Puerto Arenas

Hi
We are now in Puerto Arenas. We teamed up with an Irish couple called Ann and Dermot and got a taxi from the dock into the centre. We were here before 9am. We have seen all the sites. It is quite a weird place and I cant say I would like to live here really. Having said that it has been interesting. The main families who settled here made their money in the wool trade and shipped all their furniture etc from Europe. Their homes, which we have looked around, are quite palatial inside but the majority of homes are quite basic and rather run down looking. Like many houses in this region they are painted loud, crazy colours: pink, purple, blue etc. All the people we have met have been polite and helpful, generally we have found the Chilenos friendly and eager to help without being pushy. Funnily one of the highlights of this town is the cemetery which really tells the history of the town through the epitaphs etc. There are huge mauseleums built for the wealthy wool barons which look ridiculously OTT.

We took advice from the Rough Guide and had a splendid crab based midday meal in La Luna restaurant. It was strangely decorated with an entire table and chairs complete with plates and cutlery handing upside down from the ceiling. The owner said it was to make the Northern hemisphere people feel at home.

Heading back to the ship now, we decided not to drive over 65 kilometres of flat pampas to see a colony of penguins but rather to hang around town and imagine living in one of the most southerly outposts on this earth, think I prefer Yorkshire!

Bill

Back in Punta Arenas, under the statue of Magellan in the Plaza de Armas with the famous Indian's toe - worn to shiny gold by all those touching it to make sure they return to PA. Funny! I don't remember touching it when I came here with Mike just over 12 years ago! We weren't on holiday then - so this time we had time to visit the regional museum in the principal wool merchant's old mansion and the cemetery which reveals so much about the City's history - and we had a great Chupe de Centolla at La Luna with Dermot and Ann from Co Cavan - washed down with the local Austral lager. PA is a pleasant enough litle city. Both our taxi drivers thought it the best place in Chile: "Hardly any social problems." "Safest place to live in the country". (We're really impressed with the fact that we must have had really good long chats with at least thirty other couples so far on this holiday. But 2 of them had been robbed whilst in Santiago!) "Don't you feel a bit isolated here?" I asked. ("Well Puerto Natales is only 250km away - and that's smaller!") "No," was the answer, "people like you from all over the world come to visit us!" And this was true judging from the flags in La Luna's map of the world from its diners. However, neither Val nor I touched the Indian's toe this time! "Anchors a-weigh!"