Living in Punta Arenas

Punta Arenas

Just a quick one because people keep asking to see photos of where we have been living and volunteering for the last month.

First things first, where are we? Punta Arenas is in Chilean Patagonia.

Punta Arenas is a very pleasant town of about 125,000 inhabitants hugging the shores of the Straits of Magellan. Its origin back in the 19th century was as a trading port mostly for wool and as a fuelling stop for the steamers on their way around Cape Horn.

Around its main square are beautiful colonial mansions in a European style, think Paris and London. In the centre of the square is a bronze statue of Magellan and some native indians which you may recognize from Michael Palin´s Pole to Pole programme. This is the place where he waited for the boat to Antartica, local legend says you need to kiss the foot of the Indian to ensure your safe return.

Most days the plaza is full of artisanal stalls selling penguins, hats, lapis lazul and other local handicrafts, this is to conicide with the arrival of the cruise ships of which more later!

We have been living in a great apartment in the building from which Roald Amundsen launched his successful expedition to the South Pole in 1910, beating the ill fated expedition led by Scott (aka Scott of the Antarctic). It had an enormous walk in American style fridge and Simon spent ages making ice cubes and crushed ice etc - suffering from gadget deprival obviously!

Being opposite the Armada de Chile and next to the port, an exciting and unique part of living here is waking up and seeing which cruisers have arrived during the night. We have been rewarded with some big hitters; The Queen Mary II was in last week. I say “in” but she is so big she has to drop anchor way out and ferry her 4000 passengers and crew into the port in a fleet of tenders.

That’s another unusual aspect of life down here. A cruise boat arrives and thousands of tourists, mostly North American, mostly in lounge wear, mostly not knowing which country they are now in descend upon the town and in particular the craft market in the Plaza to buy things for the folks back home.

The town is so set up for this that the shops and restaurants and craft stalls all take US dollars - draw your own conclusions. All in all it’s a bit odd after being out here in South America for 10 months and mostly meeting a certain type of traveller to be confronted with full on “Florida” in pink velour, bouffant hair and lipstick.

The town itself is an odd but attractive mixture of colonial houses, tree lined boulevards, topiary, tin houses and sculptures on every corner. As you might expect in a city of its size there are social problems, street racing on weekend nights, graffiti and talk of violence in the fishing communities. That said we didnt feel threatened in the time we were there. The only problem we had was the weather, all seasons in one day and some of the fiercest winds I have ever experienced.

On our first weekend we hired a car and drove to the end of the road. Not the end of the continent because the road doesn’t go to Cape Froward, you have to take a pretty extreme 4 day trek to get there. So we settled for Fuerte Bulnes the first Chilean settlement in this end of Patagonia. The fort is mildly diverting but the view across the water to the snow capped peaks on the outlying islands in the Magellan Straits is amazing. There´s a pebble beach with huge tree trunks that have been washed up in storms and then bleached by the sun.

On the way back up the road we stop at Puerto Hambre and to a monument that informs you that even though it feels like you are at the end of the world, and on a bus it would have taken about 5 days to get here from Santiago you are only half way down Chile because Chile extends to the South Pole! This claim to a large pie slice of icy antarctic is not entirely with merit, but we wont dispute that here!

From here we pick up a local hitchhiker in a great felt hat on his way to the local rodeo event. As with all hitchhikers we've encountered he is friendly and chatty and eager to help us even by acting as our guide for the rest of the day at Parque Nacional Laguna Parillar, but we politely decline and drop him at the turning for the park for fear of him turning into an axe wielding maniac...

On the way we are struck by the amount of tree stumps in the fields. This doesn’t look like managed forest and we cant work out whether this area suffered the same “development policy” as the forests around Puerto Montt (in return for settlement rights early settlers had to deforest the land) or whether the parasite which has attached forests in the Torres del Paine area is also down here. Either way, it makes for a depressing sight.

The guidebooks say that camping is not allowed in PN Forestre Laguna Parillar but there is a brand new camping ground with fantastic facilities, asado pit, wind breakers, covered picinc tables, shower block etc. We took an interpretative forest walk through the lenga forests and watched the guys fly fishing in the lake whilst their families hid in the bushes sheltering from the fierce wind.

As we had the rental car for the day and the days are long here, so we decided to push on northwards to the Penguin colony at Otway Sound. This colony of Magellenic penguins was in its breeding season though the chicks were fairly old but one or two were still fluffy. There are walkways and viewing platforms through their breeding sites so you can see them in their nests and waddling back and forth from the sea shore. Very amusing to watch especially when they follow each other in a line, they really are not very adept to walking down hill.

They also seem to enjoy beating each other up and climbing on top of one another, more than once we saw one take a swipe with its wing at another. At the time we visited they were starting to get very vocal, tilting their head back, warbling in their throats and then letting out a huge long squark!

Returning to Punta Arenas we stopped off at the Mirador for a good view of the city and the various shipwrecks in the straits and then on to PN Forestre Magellenic at the top of the hills overlooking the city where we intended to watch the sun go down at the Garganta del Diablo but unfortunately it was closed (8pm).

Of course for the rest of the time in Punta Arenas our days were spent in our respective roles as teacher and nanny (I prefer to think there is a male version of this, but cant think of one). But daily life was a comfortable routine of tea (PG tips thanks Susan and Andrew) cereal and hot buttered toast for breakfast - you would be amazed at how hard it is to find this when on the road. Home made curries thanks to Abu Gosht the local supermarket stocking spices - its probably not a coincidence that this is the only place in Chile with a Hindu Temple! And the 'occassional' glass of Cordillera (miguel Torres) our favourite Chilean wine.

Several times a week we would meet up with the volunteers usually in Sartinis for pisco sours and barras luca (steak sandwiches), the other volunteers warming up for a long night ahead at the Kamikazee club or Snatch where the all you can drink for 1000 pesos (one pound) as long as you dont break your plastic glass offer became legendary amongst them.

On Sunday nights we looked forward to the tv programme "Cada loca por su Tema" which can be roughly described as B list celebreties singing karaokee in teams in return for telephone votes. We thought we were bad a singing but these guys are awful.

I cant say we saw much more of the town, except for the naval muesum and a stroll along the docks. We investigated diving in the straits but the cost was prohibitive and to be honest the sofas in our apartment too inviting to leave!

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