When Walter Mitty Finally Meets Magellan

A 47-day cruise? You’ll go stir-crazy, warned many well-meaning friends.

We had some trepidations, too, but the lure of circumnavigating South America was too strong.

We risked it. By the time the Britanis was returning to our Miami starting point we were begging for more.

What compelled us to go?

The vision: I’m a Walter Mitty, heavily bundled in my Arctic wet gear, not lashed to the mast but clinging tightly to the rail to keep from being washed overboard. The ship heaves rockily in the mountainous seas. It is following the perilous path of Magellan as he finally discovered the strait connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

I feel like the wet and frozen heroic explorer fighting nature, just a few inches from the South Pole on every map.

Cold, but Not Miserable

The reality: It was cold. Winds were mostly on one side of the ship. We did have a few hours of 20- to 30-foot swells, but we also had stabilizers that reduced the motion and instability of the 26,000-ton Britanis.

We heard of no one getting seasick. The views were extraordinary. The rugged mountains, the awesome glacier cutting its own path through a mountain, made it an unforgettable experience to traverse the 190-mile Strait of Magellan.

The sea was like glass when we sighted the glacier. The rough seas had disappeared. Magellan should have had it so good.

We were almost 3,000 miles from the South Pole.

We chose the cruise because the exotic itinerary and the Strait of Magellan haunted us.

Among our ports of call were:

--Punta Arenas. This southernmost city in Chile, with a population of 120,000, is near the western entry to the Strait of Magellan. Next year one of the added stops will be at Ushuaia, Argentina, a much smaller frontier town near the tip of the continent.

--Puerta Madryn. Between September and March every year, 3 million to 5 million Magellanic penguins waddle out of the Atlantic Ocean onto their Argentine rookery and breeding area. It is a wide-open plain, 95 miles south of this port city.

The penguins are seeking their roots. Each looks for and finds its own hole-in-the-ground birthplace to raise its chicks.

This rookery holds a fascination as you watch the stately black and white birds strutting as if on stilts, rocking from side to side. They come singly and in groups, pushing hundreds of feet inland and scorning all look-alike nesting holes as they search for their own.

Visitors, Watch Your Step

To control tourist traffic in the vast open fields where penguins parade, an area is roped off to provide a single path through the breeding grounds. But penguins wander in and out of this path. In fact, there are many nests in the tourist walking area.

About 90 miles north of Puerta Madryn, at Caleto Valdes, a desolate and sparsely populated peninsula, is a natural habitat for sea elephants, sea lions, seals, whales and a variety of sea birds. They all ignore the presence of people in their native habitat.

Regrettably, the layover in Puerto Madryn is not long enough to allow visits to both areas. We joined the majority, choosing for the penguins.

--Salvador. This colorful old colonial Bahian city was the capital of Brazil for 214 years. It is built on two levels. The Lacerda Elevator, as well as streets and buses, link the sea-level port and commercial districts with the upper city, which is residential.

It is also the colonial city containing former government buildings, museums and most of the more than 300 churches, many with outstanding woodworking craftsmanship.

Catholicism is the dominant religion, but voodoo still has a strong influence. (Voodoo is a religion deeply rooted in African culture and loosely follows Catholic symbolism.)

--Belem. Gateway to the Amazon, Belem was the starting point for a river and jungle tour. Three-day layovers at Lima, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, each spectacular in its own way, allow ample time for inland air tours or sightseeing and individual exploration.

While the cruise provides shoppers a paradise at every stop, there’s a final catch-up opportunity at Barbados and St. Thomas before heading for the home base in Miami. By that time we had also transited the Panama Canal, visited Cozumel, Mexico, and stopped at Valparaiso (Santiago) and Puerto Montt, Chile, home of the remarkable Petrohue River Falls.

Because the 47-day cruise is fragmented with 13 ports of call, including well-planned optional tours at each, the voyage is never boring. The ship is at sea for one to three days between stops, and there is a wide range of planned and improvised activities on board.

Meals are a catalyst. There is assigned seating for dinner but open seating for breakfast and lunch in the dining room. The food is excellent and the service impeccable.

The ship was launched in 1931 and went through two name changes before it became the Britanis in 1970. The luxury liner’s pre-World War II passenger list included Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, and the Rockefellers.

In World War II it became a military transport, and averaged 6,547 troops on each of 26 transoceanic runs, logging 328,490 miles.

Our accommodations were better than the soldiers could have imagined. My wife and I shared a spacious twin-bed outside cabin with three large closets, one of which held a chest of drawers. There was ample room to store our hot- and cold-weather clothing as well as the formal wear worn at shipboard festivities. The steward provided terrific service; we couldn’t even slip in a midday shower without finding fresh towels on our return to the cabin.

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On Sept. 30, Chandris Fantasy Cruises will send the Britanis on a 50-day South American cruise. It will add three ports of call to the 13 we visited, go through the Strait of Magellan and head even farther south than we did. Capt. Fokion Ardavanis said he may take the ship around Cape Horn, weather permitting.

List price for our cabin was $7,950 per person double occupancy, including air fare. Other cabins ranged from $4,700 to outside deluxe suites at $10,850 per person, double. Prices will be slightly higher for the 50-day cruise.

For more information, contact Chandris Fantasy Cruises, 4770 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, Fla. 33137, or call toll-free (800) 423-2100.