Into the Austral at Punta Arenas

We flew into sunny Punta Arenas happy to be free of Puerto Montt.  Punta Arenas is really, really far south.  People come here either to transit to Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine, to head to Tierra Del Fuego, or to see penguins.  We were doing two of the above, and decided to spend three nights there planning for our trip to Torres Del Paine and checking out the city.

Like the rest of Patagonia, Punta Arenas is windy.  [Note from Chad: Punta Arenas is directly on the straits of Magellan - the relatively safe passage around the bottom of South America via protected waterways, used by ships from the first explorers to the present.  Rounding Cape Horn, fully exposed to the harsh conditions and open ocean, is often impossible, always less desirable, and takes much longer.]  We headed out after arriving to explore our new surroundings.

Old colonial building off the main square.  There's a former gentlemen's only club in the basement, now open to the masses including (gasp!) women

Trying not to get blown away!

A monument to a Magellan native, Ona.  If you touch his foot (I found out too late that you don't have to actually kiss it) you will return to the city.

Magellan himself towers over the main square, the Plaza Des Armes.

The next day Chad and I decided to visit the national forest in the hills above Punta Arenas, hoping for some good views of the city.  It was a gorgeous day for a hike (more like a stroll), and we caught a taxi to the park entrance and walked in from there.

CONAF is Chile's Parks Canada, and for some reason their mascot looks like a beaver?

Up and up, picking our way through a lot of spring time mud.

Our first viewpoint (or "mirador") gave us a nice view of Punta Arenas and the Straits of Magellan.

Looking back down the trail

Mystery berries

Instead of returning to town the way we came in, we took a trail that the ranger claimed would take us back into Punta Arenas via an alternative (and shorter) route.

More vistas of Punta Arenas and the shorter river trail.

In the river valley, odd rock formations are a dime a dozen.

Looks like a glacier-deposited boulder, right?

Nope - here's a close up shot of the boulder.  It's a conglomerate made up of material from the sea bed - mostly shells - but is not old enough to have created fossils.  This area was alternately sea bed and land as ocean levels raised and lowered over the ages

The river trail wasn't quite as... complete... as one would have hoped.  At one point we came to a crossing where the only way across was taking our shoes off and wading or crawling across a suspended fence, Spider-man style.  We chose the latter.

[Note from Chad: this hasn't been Photoshopped - it's really Sarah crossing a stream using balance and dexterity!]

River crossed, we began to stroll down the valley, which was full of odd little houses.

We knew the walk back to town would be lengthy, but we didn't realize was that it was going to take us two or more hours through run-down residential neighbourhoods.  Luckily, a nice old man we walked past (he appeared to be collecting rocks from the river bed and putting them in the truck of his car for whatever reason) came by and offered us a ride back.  It was much nicer to spend ten minutes in his car than it would have been to keep walking!

That night, we went to see the new James Bond movie with some of our hostel mates, since it was showing in English with Spanish subtitles.  Sadly, the voice tracks were quieter than the rest of the sound tracks, so it wasn't exactly an optimal viewing experience.  Still a good movie, though.  And then off to bed early so we could get up and see penguins the next day!