Roads on edge of mountains

We are cruising Buenos Aires to Valparaiso with Celebrity in January and I have begun to organize my tours. Can anyone having done tours out of this cruise's ports tell me if any involve driving on the edge of mountains (cliffs). I

Come on... can someone just confirm then that there are no tours involving switchbacks or tell me which tours to stay away from because they do involve driving on switchbacks.

You could start by naming the ports. We had no switchbacks anywhere, but we did not go into the mountains, bad weather.

You will see mountains and glaciers along your route around the Horn, through the Beagle Channel, into the Chilean Fjords, and inland from Puerto Montt. However, the only port on your B.A. to Valpo route that is actually in a mountainous district is Ushuaia.

The standard tours from Ushuaia that stay near the shore of the Beagle Channel will not be on mountainous roads. However, some tours do go inland (north) into the mountainous interior of Tierra del Fuego -- we have not been on those so cannot comment on the roads. I recommend one of the wildlife cruises on a catamaran on the Beagle Channel -- have done that twice: scenery plus many seabirds and S. American sea lions at very close distances.

Punta Arenas, and most tours from Punta Arenas, are in lowland areas. However, the expensive fly-in tour to Torres del Paine is to a distant, spectacular mountainous area. Whether the tour actually goes on precipitous roads, I do not know. (If your ship goes to the Amalia Glacier in the Chilean Fjords, and if it is a clear day, you can see the peaks of Torres del Paine from the ship.)

From Puerto Montt, many of the popular tours travel inland to the very scenic volcanic district. Most of those tours stay on lowland roads -- the one we took did so. However, I understand that some tours do climb up to some degree--you may want to check carefully about the actual route of any tour into the volcanic area.

Most of Valparaiso is built on hills, some quite steep, but they are not very high. As I recall, the roads up and down the hills are largely surrounded by buildings, not drop-offs. There are several still-functioning funiculars that are used by pedestrians to get up and down the hills.

If you are staying for a few days in Santiago after disembarking (recommended -- a very interesting city, on the lowland), you will want to avoid the tours that go inland from Santiago up into the Andes. These are promoted as going up (and down) a road with a large number of switchbacks.

Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Puerto Madryn are on lowlands, and I assume the same is true of Punta del Este (but have not been there).

Hope this helps a bit.

John

Thank you so much John. I previously researched a considerable amount of sites in an attempt to gain knowledge of the landscape but couldn't get a description accurate enough to rely on. Your information very much helps.

To Floridiana, thank you also and I didn't list the ports because I assumed they were obvious.