Punta Arenas – town, more penguins and Cape Horn 1929 video and recollections 8 years on

PUNTA ARENAS

I spent about 10 days in the environs which was not planned as such but evolved with travel information.  I had a good evening with 3 from the Whale trip and viewed the city and port at night from the top floor bar of a glass oblong hotel -casino.  There were lots of fishing boats hauled up in yards or rusting in pieces on the shore which I think were laid up because they could not compete with the large scale trawlers from Japan etc. The casino was awash with posh people off the two cruise ships in port.   I saw some of them on Sunday in the main plaza around the market stalls with one elderly lady magnificent in purple pumps, pinky skirt, reddish shawl and black hat with purple flowers talking on a mobile with others having yellow chest labels saying C2 tour. Mixed in was a Santa Claus, soldier recruits chatting on benches, street dogs asleep on the monument steps where people touch the statue of the native Patagonian to ensure they return and so his foot was rubbed raw.

I stayed the first night in a cheapy Blue Hostel where R from the Whale Trip was staying as it was a convenient place from a late evening return to town by the Trip and quick turn around for a meal. The cost was 5000 pesos for a dorm room. The other linked hostel burnt down 2 years ago killing 10 people and yes, I did check for fire escapes. The next 2 nights (and 2 more from trying to leave Tierra Del Fuego and securing a bus seat out of PA!) were in the hospitable Hostel Estancia with great breakfasts, clean kitchen for our use, free internet and very helpful hosts to get information about on-going travel.  I had a 2 bed room shared with a friendly Italian girl 36 US dollars for 2 nights.

R offered a car trip to the Sena Otway Magellanic Penguin colony. There was a well set out 1km trail around the 6000 strong colony with great views – literally with 2 chicks and parents under the boardwalk! – of the adults waddling back and fro to the inland ´sea´, standing or lying down outside their burrows or neck rubbing. They must be very photographed! The penguins arrive in the area from Brazil and Falklands in September to breed and all leave in March – April.  Also lapwings, martins and a scuffling skunk in beautiful but scruffy colours of dark and light browns and cream. I recall a relaxed and cheerful day out in good company with photogenic penguins very close by.

On another day, I visited the Magallanes National Reserve for a 5 hour 10km hike up and down hills to viewpoints across the forest to the Magellan Straits and farm land. The whole area must have once been like this forest. The Reserve protected the river water sources for Punta Arenas.  A mix of solitude and a mountain biking competition on winding narrow paths and ski tow swathes in Nothofagus forests, both sheltered and exposed with lovely sunny grassy glades ablaze with bright white flowering shrubs, yellow hawkbits and purply heads. I dropped down into the Las Minas River valley where there were superb rock exposures showing the alternating layers of marine beds with oysters and clams and terrestrial beds containing petrified trees and coal. There is a history of gold mining and this probably came with the granitic pebbles from the Darwin Mountain Range.

Then a different culture of the dead!  I wandered for 20 minutes around a crowded cemetery of big, opulent private family ´rooms´and órdinary´graves and glass boxes piled up multi storey. All were awash with plastic and real flowers, photos, ornaments and in one a glass of wine and music when one walked past!  There were many Russian – Eastern European sounding names such as Pavisich Dragnic, with one country Yugoslavia mentioned, also Italians and a few from Britain. such as born in London. The cemetery was a rich history of immigration and I recall feeling a long way from a home base! There was a similar picture in Porvenir cemetery on Tierra Del Fuego where people were mainly from Croatia. This history of Immigrants to Patagonia was also strongly evident further north across the endless semi arid steppes with the huge Estancias.

Although parts of the Naval Museum were for fanatics of Chilean Civil War and naval battles, there was a good range of exhibits such as a massive diving suit of thick plasticy type body, very heavy lace up boots and a metal helmet with a rubber air tube used by the Chilean Navy til 1950.  Very sexy!  Unfortunately, there was no showing of the video with live footage from Shackleton´s Trip.  Instead, some photos of his ship, The Endurance for his sea to sea expedition via the south pole between 1914-17 and the Chilean naval tug, The Yelcho which successfully brought back all 22 stranded men from Elephant Island.  Another exhibit described the building of crucial lighthouses along the Magellan Straits between 1890 – 1921 by George Slighth Marshall a Scottish engineer.   One was at San Isidro (alighted on the Whale Trip) where ships cross Famine Passage (what a name!) to continue along the Straits.

I recall the superb 20 minute video of live footage and documentary by Captain Irving Johnson in 1980, who as a young man sailed from Hamburg to Chile in 1929 on the Flying P Liner Peking 4 masted barque sailing ship. These were the last generation of windjammers taking nitrate and wheat around the Cape Horn between Chile and Europe. The journey lasted 93 days, with 19 days to get out of the English Channel in a very bad storm, via the Doldrums and two storms with calm in-between. The Master had done 56 trips around the Cape. He took pictures from all parts of the ship including up the yardarms, showing storms wash over the decks as 50 plus foot waves go over, men working 150 feet or more on the sails hanging on to just a wire with their toes as there were no safety lines, repairing sails by stitching and mending metal work as there was a sail-smith and blacksmith on board and the Master spearing fish from the bowsprit.  She carried 30? sails covering an acre, with one sail weighing 5 tonnes. All the work was done by hand to haul sails up and down, wet or dry and when the ship was rolling heavily through storms!  – fantastic footage!  The ship could go 13 – 16 knots in good conditions. The men worked for all the 93 days as 4 hours on and 4 hours off. I’ve read a couple of books by men working these last sail ships and still find the sea and working conditions almost unbelievable.