We had a day or so in Puerto Natales, before catching the bus back to Punta Arenas.
There was real food to be eaten, and Pisco sours to be drunk.
We had a day or so in Puerto Natales, before catching the bus back to Punta Arenas.
There was real food to be eaten, and Pisco sours to be drunk.
The famous cemetary in Punta Arenas was where it sank in that Chile, at least down south, is about as Spanish as New York is English. (New York circa 1900, perhaps.)
At right is the memorial to the crew of HMS Doterel, which blew up in the port in 1881.
We flew on to Ushaia, on Argentine Tierra del Fuego, the southern-most town (apart from one in Chile they don't count.)
The town got going as a penal colony, as the rather startling mural on the post office reminded us.
Usuaia today is about two things: Argentine sovereignty, of Tierra del Fuego, of the Islas Malvinas, and of everyone's favourite slice of Antarctica.
And tourists, who in summer take trips all the way to Antarctica, or just out into the Beagle channel, like us.
One more night in the nicest place we stayed, then an early start to catch the all-day bus back to Punta Arenas.
The bus catches a little landing-craft ferry across the straights of Magellan. Most of the country is fairly flat, a suprise after all the mountains.
And then we packed up and flew north again, the others emerging from the airport system back in Johannesburg, while I had 2 more days in the capital:
Santiago, solo