Marina - Cape Horn Encounter: Santiago to Buenos Aires

Where this cruise calls, day by day

15 ports and 4 sea days over 18 Nights.

1. Day 1

   San Antonio (Santiago)

   ChileDepart

   San Antonio is a working container and bulk port, and cruise ships call here mainly because Valparaiso's berths are full. The town itself is thin on sights — a fishing wharf with pelicans and sea lions, and not much beyond that. Nearly everyone heads out: Santiago is about 110 km inland, the Casablanca wine valley is much closer, and Neruda's house at Isla Negra is a short drive down the coast.

   • Casablanca Valley wineries
   • Pablo Neruda's Isla Negra house and museum
   • Santiago day trip (roughly 90 minutes each way)
   • The fish market wharf with resident sea lions

   Getting ashore

   Ships berth in the commercial port; a shuttle is normally required to leave the terminal gates.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar

2. Day 2 · At sea

3. Day 3

   Puerto Montt

   ChilePort

   Puerto Montt is where the Chilean road system runs out and the fjords begin, a German-settled port town on the Seno de Reloncavi. The town itself is functional rather than pretty — the Angelmo fish market and its seafood stalls are the main reason to stay. Most passengers leave for the Lake District: Puerto Varas on Lake Llanquihue with the Osorno volcano behind it, and the Petrohue rapids in Vicente Perez Rosales park.

   • Angelmo market and its curanto and shellfish stalls
   • Puerto Varas and Lake Llanquihue with Osorno volcano
   • Petrohue Falls and Vicente Perez Rosales National Park
   • Frutillar's German colonial architecture and lakeside concert hall

   Getting ashore

   Ships usually anchor and tender to the Angelmo area; some smaller vessels use the pier.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar

4. Day 4

   Puerto Chacabuco

   ChilePort

   Puerto Chacabuco is a small port at the end of the Aysen fjord that exists mainly to serve the region behind it — there is little in the village beyond a ferry ramp and a hotel. Excursions run up the Simpson River valley towards Coyhaique through a landscape of waterfalls and hanging glaciers, and boats head out to the Aysen fjord's ice. The approach through the fjord is generally better than the destination.

   • Simpson River National Reserve and the Coyhaique road
   • Aysen fjord scenery on the approach
   • Boat excursions towards regional glaciers
   • Coyhaique, the regional capital, about an hour inland

   Getting ashore

   Ships berth at the port pier; the village is a few minutes' walk.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar

5. Day 5

   Laguna San Rafael (Scenic Cruising)

   ChilePort

   San Rafael Lagoon sits at the foot of the Northern Patagonian Ice Field in Aysen, reached through a shallow, tidal channel called the Rio Tempanos — the River of Icebergs. The San Rafael Glacier calves directly into the lagoon, filling it with floating ice, and it is the lowest-latitude tidewater glacier in the world. Ships that draw too much water hold off in the Golfo Elefantes and send boats in.

   • San Rafael Glacier's calving face
   • Icebergs drifting in the lagoon
   • Rio Tempanos, the tidal entrance channel
   • Laguna San Rafael National Park and the Northern Patagonian Ice Field

   Getting ashore

   Scenic cruising with zodiac or launch trips among the icebergs; tide and draft govern how far in the ship can go.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar

6. Day 6

   Chilean Fjords (Scenic Cruising)

   ChilePort

   South of Puerto Montt the Chilean coast shatters into a thousand-mile maze of channels, islands and glacier-fed inlets with almost nobody living in it. A scenic cruising day here means standing on deck watching forested walls slide past, often in rain, with waterfalls in every fold and the occasional hanging glacier above. Ships thread named passages such as the Messier Channel and the English Narrows, timing the tight ones to slack water.

