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Toe tactic
Toe of Ona Indian on monument to Magellan, Plaza Munoz Gamero
Apparently touching the toe will ensure one's future return to Punta ArenasThus said Sir Ernest Shackleton, leader of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914 (better known as the Endurance expedition) and star of one of history's most stirring tales of triumph over extreme hardship. There have been umpteen books written about the Endurance expedition but it's a story that never pales in the telling. The ambitious plan to cross Antarctica from one coast to the other via the South Pole came unstuck at the very beginning, when the Endurance froze into pack ice in the Weddell Sea. After about ten months, the ship was crushed by the pressure of the pack and sank - a distressing moment for all, especially the ship's cat, which was shot to prevent unnecessary suffering in the coming days. After several more months of floating in the pack hoping to drift towards land, Shackleton decided that the crew should take to the lifeboats (salvaged from the Endurance) and they succeeded in reaching Elephant Island.
With Elephant Island being an unlikely place to be chanced upon by any potential rescuers, Shackleton realised that they would need to go in search of help rather than wait for
Crucifix
Cemetery it to come to them. He took a small crew in one of the lifeboats, and the exceptional navigator Frank Worsley negotiated 800 miles of some of the most dangerous waters on the planet to deposit them on the island of South Georgia. Courtesy of currents, they were forced to land on the opposite side of the island to the main settlement, meaning a pioneering crossing of the mountainous interior was necessary if they were to find help. This they duly did.
Shackleton's first three attempts to rescue his men on Elephant Island were unsuccessful due to sea conditions, but the fourth attempt in the Chilean naval vessel Yelcho, commanded by Captain Luis Pardo, enabled the recovery of all the men. The "other half" of the expedition, which had been tasked with laying depots on the other side of Antarctica, had had their own problems. Shackleton journeyed there to ensure they were rescued too, but three of their number had died. Though the expedition could be viewed as a failure in terms of its initial aims, it certainly generated a superlative tale of human courage. It's a measure of Shackleton's heroic qualities that, on returning to England, he immediately
volunteered for armed service in World War 1, which had been raging for three years while he had been battling to save his crew's lives in the Southern Ocean.
Shackleton was the reason I had come to Punta Arenas, in the hope of finding a few faint echoes of his life. He had planned the Elephant Island rescue attempts from here and the final successful rescue had been celebrated in the town. Huddled next to the Straits of Magellan, Punta Arenas had a similar feel to Ushuaia, the corrugated metal buildings and bright painted walls being a more pleasant experience than the blustery winds scouring the streets. Blue plaques dotted around the town spoke of a "Circuito Turistico Antartico", but the Tourist Information office said there was no route map to join them up. A visit to the Naval Museum revealed a small exhibit dedicated to Captain Pardo, containing a sabre of his as well as pictures of him and Shackleton, but I felt that more could have been made of the tale. I guess I'll have to wait until I reach Antarctica before I approach a little closer to the "naked soul of man".
One superb exhibit
Figure
El Templo nightclub at the Naval Museum, however, was a video called "Around Cape Horn", filmed in 1928 by the young Irving Johnson and given narration by him over fifty years later. As a trainee on board the Peking, a windjammer that at the time was the largest sailing ship in the world, plying the nitrate route from Germany to Chile, he generated footage that was both amusing and amazing. The storms that the ship encountered near Cape Horn were as ferocious as anyone had seen, and it boggled the mind that he shot some of the sequences from a seventeen-storey high mast. This was well worth the admission price alone, and I believe you can also buy the video online. The name of the ship sounded familiar, which made sense when it turned out that it's the one moored at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan. Johnson was a firm believer in the character-building potential of sail training and, with his wife, went on to circumnavigate the world seven times with amateur crews.
Punta Arenas also contained a cemetery that had some parallels with the one in Recoleta in Buenos Aires, in that it was enormous and contained graves of people
with backgrounds in many different nations. There were few overwrought mausoleums like in Recoleta, and I didn't see even one cat, but there were several buildings that looked more like apartment blocks, containing many small graves.
I didn't really notice many major differences in going from Argentina to Chile, apart from obvious ones such as the currency being different. Slightly subtler ones were that no-one seemed to be short of change so I was able to break large notes with impunity, and I had some slightly more complex Spanish conversations, which I was surprised at as many travellers had said that Chilean Spanish was spoken very quickly and with a high proportion of slang, making it harder to understand than most other South American Spanish. I suppose neither speed nor slang content are an issue when one is merely ordering a couple of empanadas and then agreeing that one would like them served hot. However this visit was only a quick dip into Chile and I'll be back for a longer session later in the year.
One other bonus was that I was able to find a Chinese restaurant, which rustled up some siu mai and a stir
Cathedral
Plaza Munoz Gamero fry that were a most welcome change. Even more surprisingly, this turned out to not be the Chinese restaurant that I'd previously received a recommendation for, as I subsequently found the latter place by accident. So two Chinese restaurants in a town in Patagonian Chile - may I never complain again about a lack of food options.
On my last night in Punta Arenas, I had a couple of drinks in the Shackleton Bar in the Hotel Jose Nogueira. With its leather chairs, wood panelling, dim lighting, and walls decorated with original watercolours, it was the kind of place that would have been an appealing haunt for someone back from the privations of Antarctica. Whether Shackleton would have chosen "Kung Fu Fighting" as his preferred background music is a subject fit only for speculation, however I'm sure he would have found the surroundings adequate for a stiff brandy or two. This brought to mind a final quote from the man:
"If I had not some strength of will I would make a first class drunkard."
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Stephen Paul
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Domes, Shafts and Columns
Bushes, Flagpoles, Chimneys, Penguin Arms, Elephant trunks, Church Steeples... even the figure of the El Templo nightclub has 5 phallus' for fingers! That, or maybe they just happen to be shaped that way with no forethought of a penis? Unique pics of the scenes of Punta Arenas!