Punta Arenas - southernmost city?
So the day we were leaving we changed bus company to Bus Sur instead of Fernandez just because of the schedule and the first being some pesos cheaper. Unfortunately this one didn't include WiFi but it was a comfy bus and nothing wrong with it otherwise. And it arrived in time! I'm pretty sure they write the same time at the airport as the pick-up in town.
We arrived to a windy Punta Arenas with some showers in the air. It was almost 1 km to walk to our hostel and J's luggage was broken after our last flight (one of the wheels was damaged) but he insisted we walk so we did. It was an easy way without many people so it worked out fine. We arrived earlier than stated on booking so we surprised our host that wasn't quite ready but it didn't matter to us, we just left our things and went out for lunch. And some sightseeing.
Believe it or not but we ended up in a French place since it had a good TripAdvisor rating. To be fair I had Patagonian food though, Guanaco stew (I felt a bit bad after seeing them so recently but they were many...). It was really good. J had a regular steak that was okay. We later stepped out once again in the so wind struck city. Yikes you'll blow away here. Took some tourist photos, they have some nice wall paintings here as well, and then looked for a café to get warm again. Inside the café we tried to learn some history about the Selk'nam that lived here before, and even a few of them left in the early 20th century. Because of this they are one of the most well known native people around here - but there were many more. As in many times in history before their people and culture got extinct by colonizers. Either they had to mix up with other people and abandon their life (often with the result of dying from poverty and starvation) or they were killed. The people that came here started sheep farms and they were not happy about the native people hunting their stock (on their own hunting land) so they payed people to kill them. Horrible history but interesting, and we had seen figures from one of their rituals before. At wall paintings in Valparaiso and other places and we finally understood why. Over here there are painting but also many black and white photos of them. There was so much more to learn about this but I'll leave the rest for you at Google.
The city itself was very calm, some people on the streets but far from crowded. It felt like the most things you could do here involved a tourist agency for booking tours outside of the city. Like a ski area or going out at sea to watch penguins, blue whales and such. That would have been awesome but we didn't have time since arriving in the afternoon (these are morning tours) and having a flight the next day.
So all in all it was nice to get to know some history and being in the southern most city in the world but not a too exciting city today. More of a stopover. And all the wind! It's crazy. Probably better in the winter. Also the ozon layer is very thin here, 30 min unprotected even in cloudy weather can burn you bad.
So we spent some more time in restaurants and at our cozy hostal before leaving for Santiago.
See you in Santiago,
S
We arrived to a windy Punta Arenas with some showers in the air. It was almost 1 km to walk to our hostel and J's luggage was broken after our last flight (one of the wheels was damaged) but he insisted we walk so we did. It was an easy way without many people so it worked out fine. We arrived earlier than stated on booking so we surprised our host that wasn't quite ready but it didn't matter to us, we just left our things and went out for lunch. And some sightseeing.
Believe it or not but we ended up in a French place since it had a good TripAdvisor rating. To be fair I had Patagonian food though, Guanaco stew (I felt a bit bad after seeing them so recently but they were many...). It was really good. J had a regular steak that was okay. We later stepped out once again in the so wind struck city. Yikes you'll blow away here. Took some tourist photos, they have some nice wall paintings here as well, and then looked for a café to get warm again. Inside the café we tried to learn some history about the Selk'nam that lived here before, and even a few of them left in the early 20th century. Because of this they are one of the most well known native people around here - but there were many more. As in many times in history before their people and culture got extinct by colonizers. Either they had to mix up with other people and abandon their life (often with the result of dying from poverty and starvation) or they were killed. The people that came here started sheep farms and they were not happy about the native people hunting their stock (on their own hunting land) so they payed people to kill them. Horrible history but interesting, and we had seen figures from one of their rituals before. At wall paintings in Valparaiso and other places and we finally understood why. Over here there are painting but also many black and white photos of them. There was so much more to learn about this but I'll leave the rest for you at Google.
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| Guanaco stew |
The city itself was very calm, some people on the streets but far from crowded. It felt like the most things you could do here involved a tourist agency for booking tours outside of the city. Like a ski area or going out at sea to watch penguins, blue whales and such. That would have been awesome but we didn't have time since arriving in the afternoon (these are morning tours) and having a flight the next day.
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| Your everyday stray dog. People should not get dogs unless they realize it's a life time commitment. |
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| Vet house. Love it. Zoom in. |
So all in all it was nice to get to know some history and being in the southern most city in the world but not a too exciting city today. More of a stopover. And all the wind! It's crazy. Probably better in the winter. Also the ozon layer is very thin here, 30 min unprotected even in cloudy weather can burn you bad.
So we spent some more time in restaurants and at our cozy hostal before leaving for Santiago.
 |
| Regular Pisco and some with a special fruit here. High ranked Pisco sour in Patagonia, love it. And they had maracuya sour that was to die for! |
See you in Santiago,
S
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