   • The English Narrows (Angostura Inglesa), about 180 metres wide
   • Messier Channel and its uninhabited forested walls
   • Hanging glaciers off the Southern Patagonian Ice Field
   • Peale's and Chilean dolphins riding the bow wave

   Getting ashore

   Scenic cruising only — no landing, and low cloud can hide most of it.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (drier and longer daylight, though rain is likely year-round)

7. Day 7

   Chilean Fjords (Scenic Cruising)

   ChilePort

   South of Puerto Montt the Chilean coast shatters into a thousand-mile maze of channels, islands and glacier-fed inlets with almost nobody living in it. A scenic cruising day here means standing on deck watching forested walls slide past, often in rain, with waterfalls in every fold and the occasional hanging glacier above. Ships thread named passages such as the Messier Channel and the English Narrows, timing the tight ones to slack water.

   • The English Narrows (Angostura Inglesa), about 180 metres wide
   • Messier Channel and its uninhabited forested walls
   • Hanging glaciers off the Southern Patagonian Ice Field
   • Peale's and Chilean dolphins riding the bow wave

   Getting ashore

   Scenic cruising only — no landing, and low cloud can hide most of it.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (drier and longer daylight, though rain is likely year-round)

8. Day 8

   Punta Arenas

   ChilePort

   Punta Arenas grew rich on wool and on ships rounding the Horn before the Panama Canal killed that trade, and the mansions around Plaza Munoz Gamero still show it. It is windy, practical and a useful base: penguin colonies are an hour or two away by boat or road, and the town itself can be covered in a morning. Many Antarctic fly-cruises stage from here rather than Ushuaia.

   • Magdalena Island Magellanic penguin colony (boat trip)
   • Cementerio Municipal with its clipped cypresses and immigrant mausoleums
   • Nao Victoria Museum's full-size ship replicas
   • Fuerte Bulnes and the Strait of Magellan lookout

   Getting ashore

   Larger ships usually anchor and tender; a pier is used when conditions and traffic allow.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (Magdalena Island colony closes outside roughly Oct-Mar)

9. Day 9

   Cape Horn (Scenic Cruising)

   ChilePort

   Cape Horn is the headland at the southern end of Hornos Island, the last land before the Drake Passage, and rounding it is the point of the exercise. There is a Chilean navy station, a small chapel and the Cape Horn Monument — a steel albatross cut in silhouette, raised to the sailors lost here. Whether you see any of it depends on cloud; whether the ship gets close depends on the swell.

   • The Cape Horn Monument, a cut-steel albatross sculpture
   • The Chilean navy lighthouse station and chapel
   • The headland itself at the meeting of Atlantic and Pacific
   • Black-browed albatross and giant petrels working the swell

   Getting ashore

   Scenic cruising; landings are attempted only by small expedition ships and succeed rarely.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar

10. Day 10

    Ushuaia

    ArgentinaPort

    Ushuaia sits on the Beagle Channel below the Martial range and bills itself as the world's southernmost city, which is mostly true and entirely commercial. It is the main embarkation port for Antarctic expedition ships, so the waterfront is a mix of outfitters, king crab restaurants and gangways. Passengers on round-South-America itineraries usually get a half day for the national park or a channel boat trip.

    • Tierra del Fuego National Park and Lapataia Bay
    • Beagle Channel catamaran trip to Les Eclaireurs lighthouse and the sea lion islets
    • End of the World Train (Tren del Fin del Mundo)
    • Museo del Presidio, the old prison that built the town

    Getting ashore

    Ships berth at the Muelle Comercial, a short walk from Avenida San Martin.

    Best months

    Nov-Mar

11. Day 11 · At sea

12. Day 12

    Stanley

    Falkland IslandsPort

    Stanley is a few streets of brightly painted metal-roofed houses on a hillside above a natural harbour, home to most of the Falklands' population. It reads as very British — pubs, a cathedral, red phone boxes — with 1982 war memorials threaded through it. The real draw is out of town: penguin colonies on white-sand beaches an hour or more away over rough tracks.

    • Christ Church Cathedral and the whalebone arch
    • Volunteer Point king penguin colony (long 4x4 trip)
    • Bluff Cove Lagoon gentoos and its small museum
    • Gypsy Cove Magellanic penguins, walkable-ish from town

    Getting ashore

    Ships anchor in Port William or Stanley Harbour and tender in; strong winds cancel calls fairly regularly.

