0210 Puerto Natales down to Punta Arenas

18^th Feb 2015

Well the journey today was not really too exciting, but I guess in a 50,000 km journey, you are bound to get a few days like that – And to be honest, there haven’t been that many !

While packing up I was chatting to the Dutch couple next door in a rental van, Henk and  Antje.  They have 3 more weeks to go of their holiday, then they fly home from Santiago. They had to be rescued and given a replacement van a couple of weeks ago because the gearbox collapsed on them !  Also chatting to Ramon and Sylvia from Spain in their Toyota – He is still working so they leave their car here and fly home quite regularly.  They also had a German Tom’s conversion done on their 4 WD, and while the work and quality is exceptional, I still like the layout of Troopie better – There is so much more room inside.  But I am slowly getting small ideas for some minor improvements !!

Then, having found out where the best Panaderia was in town, I headed out to pick up some fresh bread before I went down the road.  You can’t get tortillas down here – For the first time since Mexico they just don’t do them here, - so you have to try to find a panaderia daily to get fresh bread or rolls for sandwiches etc. But with laundry all done, and the car full of fuel, once I got my bread I was off south – Towards Tierra del Fuego at last !

Leaving town there is a lovely metal work sign for the town with a windswept bear under a windswept tree – Very apt for the local weather – But I am still not sure what the bear is doing around here – There are no bears down here !!

About an hour down the straight and mostly featureless road through the steppes, I was seeing increasing evidence of what looked like squashed animals on the road – No bodies – Just stains on the road.  And they became more and more frequent – I couldn’t work it out.  Then I realised it was manure that had been dropped and then run over and spread by passing cars – At which point I came round the corner and there were about 100 cattle being driven down the road by 2 gauchos and a bunch of dogs which were running around snapping at the cattle’s heels.  That explained the mess on the road !  It took a few minutes before anyone could get past them – They had obviously been on the road a while because the marks on the road went back a long way. 

Saw a few guanaco along the way, a few more rhea, and lots of ducks and geese, some of which are quite big. Have they flown south for the summer ?  At one point a couple were flying along beside me, and I was doing about 90 kmh, and only just overtaking them – They were motoring…..Although maybe they had a tail wind ? !

Lots of Estancias along the way, all sign posted and clearly marked – As I think I have mentioned before, most of them are even marked on the maps.  So you can tell someone to “turn left after XYZ estancia”.  Some of them are really smart – others not so.  But it is big sheep country down here, and there were lots of them on the land – I can’t say “in the fields” because they aren’t fields – Just wide open spaces over the flat land for as far as you can see. 

Suddenly in the middle of this great flat expanse of nothing much but sheep, there was a big rock !  Not as big as Uluru, but quite big, and stood out on the otherwise featureless plains.  It was Morro Chico – A thriving metropolis of about 20 houses – And a big Carabinieri station where all trucks and buses had to stop.  All day we are driving down right beside the Argentinian / Chilean border, it can’t be more than a few hundred yards away at times, so I presume they need to check who might have come over this border occasionally. 

After a quick stop for lunch of my fresh bread rolls (which I had to eat inside the car because it was so cold), I kept on headed south. I think we only saw double figures on the temperature gauge a couple of times – It was a cold and windy day out there.  We pass a few smaller lakes, and then you start to see the Straits of Magellan stretching ahead – Well at least they were until this thick mist, like an Aberdeen Haar, rolled in and then it was raining ! I passed my first sign to “Tierra del Fuego” about then, which was kind of exciting since that is the destination of my trip as per all the signwriting on my car ! 

Then it was on into the industrial town of Punta Arenas, the southern most city in the world (Ushuaia is the southernmost town).  To quote from the guide :- “This windswept former penitentiary has hosted tattered sailors, miners, seal hunters, starving pioneers, and wealthy dandies of the wool boom. Since the 1980’s its main income has been from large amounts of hydrocarbons.” And I saw evidence of the oil industry is everywhere. An initial drive around town looking for an Information Centre left me less than impressed, but then I worked my way down to the shores of the Straits, and up from there I found the old centre of town, in which there are some very impressive old buildings.  As I wandered around, I was drawn more and more into the main square by the sound of drumming, and after passing a hot churro cart (which were very yummy and very sticky and messy !) I watched the group of young drummers doing their thing for a while.  We have seen these groups elsewhere, first time was way back in Panama City, and they are always fun to watch. These guys were gathered around the statue of Magellan, and Magellan’s original house is one of those on the edge of the square.  I am not going to say that there is a lot to do in Punta Arenas, but I unexpectedly ended up really enjoying my afternoon there. 

Back down where I had parked my car I ran into the English family in the big truck camper that I had met in Torres del Paine.  Steve and Gilly confirmed my feelings that it would be more interesting to drive around the Straits on the northern side than it would be to catch the (quite expensive) ferry across to Porvenir, including seeing several spots beside the road where there are penguin colonies.  So that is what I plan for tomorrow – For tonight there is a big (and free) campground just outside Punta Arenas where I can find enough shelter from the wind in the trees to prevent me from rocking and rolling too much in the wind during the night. So I am ensconced there for the night, and will be rugging up warm in the cold tonight, I can assure you. If it keeps on like this, I can see the thermals will be coming out again shortly !!

Pics here :- https://picasaweb.google.com/117739775480775657932/0210PuertoNatalesToPuntaArenas?authkey=Gv1sRgCMnfv4WQ-rv6DQ#