January 16 - Around Punta Arenas

So, today was just touring around PA on foot.  I went so far that I could refer to it as trudging.  I headed down to the waterfront and dipped my toe into the Strait of Magellan and here's a selfie to prove it.











A view of the waterfront.  I believe the birds are a type of Cormorant.

Check out the two rusty old hulks in the background.  I don't know what they
are, but there appears to be Chinese or Japanese 'writing' on their bows.

I'm not sure I'd like to be near Cape Horn in one of those.

 Waaaaay down the shoreline to the west I noticed this hulk, so I trotted down to 
see if I could figure out what it was.  No luck - perhaps one of the last iron 
sailing ships rusting away.   
(BTW - I reduce the resolution of photographs by a factor of 16 before I put them 
in the blog.  Otherwise, the Internet would collapse uploading them.  If anybody
is really serious about looking at any particular photo I can try e-mailing to them.)

Here's a better image of the old hulk, taken from a lookout above town.

On the way back to town I snapped this shot of one (of many) statues of Bernardo O'Higgins that dot Chile.  He was a big player in Chile's Independence movement of 1810.  Google him for more info. In spite of his fine Irish name, he was born in Chile.

 

Back in town I found a large grocery store and this sign caught my eye.

At about $5.00 cdn for 2 litres of red or white wine a guy could probably 

become a drunk.

I went shopping.  Their selection of fresh fruit was actually not as good than what we have at home.  I got a nice 1/2 litre of red wine (in a drinking box) for $1.65 (it wasn't the plonk in the sign).  Fuji apples were $0.82 a pound.  200 mil orange juice was $0.41.  100 grams of almonds were $3.79 (ouch!).  All in all I think I paid more than at home. That may be a function of being so far south as well. 

Lastly, I bought some Huesillos, thinking they were some sort of dried fruit that one would eat by the handful.  Nope ('nuf said).

Here's a photo of the street.  Generally, a pleasant town. What do you notice

when comparing it to Santiago?  Most people are wearing long sleeves and jackets

(except for the smoker out on her break).

Now a couple of shot of the vendor's stalls in the Plasa de Armas.  Again, a pleasant spot. Beautiful fabric work.

One last photo of the town, taken from a viewpoint above my hostel.

I hit the local maritime museum after a break.  Interesting, but not remarkable.  The Chileans are big on their military history.  This was geared toward the  navy with lots of history during times of sailing ships.  2010 was Chile's bicentennial, and there were a lot of photos of a tall ship sail past of Cape Horn (on a nice day).  There were sailing ships from many nations.  Also a fair amount of stuff about Chile's (and Punta Arenas') involvement with Antarctic exploration and rescues.  

Time to wrap it up.  My battery is low, I need a shower and it's dinner time (and if I drink any more wine this will turn into gibberish).  I'll try for Conger eel again.