Punta Arenas, Chile

Punta Arenas is the capital city of Chile’s southernmost region. 

It is located north of the Strait of Magellan and was originally set up by the Chilean government in 1848 as a penal colony. During the remainder of the 1800s, Punta Arenas grew in size and importance due to the increasing maritime traffic and trade traveling to the west coasts of South and North America. This period of growth also resulted from the waves of immigrants attracted to both gold and sheep farming in the 1880s and early 1900s. The largest sheep company was based in Punta Arenas, and its owners lived there.

Punta Arenas has been nicknamed "the city of the red roofs" for the red-painted metal roofs that characterized the city for many years.   It is about 900 miles from the coast of Antarctica.  Magellan passed close to the present site of Punta Arenas in 1520. Early English navigational documents referred to this site as "Sandy Point".

Among Chileans the city is also known for its strong winds (up to 130 km/hour). Winds tend to be strongest during the summer; city officials have put up ropes between buildings in the downtown area to assist pedestrians with managing the strong downdrafts created in the area!

The Punta Arenas harbor, although exposed to storms, was considered one of the most important in Chile before the the Panama Canal was built. It was used as a fueling station by steamships transiting between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Today it is mostly used by tourism cruises and scientific expeditions. Punta Arenas has a population of over 100,000 Agricultural production, including sheep and cattle, continues to play a significant role and tourism has also contributed to the city's popularity and steady growth. Some cruise ships to Antarctica depart from Punta Arenas's port, which also serves as a hub for many cruise lines that travel along the channels and fjords of the region.  

The last time I visited Punta Arenas, I took a ferry out to Magdalenas Island to see a huge rookery of penguins.  There were over 100,000 of them!  It was terrific, a day I have never forgotten.  I smile every time I think of all of those penguins just running around, hanging out in their nests, and staring at me as I walked by.  They are inquisitive and pretty much unafraid of humans.  They will come up to you if you stand still and don’t talk too loudly.

This visit, I wanted to see a bit of the city of Punta Arenas, so I opted for a short tour in the afternoon.  I’m interested in the history, so my tour includes a visit to a founding family’s home which is now a museum, and the city cemetery.  I’ll also get a chance to get up to the top of a hill overlooking the city and out to the Magellan Strait.

Some city center shots, in and around Plaza de Armas.

Vendor/craftsman carts beginning to be set up around the plaza.  It is quiet in the center today as it is Sunday.

This is a big statue with Magellan on top.  It is right in the center of the plaza.

They say if you kiss Magellan's toe you will return to Punta Arenas.  This is my second time back, so I opted to just touch his toe.

Street performer mimes doing the tango.  They were kinda creepy.

We visited the beautiful city cemetery.  The founding family's mausoleum is located here - Menendez and Braun were the two most notable families back in the day.  They were sheep farmers and made their fortune in this area as well as marine commerce.

 Many graves were decorated and landscaped beautifully.

This man clearly loved his sunglasses - or, he was known for always having them on.

 These are photos from inside the Braun museum.  It was their home and a lovely one at that!

Check out the beautiful floor tiles.

Hmmm, I wonder what the wine might taste like!

Early photo of the family.

These pics below are of the servant's quarters downstairs.  Pretty nice digs.

I found the wine cellar!!!

Figure carved into a tree on the grounds of the Braun museum.

Back of the house.

More street performers.  This was a drumming group, practicing for a tour.

Views from atop the city, looking out to the Strait of Magellan.

We visited a small sheep farm on the outskirts of town.

We were going to see sheep being sheared.

But first we had to have a pisco sour and an empanada

And then walk up to the shearing shack.

And meet our volunteer of the day.

And the peanut gallery.

 There's our girl!

And there's the owner, being kissed by his llama.  Or wait, is that an alpaca?  I can't hardly tell, after such a delicious pisco sour.....

These girls are probably back up shearees....

But not these!

This is looking more like an alpaca to me.

 Ah, the shearing shack.

So we got a demonstration of sheep shearing.  The guy was great!  He had that sheep sheared in less than 2 minutes.

Yes, there really are black sheep.  But this isn't one of them.  This is just dirty wool.

