SA Cruise: Day 19

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Our ship completed its traverse of the Beagle Channel and docked about 8 am at Punta Arenas, Chile, which stands at the entrance to the Strait of Magellan. Punta Arenas is a major Chilean city of some 130,000 people. Its history is familiar: former penal colony turned major port because of its geographic location. Its prosperity has risen and fallen with its importance as a trade route. At one point, fortunes were won and lost here.

Our bus tour is entitled "Tycoons of Pantagonia." It focuses on the city's glory days and the larger-than-life personalities that dominated the era. We start at the city's cemetery, featuring meticulously kept graves and mausoleums, surrounded by sculpted cypress trees, that testify to the wealth of the tycoon families, including those of Sara Braun and José Menéndez. Our next stop is the impressive Museo Salesiano de Mayorino Borgatello, a natural history museum with a vast array of taxidermied specimens and information about the now-extinct native peoples of the region. We next visit the central square, Plaza de Armas, dominated by a huge statue of Magellan gazing out towards the strait that bears his name. It is considered good luck to rub the toe of one of the natives crouching at his feet, so everyone does that. We have another stop at Cerro La Cruz, a bluff above the city with scenic views of the harbour and strait.

Our final stop—and the definite highlight—is a visit to a working sheep farm just outside the city called El Gapon. The owner and host is extremely proud of his heritage and family history. His great ancestors emigrated from Scotland to the Falklands and eventually moved here to pursue sheep farming. We are offered some homemade wine and empanaditas (meat-stuffed turnovers), then are invited to tour the farm. There are numerous sheep, llamas, guanacos (a smaller type of llama common in this area) and horses, not to mention rabbits, dogs and various birds. We greatly enjoy a sheep-shearing demonstration, although the sheep involved clearly does not. There is a display of antique cars and farm equipment and a lovingly maintained museum combining the family's history with that of the area. The enthusiasm of our host and his family is palatable and infectious.

We return to the ship in the early afternoon, eat, play some bridge and relax. The ship leaves port around 7 pm. It will follow the Strait of Magellan westward then veer north into the area of small islands and bays known as the Chilean Fjords.

The evening's entertainment is Devlin, the self-anointed "Matador of Magic." He performs many great illusions but for some reason fails to ignite the subdued audience.

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Photos

Touching the lucky toe
Statue of Magellan, Punta Arenas, Chile