Day 3 – 29 12 12 – Our own walking tour of Punta Arenas

Well today was a free day, no planes, trains or automobiles required.  Overnight there was a lot of hooning in the streets, and I’m sure these cars have no mufflers at all, not a great nights sleep…

Once we were up and at em, had some breaky at the Cabo de Hornos where we are staying, Kate, Mary and I headed off for a look around Punta Arenas, we had a few things on our wish list, but no particular plans.

We headed off up the hill which afforded us some brilliant view across the city to the sea (actually the Magellan Straits. Amazing colours in the buildings, seemingly no town planner and we don’t reckon there are any building codes to worry about either.

Anyway I’ll let the pictures tell most of the story I think. Things we saw and did

·         Residential street walk

·         Some window shopping

·         Excellent lunch at Chocolatte Café (with free wi-fi)

·         Walked the Punta Arenas cemetery – mausoleums, amazing sculptured trees

·         Walked along the very windy foreshore to the port

·         Supermarket to shop for lunch for King Penguin tour tomorrow (Kate had her wallet swiped by the bagging lady, but luckily security checked video and got it back)

·         Pet shop – interesting pets for purchase – chinchilla’s, hamsters, iguanas, spiders, turtles.

·         Lots of lupins growing around the gardens and nature strips in town

·         Visited the street stalls in Plaza de Armas (city square opposite Hotel)

·         Noted the quiet – SIESTA time between about 1-5 in arvo, then everything opens again till late

·         Met up with others from our group around the town and in the Hotel

·         Also met some others on our cruise who were from Canberra and Melbourne in the tourist info centre

·         Finished off in the bar where we met up with many more of the group

·         La Luna for dinner together

·         Then trying to get home for bed a bit early. But straight after tea it’s already 12.30

·         Linda joins us tonight, but we left her in bar having a drink

 A view over Punta Arenas, from lookout behind the town, looking to the Magellan Strait.

 The port at Punta Arenas

 Looking over the town again with port in far centre. Lots of colourful houses and buildings.

 Some of the colour in the buildings.

 Lupins growing everywhere, and a yellow gorse like bush quite prevalent too.

 Lunch at Chocolatte, which was delicious and had the added benefit of wi-fi.

 The cemetery, with it most incredible graves and mausoleums, and sculptured cypress type trees.

 An avenue of sculptured trees in the Punta Arenas cemetery.

 We liked their bright yellow fire hydrants, the bombaderos (fire brigade) also had yellow trucks.

 View walking along an extremely windy foreshore.

 Some shipping buoys, in a yard near the port area.

 Birds of some type by the hundreds on an old pier.

 Wind was howling and the waves were crashing, those coming into shore, meeting those going out.

 The port of Punta Arenas.

 The main pier/dock area.

 Liked the penguin ad for the beer. we won't be seeing the emperor penguins however, they live much further south in the Antarctic than we will get.

 Bernard O'Higgins, famous for something...can't recall what, plus more sculptured trees.

 Mary and Kate purchasing some goodies from the market in the main square opposite our hotel.

Another coffee and wi-fi break, much later in the day, I thought my moccacino looked pretty good.