I picked up a new friend in town....

Sunset faded to darkness as we entered the fjords region.

Puerto Chacabuco

Our next port stop was Puerto Chacabuco.  This is a small port town with a population of about 1,500.  It is considered the gateway to Patagonia.  It’s only been in existence, in its current location (the port) since the 1960’s.  Prior to that the port was located a ways up river (I have pictures below), and it made it very difficult to bring supplies to the little town at the port called Puerto Aysen.

A bit of history - when Pinochet, after the military coup of Chile, came into power, he turned Chacabuco into a concentration camp for over a year.  It held over 1,800 “prisoners”, including doctors, artists, writers and professors.

This area is still difficult to get to - one must either fly from Santiago or Puerto Montt or take a twice-weekly ferry from Puerto Montt which takes 24 hours if all goes well.  Many times, the condition of the ocean/waters slows the ferry down and it can take up to 35 hours!  Supplies are brought in on the ferry.

Once in Puerto Chacabuco, there is a highway road that takes you out to Argentina or south down through Patagonia.

In all of Patagonia, there are only 100,000 people.  Patagonia is a very large area.

Today, a small group of us took a private tour of the area surrounding Chacabuco and Aysen.  It was a good tour to see the beautiful land of northern Patagonia as well as experience some of the culture.  We drove toward Aysen and stopped off at the “old” port (pictures below).  Then we drove out through the Simpson River Valley which provided gorgeous vistas of farmland and soaring green mountains.  We also stopped at the National Reserve for a little bit, and watched the river amble on by.  We visited a small waterfall, which reminded me of some of the nice waterfalls we have near home, but it was peaceful there and I enjoyed the stop.

We drove quite a ways out into the valleys and towards the mountains.  The scenery is lovely and it is very awe-inspiring to look up at these ring of tall mountains.  Around midday, we turned around and headed back towards Chacabuco.  We were to have an Asado al palo lunch at a campo (country house) in Pangal.  It is a privately owned farmstead where the family relies entirely on it’s cattle and gardens for their food.  The family was very welcoming and we had lunch in their quincho (wooden barbecue house), which was built to roast meat and have get togethers.  Asado al Palo is a Patagonian tradition - it is lamb roasted over embers on an open fire.  They also served delicious empanadas, which is what I ate instead, because I always feel sad for the poor little lambs that get slaughtered for our eating pleasure. I did have a taste of it, however, after a couple of glasses of wine, and to me it tasted like pork, not lamb.  But what do I know. 

The pisco sours and red wines flowed during our meal, and soon everyone was laughing and smiling.  The family’s daughter and son-in-law (?) performed some local cultural dancing for us and even managed to get some of us up on the dance floor with them.  Now that was a hoot!

After lunch we drove back to the ship and said our goodbyes to Puerto Chacabuco.  All in all, it was a lovely day.

Here are some pictures of our day:

First views of the Patagonian countryside

This is the "old" port

 I dub this "cat on a hot tin roof"

 The road out to the Simpson River area

Standing by the river

 I was mesmerized by these fence posts.  Each one a different "stick"

This is the bridge to nowhere... or somewhere far away

A selfie!

These were Nalca plants.  HUGE leaves!!!

 Little river leading up to the family farm where we had lunch

View of the family farm

This is a cool tree.  They are indigenous to Chile.  Do I know the name?  Nope a doodle!

Family farm views.

Part of the family's homestead

They have a few alpacas.

This one wanted to know just what the hell I was doing, taking a picture!

The greeters and also they danced!  Those would be the famous pisco sours on the tray!

Lamb, cooking.  OY!

Here the couple is, dancing.  They were quite good.

 The grandson.  I showed him his picture after I took it and he smiled so big!!

 This is the outside place where we ate.

Here are my empanadas.

Time to leave --- oooh, a storm is coming!  And it did rain!

Bridge to cross over back to the road, from the farm.

 Obsessed with these fences

Pretty waterfall

I loved this flowering bush.  Practiced using my macro setting on my camera too.

Some final views

Some more dancing photos

Good night Puerto Chacabuco.  This was taken about 9:30 PM as we sailed away towards the fjords