Punta Arenas, because it would be unfair to miss it out completely
I kind of feel like I did a disservice to Punta Arenas, just skipping over it in my last post and so I'm going to backtrack a little and tell you what I got up to there. It's unfortunate that I was in Punta Arenas over Easter weekend. As you know, many places close here on Sundays, but add in Easer and you have a distinct lack of things to do. Cue Cordula! Cordula is a German girl I met in the hostel on the Sunday morning. We were at breakfast together and then were inseperable for the rest of my time in Punta Arenas.
See - I met another lovely person and I have to tell you about my time with her! I'd had vague plans on the Sunday to visit the cemetery, lookout and then to go for a wander along the seafront. Well, Herman, the hostel owner assured us that Zona Franca (a kind of duty free area) that Cordula was aiming for would be open as Argentinians would be coming over to Chile to go there to shop, and as you got to it by walking along the seafront we set off together. And then stayed together as I decided to go with Cordula rather than head to the cemetery, this day definitely preferring live people to dead! Unfortunately, not much of Zona Franca was open and so we just mooched round the shops that were then tried to find a place for coffee. Challenging of course as we were in Chile. Anyway, we found a chocolate shop that made proper coffee (rather than Nescafé instant) and sat ourselves there for a while before heading back hostel.
The following day, we were at breakfast together and chatting when someone announced 'that's a very British accent there' and being the only one with a British accent I was fairly sure he was talking about me! It turned out to be a guy called Andy who was from Leeds originally but now lives in Sydney. So he and I chatted for a bit, then Cordula gave him the lowdown on a trek in Isla Navarino he was thinking of doing and she'd already done. Then Cordula and I headed to the cemetery. We gave it our best shot, but it was raining the whole time we were there and pretty grim. However, here are a selection of gravestones, in lime green,
In early preparation for Christmas...
These three I liked with the differences between them: manicured, overrun with plastic flowers, full of dead flowers.
And the most famous one, for José Menéndez a wool barren. Is a scale replica of Rome's Vittorio Emmanuele monument, according to author Bruce Chatwin.
Bruce Chatwin wrote a book called Around Patagonia. This was one of the books in the book exchange on the Navimag ferry and Johnson read it then Heath swapped his book for it. It is a fairly iconic book for these parts - you see versions of it everywhere, although those I know who have read it don't heap praise on it!
Also, do you remember the garden in Pucón where there were plaques giving thanks? Well there was something similar here too.
Getting fed up of the rain by this point, we went keyring shopping instead. Having realised it was going to be my last day in Chile and having promised a friend that I would buy her keyrings from this trip (she collects them) after I'd been so rubbish and completely failed to do so in Eastern Europe it was imperative I bought some out here! The shop we went to had this board outside it - it's some kind of traditional character from this region and I couldn't resist!
After successfully acquiring said keyring, we then discovered a great coffee shop with proper coffee
that even sold Aeropress coffee makers!
(this is something Heath had and I was jealous of as he was always able to have good coffee. I'm still regretting not buying it with my leftover Chilean pesos... although being back in Argentina now the coffee has improved dramatically).
Wandering around the town we found the most amazing material shop, it was huge, and cheap. They sold Gütterman thread for £1! (I pay nearly twice that in the UK). Was tempting to buy one of each colour but I resisted!
We then went on a merken hunt, it a spice they have in Chile and it's delicious. As spices can be a problem at border crossings into Chile, I'd decided to wait until I wasn't going to be doing any more but sadly I'd left it too late. Merken is more of a mid-Chilean spice and I was too far south so that failed. I'd been hoping Amazon might stock it (turns out that's the best place for me to get pisco) but doesn't look like it either. Hey ho. So I just bought some food to have on my journey down to Ushuaia the next day and we headed back to the hostel. And that's about it for my time in Punta Arenas. I sat chatting with Cordula in the evening, because we just didn't stop chatting from the moment we started! Then it was an early start for my bus down to Ushuaia the next morning. And with the snorer in the room that night, never have I been more thankful to get out of bed for an early start!!
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