BRAZIL

ARGENTINA

BOLIVIA

Calama

Santiago

San Carlos de Bariloche

PucónPuerto

Varas

Puerto Natales

PuntaArenas

Puerto Montt

URU.

PERU

PARA.

CHILEPacific Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

ECUADOR

COLOMBIA

VENEZUELA GUYANASURINAME

FR. GUIANA

Buenos Aires

San PedroSan Pedrode Atacamade AtacamaSan Pedrode Atacama

GOLFO DE PENAS — Well before we boarded the old cargo ship, before it plod-ded past the protection of the mountainous fiords, before the skiesturned stormy and the seas swelled, we were warned.

We were warned not to expect a cruise, aboutthe smell of the cattle often herded below deck,

and the inevitable nausea.So when the smoky, diesel engines of the 360-foot ship prod-

ded us into the open sea and the waves began sloshing usaround, we expected to feel it in our stomachs. What we didn’texpect was that the pummeling would last nearly a full day —through difficult-to-digest meals, perilous showers, and a lot ofrestless sleep — and that Dramamine would be no cure for the per-sistent urge to hurl.

‘‘It’s called the Gulf of Punishment for a reason,’’ said German Bal-boa, the ship’s second mate, who like most of the crew seemed impervi-ous to the queasiness as he monitored our course for southern Patagonia.

The passage through the Pacific was one leg of a 15-day trip my fiancee,

PHOTOS BY DAVID ABEL/GLOBE STAFF

Torres del Paine (top), Chile’s premier national park, near Puerto Natales; a branch of the indigenous evergreen monkey puzzle tree; a herd nearthe entrance to Torres del Paine; the Navimag ferry motors through a fiord from which passengers see Pio XI, the continent’s largest glacier.

Getting to glacialCrossing mountain and meadow, sand and rock and snow, and lastly the icy sea

B Y D AV I D A B E L | G L O B E S TA F F

C H I L E

CHILE, Page M4

TravelBOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE MARCH 21, 2010 | BOSTON.COM/TRAVEL

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AFTER YEARSOF WAR, YOUNGRESIDENTS OFTHE NEWLYINDEPENDENTKOSOVOCELEBRATETHEIR ERA. M2

MOORE TOWARHOL TOCARAVAGGIO TO500 YEARS OFAFRICAN ART,WHOSE IS THEGALLERY TO GOTO? M2

INSIDE

BOTH GIVEN$300 FOR ANOVERNIGHTTRIP, MUSICWRITER JAMESREED LIT OUTFOR ADAMSAND ERVING . . .

. . . AND NAMESREPORTER MEREDITH

GOLDSTEINHEADED FOR

THE BEACH, ANISLAND, AND

WITCH CITY. M5

EXPLORE NEW ENGLAND | MASSACHUSETTS

By Joe RayGLOBE CORRESPONDENT

GENERAL ROCA — Speedingdown the road, Hans Vinding-Diers shouts over the phone:

‘‘V2 point two. Point four to-day? Pigeage and vit. Pump overfive minutes. Open.’’

Turning onto the dirt road toBodega Noemía de Patagonia,the car’s wheels lose contact withthe ground. With one hand onthe phone and the other on thegearshift, Vinding-Diers is doingwhat my father calls ‘‘fancy kneedriving’’ and cackling like a mad-man.

It sounds like he’s homogeniz-ing wines around the world butinstead, we pull into the wineryand he continues the conversa-tion with his assistant Jesse Katzface to face.

It’s all part of harvest time atthe end of the world.

I spent a week in Patagoniapicking, hauling, destemming,and crushing grapes with my feetat Vinding-Diers’s Bodega Noe-mía and the neighboring BodegaChacra, run by Piero Incisa dellaRocchetta, an Italian wine mag-nate. Vinding-Diers, a Dane, hasworked at top wineries on a fewcontinents and Rocchetta is heirto the throne of Tuscany’s TenutaSan Guido estate.

Through them, I learned the

PHOTOS BY JOE RAY/FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

A R G E N T I N A

Makingthe taste ofthis end ofthe earth

Winemakers HansVinding-Diers at Bodega

Noemía (top) and hisneighbor Piero Incisa della

Rocchetta at Bodega Chacra.

ARGENTINA, Page M3

‘To do somethinglike this in Europe

is almostimpossible.’

PIERO INCISA DELLAROCCHETTA

t ranks among the 10 most power-ful earthquakes ever recorded.

Its tremors were so strong thatscientists say they shortened thelength of the day and moved theEarth’s axis.

To put the 8.8-magnitude earth-quake that rocked central Chile lastmonth in perspective, it was 500 timesmore powerful than the 7.0-magnitudequake that hit Haiti in January.

It triggered tsunami warnings inmore than 50 countries and was felt asfar away as Buenos Aires and parts of

Peru. About 700 people havebeen reported to have died inChile as a result of the earth-quake, which damagedsome 500,000 buildings at acost that government offi-cials estimate could reachnearly $30 billion.

‘‘Given that the areaimpacted by the earthquakeis where 80 percent of thepeople of Chile live, we arelucky that more didn’t die,’’said Andrea Lagos, a spokes-

Rattled, but moving forward

EARTHQUAKE, Page M4

Tremorsfrom theearthquake’sepicenter werefelt in BuenosAires and Peru.

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