Punta Arenas, Chile

Punta Arenas is considered the largest southernmost city on the South American mainland and is located in one of the wildest, remote regions of the earth.

 

The city was the principal coaling and supply station for ships rounding the Horn, as well as a major world supplier of wool from about 1850 to 1914, when it was one of the busiest ports in the world.  That ended when the Panama Canal opened in 1914 and ships no longer needed to round Cape Horn.  The situation grew worse as wool from New Zealand and Australia began to compete with Punta Arenas’ major product.

 

Our tour for the day included a trip outside the city to a fort and then a penquin colony.  We were fortunate that the weather today was quite pleasant, temps in the 50’s and no wind.  This area is known for very harsh weather conditions.  Winter lasts from April to December.  The month of February is ‘summer’. 

 

As we headed toward Fort Bulnes, we stopped at a marker that identifies the geographic center of Chile.  What??  I thought we were near the bottom of Chile, which is a long and narrow country on the west side of South America.  Then we learned that Chile claims a pie-shaped portion of Antarctica, so therefore, this marks the halfway point between Arica at the top of Chile and the South Pole.

 

Fort Bulnes was built in 1843 when the Chilean government began to realize that if they did not colonize the extreme south, they might lose it to the neighboring Argentines or to the British, who had just colonized the Falkland Islands right under the nose of the Argentines.  So a group of 21 soldiers and their families established the fort.  The location proved so inhospitable, however, that five years later it was abandoned and a new outpost was created further north at a site that eventually became the city of Punta Arenas.  The fort is now a national historic site and has been faithfully reconstructed using the same materials used in the original buildings (sod and wood).  The original fort was burned by a nasty pirate in the 1800’s.

 

Strange looking tree.  Nasty thorns!

Our guide explaining these trees

Everything in the fort was made of wood.

The entrance to the tunnels where the settlers would hide during pirate attacks.

The fort was quite interesting and it was easy to imagine how difficult life must have been like for the 33 men, women, and children trying to survive at the fort.

 

Our next trek was 35 miles in the opposite direction from Punta Arenas to a small penquin colony on Otway Sound.  Driving there we passed a coal mining area.  The spoils reminded of us of Colstrip.

The coal mining spoils.

 

After walking almost a half mile to the viewing area, we saw only about 24 penquins and had to stand behind a structure like a hunting blind.  It was disappointing, especially to those in our group who had not gone to Punta Tomba with us, where there were thousands of penquins and we could walk amongst them.  I guess somebody forgot to tell the penquins to come in early from their ocean feeding so the tourists could take photos! LOL

About 2 dozen penquins on the beach

There were far more penquins in the gift shop!

 

It was a long day of siteseeing but we enjoyed it all (well, maybe not so much the many miles in a bus on gravel roads).  A nice area to visit, but with the harsh weather conditions we wouldn’t want to live here!

A replica of Magellan's ship, for which the strait is named.  We only saw it from the bus.

Next day is scenic cruising through the Chilean fjords.