Patagonia Chapter 4 - The End of the South

After we got back from Torres del Paine, are only other plan was to cross the Strait of Magellan and visit Tierra del Fuego, the biggest island in South America.

The ferry that goes from Punta Arenas only goes once a day back and forth from Porvenir, the biggest city on the Chilean side of the island. Eduardo had told us that the ferry would leave at 3 that day, get to the island at about 5, and then turn around to come back at 7, which seemed like a good block of time for us to be over on the island.


[at the Mirador, Punta Arenas in the background]

For the first part of the day, we just walked around town, went up to the mirador of the city, then went down to the town square, all the while trying to find the souvenirs that we were looking for (in my case, a sticker or two for my Nalgene water bottle), and even managed to find a little museum about the history of the Magellenes Region of Chile.


[Outside the museum, taking a very classic photo]


[In the town square. Rubbing the foot insures that you will be back in Punta Arenas someday...]

At around 2:30, we made our way over the the dock on the outskirts of the city, and went in to buy our tickets for the ferry. An old gentleman informed us that because of high winds, the ferry wouldn't be crossing today, but we could come back tomorrow and try again. This left us pretty confused, since we had just assumed that it was our plan for the day - we had made sandwiches and everything!

Since the Zona Franca, or duty-free zone, was right next to the dock, we decided that maybe we could do some shopping for the rest of the day. Duty-free shopping sounds pretty fun, but it was really quite the opposite. Most of the stores in the main mall sold completely random things - the kinds of things that come in catalogs or infomercials.


[Why would I want this?]


[Ali enjoying her sandwich in the Zona Franca mall]

After we ate lunch (yes, we had our picnic in the mall), we went to explore the other stores in the Zona. As we walked around, the whole experience got more and more bizarre. There were so many abandoned buildings and stores that looked open, but weren't... the whole thing gave me a feel of some bizarre eastern European shopping center that had taken a turn for the worse. After searching around for anything that was good to buy, we really didn't find anything and had to get out of the Zona Franca.

We decided to go to the Museo de Recuerdo, which was right by the Zona Franca. When we first entered, we thought we were in the courtyard, outside part of the museum. There were lots of old steam engines and cars all over - which may have been fun to look at, had there not been freezing temperatures and cold winds.


[El Museo de Recuerdo]

We walked to some buildings we saw, trying to find the real museum, when we realized there was none. The whole museum was this open-air part, that didn't really have a lot of context. We decided that all there was to do was take lots of silly photos on all the wagons!


[Just working out a bit...]


[We hijaked the bakery wagon... we all know how much we love that bread...]

Finally, we were done with our adventure for the day, and went back to the hostel to make dinner and relax.


The next day we woke up early to make it to the ferry by 9 a.m., needless to say it was pretty cold on the boat. We also got there kind of late, so we didn't have any seats.


[Getting in our view of the Strait of Magellan... we felt just like Darwin]


[The strait]


[It was VERY cold]

We basically spent two hours on the boat, only to spend about half an hour in Porvenir before we had to turn around and go back. We did get the chance to see a little museum by the town square, but overall I think we saw and did what there was to see and do in Porvenir.


[Maribeth by the town square]


[Saying Hello and Goodbye to Tierra del Fuego]

After we got back, we basically only had time to go eat another delicious meal, pack up our things and head to the airport!