Tahiti. Later they split into 2 groups, 16 crew stayed in Tahiti. Christian sailed the Bounty with 8 British crew, 12 female and 6 male Tahitian to Pitcairn Island where no people lived. They settled down there and burned the Bounty which sunk nearby. They were found out many year later when many people with surname Christian. Now a day most of resident in Pitcairn are mutineers' descendents. Because of this mutiny, the island belongs to British.

For the group of 16 crew who stayed in Tahiti, 2 died and 14 were caught by British Navy and sent back to England where 2 were hanged.

Captain Bligh later went back to Tahiti and many year later became governor of New South Wales, Australia and has his statue in Circular Quay, Sydney.

There is only one place on this island where you can land with a small boat as the waves are big. On our call day, 30 persons came to our ship to sell their handicraft, postcards & stamps, T-shirts (made in China) for 2 hours. We estimated they took USD 40,000 back.

How they spend their time?? If they want to go out, they need to take boat to Tahiti.

This is different world.

Easter Island

I wanted to visit Easter Island when I was in middle school and at last I went there this year.

Easter Island is not big and is mysterious which is almost 4,000 km from South America and nearest island is Pitcairn island almost 2,000 km west. It is so isolated , but there are people and most interesting thing is Moai (sculpture) with height 2 to 20 meters. How the people went there?? Why they built and erected those Moai (they back the ocean)? ? Anyone can give an answer , but it is up to you believe it or not.

Moai is only found in Easter Island.? There are about 600 of them.? Someone estimates that 30 men working 8 hours/day, took one year to carve it (no metal , only use lava rock) and 90 men took 2 month to move to the site and 3 months to erect it.

Some theory believes people moved there about 1,500 year ago from Tahiti island area. A Dutch expedition landed on it on East Sunday , 1722 and called it the name.?

There are about 4,000 people in this island and it is part of Chile. There is a small airport , 4 flight a week to Santiago and 2 flight a week to Tahiti.

Moai in Easter Island

Patagonia

This is the hotel at Torres Del Paine National Park, South Chile.
It is a beautiful and very remote country. We only saw few people in
5 hour drive and mainly were tourists.

The wind is so strong and you can see Mrs.Cheung the way she walked.





Iceberg on the lake from glacier.


Baby Magellanic Penguins in Seno Otway , near Punta Arenas, South Chile.

Santiago

After 3 hours flight (3,000 km) we come back to Santiago last night from Patagonia -South Chile. This is very remote area , few people in a sq.KM. The scenery is beautifly and few tourists . I had food poison and was sick on first day,and therefore missed one full day trekking -13 KM. Mrs.Cheung was very good in trekking. On 1st day , she did 6 KM. 2nd day 6 KM, 3rd day 7 KM. The weather was rather good, sunny or cloudy, cool, but very windy.

Tomorrow we will travel to Valpariso Port -130 KM- to QE2. We may hae difficult to read you email.

Best wishes for Chinese New Year.

Ewan and Yolanda