It was a 24-hour ferry ride from Puerto Chacabuco back to Puerto Montt. Most of the time it was a smooth ride, but breakfast was challenging; the room kept leaning first to one side and then to the other, and it was hard to walk in a straight line.

Meals were prepared for us in a big cafeteria and served in shifts; first they called everyone in odd-numbered cabins and then even. I didn’t understand what they were talking about until they did the English translation, because I didn’t know the words for even and odd, but they are par and impar, meaning pair or non-pair. I love language.

Anyway. Here is where I slept:

The employees live on the ship for three months at a time, and then they get one month off. The two that I spent a lot of time talking to are both moving on to other jobs soon — one got a job at Disneyworld (or “at Mickey Mouse,” as he put it) and the other, who speaks five languages, including Russian, is moving to Germany to work as a translator.

Sometimes I think working in tourism would be a great way to travel, but then I remember that you have to smile at snobby, unreasonable assholes and be nice to them even when they are so rude you want to punch them in the face.

A huge chess board on the top deck.