Puntas Arenas, Chile

Suddenly we awakened to mid 70 degree temps and bright sun and no mountains. Sunset at 9:30 PM. What a change from grey winter the day before. Punta Arenas, Chile sounds like a spicy dish from the tortilla islands. Not so! More like Sand Point.

Puntareenez – as the local pronunciation sounds to me, is a pretty understated place. It is very clean and the people are very pleasant.

The most popular spot in town appears to be  a very old, above ground, cemetery which is kept up much better than the more famous similar cemetery in Buenos Aires. Not much going on there, or in town, for that matter. The big tourist attraction in town is a private tourist enterprise where a couple of very skilled guys build replicas of  ships that once made the area famous. These include Magellan’s ships, Darwin’s Beagle and Shackelton’s antarctic explorer which clearly was less sea worthy than any one of the life boats on our cruise ship. No wonder he had to be rescued.

This old wreck was parked right in front of the place as some sort of inspiration I guess.

Another major attraction, the city museum, consists mostly of scary, bad, dilapidated, taxidermy showing local wildlife of Patagonia. I snuck out of this compelling adventure and wondered into the Cathedral next door which appeared open for a mid-day baptism. Nice interior. I am the only one on the tour that got in to see it.

The city park had a fair number of vendors with cute wagons selling mainly woolens made from local sheep, llamas and alpacas. I might get one of those warm skull caps with ear flaps. They look like old fashioned football helmets. They might be good for 4 Wheeling at high altitudes.