Puerto Natales to Punta Arenas, Chile
Time to pack our bags again and head yet further south. Off to Punta Arenas today. We saw Ray & Lu one final time at the bus station. They were on their way to El Calafate, Argentina.
An uneventful 3 hour bus ride to Punta Arenas. The buses here are very comfortable and run on time. The drivers have all been very good - safe and courteous. Once again the road was good but no shoulder whatsoever. Stark, flat, treeless landscape; it sure seemed that we were headed towards the end of the earth. We did pass one area where we saw lots of condors soaring above. Much of the land is fenced so I'm assuming there is some ranching going on. I saw some cows along the way but not very many. Historically there was a lot of sheep farming around here; not sure how much of that is still going on.
As luck would have it the bus station is only about 2 blocks away from our hostel. The lady at the front desk took all our laundry to do and then hang up in the back yard. Hopefully we'll see it all again!
Punta Arenas has the most unique tree-trimming style!
Off to get some groceries and then take a look at what we want to do for the next few days. We've booked a half-day excursion for Sunday to go see some penguins on an island. We located a couple of viewpoints with expansive views over the city and out to the ocean (Strait of Magellan, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans).
And a quick walk through the city's main square (Plaza Armas) on the way to check out Barb's fancy pre-cruise hotel.
The city is quite large and spread out. There is graffiti everywhere. Most of the shops, banks and businesses downtown have their windows boarded over and we saw one recently (you could still smell it as you walked by) burned-out building. I would say that the city has probably seen lots of recent protest/demonstration/violence activity. It felt perfectly safe to walk around during the day, though.
Post-script..... We found out later that three cities have been particularly hard-hit with the recent violence - Santiago, Punta Arenas and Valparaiso. The protests started last October 18th and are repeated every Friday night through the summer. Once summer is over they are expected to happen about 3x per week. Even protesters need their summer vacations apparently.
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