    Best months

    Nov-Mar

13. Day 13 · At sea

14. Day 14

    Puerto Madryn

    ArgentinaPort

    Puerto Madryn is a modest Patagonian beach town that exists on cruise itineraries because of what surrounds it. Peninsula Valdes, a UNESCO site an hour or two north, is where southern right whales calve in the sheltered gulfs and where orcas occasionally beach themselves to take sea lion pups. To the south, Punta Tombo holds one of the largest Magellanic penguin colonies anywhere. The Welsh settlements at Gaiman still serve tea.

    • Southern right whale watching from Puerto Piramides, Peninsula Valdes
    • Punta Tombo Magellanic penguin colony
    • Punta Loma sea lion reserve
    • Welsh tea houses and chapels at Gaiman

    Getting ashore

    Ships berth at the Almirante Storni pier, a short shuttle from town.

    Best months

    Sep-Dec for right whales; Oct-Mar for penguins

15. Day 15 · At sea

16. Day 16

    Punta del Este

    UruguayPort

    Punta del Este is South America's Riviera stand-in — a peninsula of high-rise apartments between a calm bay side and a rough ocean side, packed in January and quiet the rest of the year. The best-known sight is La Mano, a giant concrete hand clawing out of Brava beach. Beyond the towers, Casapueblo at Punta Ballena and the artists' town of Jose Ignacio are the usual excursions.

    • La Mano (Los Dedos) sculpture on Playa Brava
    • Casapueblo, Carlos Paez Vilaro's whitewashed cliff house at Punta Ballena
    • The yacht harbour and its resident sea lions
    • Isla de Lobos and Isla Gorriti boat trips

    Getting ashore

    Ships anchor offshore and tender to the yacht harbour; there is no cruise berth.

    Best months

    Dec-Mar

17. Day 17

    Montevideo

    UruguayPort

    Uruguay's capital is a low-key, walkable city where the cruise berth is genuinely close to the old town for once. Ciudad Vieja gives you Art Deco and crumbling neoclassical in the same block, and the Mercado del Puerto is a shed full of wood-fired grills that most passengers end up in by noon. The Rambla runs for miles along the river-sea, and the beaches at Pocitos are a short taxi away.

    • Mercado del Puerto and its parrilla grills
    • Plaza Independencia, the Palacio Salvo and Artigas mausoleum
    • Teatro Solis
    • The Rambla and Pocitos beach

    Getting ashore

    Ships berth in the working port a few minutes' walk from Ciudad Vieja.

    Best months

    Nov-Mar

18. Day 18

    Buenos Aires

    ArgentinaPort

    Buenos Aires is a turnaround port as often as a port of call, and either way you need more than a day. The terminal sits in Puerto Nuevo, close enough to walk into the Retiro area but far enough that most people take a taxi. The city rewards wandering: Beaux-Arts blocks, enormous cafes, bookshops in old theatres, and a tango scene that ranges from genuine milongas to dinner shows built for tour buses.

    • Recoleta Cemetery and Evita Peron's grave
    • Caminito and the painted houses of La Boca
    • San Telmo's Sunday antiques market on Plaza Dorrego
    • Teatro Colon backstage tour

    Getting ashore

    Ships dock at the Benito Quinquela Martin terminal in Puerto Nuevo, roughly 15 minutes by taxi from the centre.

    Best months

    Oct-Apr

19. Day 19

    Buenos Aires

    ArgentinaArrive

    Buenos Aires is a turnaround port as often as a port of call, and either way you need more than a day. The terminal sits in Puerto Nuevo, close enough to walk into the Retiro area but far enough that most people take a taxi. The city rewards wandering: Beaux-Arts blocks, enormous cafes, bookshops in old theatres, and a tango scene that ranges from genuine milongas to dinner shows built for tour buses.

    • Recoleta Cemetery and Evita Peron's grave
    • Caminito and the painted houses of La Boca
    • San Telmo's Sunday antiques market on Plaza Dorrego
    • Teatro Colon backstage tour

    Getting ashore

    Ships dock at the Benito Quinquela Martin terminal in Puerto Nuevo, roughly 15 minutes by taxi from the centre.

    Best months

    Oct-Apr