Punta Arenas, Chile

We had gale force winds Saturday night, but the sea wasn't bad at all.  Lots of twisting and turning to get through all the islands making up the archipelago at the end of South America and up to Punta Arenas (means "Sandy Point").

We arrived at Punta Arenas (pronounced Punta RNS) this morning and got off the ship at a pier, but had to hire a taxi to get into town.  We were 5 km from the town.  (Normally they use tenders here, but there was an opening at the commercial pier, so they took it.)  Anyway, a taxi for about $10 for 4 people wasn't bad.

It was Sunday in Punta Arenas and nothing much was open at all.  We found the tourist information office, but lots of people from the ship were looking for things to do, and they had 1 guy working, so we left and went into a private tour place.  We booked a tour for the afternoon, and went off to look at a few things ourselves.

In the main square is the statue of Magellan.  We are on the Strait of Magellan, which was the main shipping route before the Panama Canal was opened.  It was found by Magellan in 1520 - you probably remember your Grade 6 or 7 history.

Punta Arenas was a thriving town in those days and boomed as it was directly on the shipping route.  After the Panama Canal things declined, but it boomed again when oil was discovered in Tierra del Fuego.

We walked down the street and visited the Braun Museum, which is a house owned by a family who ran many businesses in this area.

A little further on was the Cementario Municipal.  What a unique cemetery.  Very large and has a lot of these types of sites.  They're bigger than an urn might hold, and not really large enough for a casket (we're not sure).  But it was certainly different.

And a couple of rows of these evergreens making up an aisle.

After the cemetery, we went to the Maggiorino Borgatello Museum which shows the flora and fauna of the area and was established by the Salesian missionaries.  We found an old kind of French Horn there!  There was another instrument that looked like a Coronet.

We grabbed a bite to eat at a local establishment on the way back to the square.  Things were starting to open up.  We then made our way back to the tour place, hopped in a van and went to Fort Bulnes, which is about 60 km down the coast.

This is Chris, our guide at the Fort.  He just graduated from teacher's college and will teach English, so Gerry was chatting with him about that and languages in general.

The Fort was established as a penal colony and lookout over the strait.

But it is harsh.  They eventually closed it and moved to where Punta Arenas is now.  A shot of the some of the buildings of the Fort from below.

We arrived back at our ship around 6:15 pm.  We had dinner then went to see the show - The Shouts - impersonation of The Beatles.  It was their early songs.  Since they're on again in 2-3 days, we think it will be their later songs since no show is repeated.

We were at sea for 2 days after this.