Walking Down Avenida Presidente Manuel Bulnes

Someone is climbing onto the bronze horse at El Monumento al Ovejero

Time to fit one more travel adventure into the Punta Arenas portion of this Chile trip.

I had been driven into Punta Arenas from the north on multiple occasions at this point and I noticed a lot of interesting statuary, buildings, and monuments along the road into town. The Punta Arenas sections of various travel guides never mention taking a walk down Avenida President Manuel Bulnes to take in the sights, but that sort of thing doesn't stop me.

The first stop was the Santuario Maria Auxiliadora church. Let's go inside. It was open.

Then, befitting the walk down this particular boulevard, is El Monumento a Manual Bulnes. The Monument to Manuel Bulnes.

What is striking about this monument is the head of the horse. It's bowed down. That is very atypical for heroic monuments with an equestrian element.

I don't know the reason why, but it caught my eye.

Next was a walk through the municipal cemetery, El Cementerio Municipal Sara Braun.

 

This was worth a walk-through, due to the fascinating and ornate mausoleums, which are plentiful and beautiful.

 

I'm sure there has been some sort of contest among the prominent families to outdo one another in terms of the mausoleums.

This is the Mausoleo Croata, the Croatian Mausoleum.

I had looked for, and not been able to find, many signs of the Croatian heritage of Punta Arenas. I had heard that there was a strong Croatian presence in the town's history, but other than the Croatian club in downtown, had not seen any signs of the Croatian heritage in modern Punta Arenas. Apparently, the Croatians of Punta Arenas are best found in the municipal cemetery.

And even though this is the official "Croatian Mausoleum," the names of Croatian families are found on many other mausoleums and gravesites in the cemetery.

This, best I could, was in memorial to the Dalmatian Society of Punta Arenas. I don't know if that means that the Croatians who emigrated to the extreme southern tip of South America were from Dalmatia, or whether the emigrees from Dalmatia separated themselves from the Croatians from the rest of Croatia.

But the cemetery is where the Croatian heritage of Punta Arenas may be found.

This is El Monumento al Ovejero.

I recognized the part of the word "ove" as being a word related to "sheep" both in Croatian ("ovce") and Spanish ("ovejo"), so I thought this was a monument to the shepherd. No. It's a monument to the sheepdog.

This is a dog-loving town, by the way. Well-cared-for town dogs. Signs for dog adoptions. They love their dogs.

Not sure of the above, but below is El Monumento al Inmigrante Croata.

Monument to the Croatian Immigrant. You don't even have these in places like Pittsburgh that also had a lot of Croatian migration. The monument looks vaguely communistic, although the Croatian migration pre-dated Tito's communism by several decades.

This monument hammers home the Croatian theme of this block on the Avenida:

Unmistakably a Croatian "chequy" as part of the Croatian coat of arms. In Punta Arenas! In the extreme southern tip of South America!

Finally, after a couple of kilometers of walking, I reach this:

 

Monumento al Petroleo. The Monument to Petroleum. We should have these in all cities, seeing how important fossil fuels and petroleum have been to the development of the modern world.

I don't know if this is an oil-drilling area. I don't think it is much of one, if it is. The monument looks like a well shooting out crude oil. But in the flow of crude is a human hand and a human face. It's actually kind of creepy, even if I do like with the honorable intentions.

After a long day, I worked up an appetite. And, this time, I wanted a real meal. So I headed back to El Taberno. I ordered the grilled salmon.

The rivers and fjords of extreme southern Chile are filled with salmon. So it's fresh and local, served on a bed of creamy quinoa. My beverage was a ginger lemonade. It tasted like lemonade, only with ginger. And I love ginger.

The meal hit the spot, so I had a "traditional sour" cocktail for dessert.

This is Chile, so I think the "traditional" way of mixing a sour is with pisco, not whiskey. I wanted a pisco sour, which is the national cocktail in Chile (but different from the pisco sour that is the national cocktail of Peru). This is what they served. So I think "traditional sour" in Chile means "pisco sour."

This concludes my trip to Chile. Soon it will be time to wing it back to the States. My only complaint about visiting Chile is: why didn't I come here sooner? Why did it take me 63 1/2 years to get here? So much world and I waited longer than I should have to start exploring it in earnest.

Sea Lions!

 

Sea lions! On the beach! In the surf! Everywhere.

The second destination du jour for the ferry-boat was Isla Marta, an even smaller speck of rock north of Isla Magdalena in the Straits of Magellan.

How small of a speck?

That small.

Another ferry-boat beat us to the island.

We did not "stop" and disembark on Isla Marta. Sea lions are not penguins, for one thing.

These are better to observe at a safe distance.

Fortunately, my camera had "zoom," in the old sense of a "zoom" lens, not in the modern sense of interactive computer meeting software where someone forgets to mute their microphone and lots of people have fake backgrounds that cause parts of their body to disappear from the viewing screen. Not that "zoom." 20th Century zoom.

A very large kelp "forest" surrounds the island. It's visible in this picture.

This is as much of a close-up zoom as I could zoom from the offshore distance.

The beach, at least, was lousy with sea lions.

Some were swimming, as one would expect mammals to do at a beach.

The kelp is waiting to be devoured.

Soon it was time to fly.

And time for the ferry-boat to motor its way back to Punta Arenas.

Besides, it was time for lunch.

I chose a sandwich restaurant: Lomito's.

There are no fast food chain restaurants in Punta Arenas. Nor were there any on Isla de Pascua. There weren't even that many in Santiago, just the occasional KFC. I don't even think I've seen a McDonald's in this country.

I ordered the "Lomito con queso," a pork sandwich with lots and lots of cheese. Washed down by a "shop" of Austral. "Shop" is the local term for "draft." I had the Calafate (the one with the hint of wild blueberries) instead of my "usual" Yagan dark ale.

 

It hit the spot. Now I needed a nap after these two very-early starting days.

Penguins!

Magellanic penguin getting in his morning stretches. Good for his health.

Friday I did the tour to Penguin Island.

We caught the boat to Penguin Island very early in the morning. Although, compared to the 5:15 a.m. departure for the full day trip to Torres del Paine -- and when they said "full day" they really meant "full day" -- the 6:00 a.m. start for the tour allowed me to sleep in, relatively speaking.

Luckily we had a sunny day and the winds were actually, by Punta Arenas, standards, quite calm.

I call this picture of walking on the dock to the ferry-boat: To the light!

The boat was ready to transport us to the penguins.

Technically, the place to which we were being ferried is known as Isla Magdalena. Not, in the official records, Penguin Island. But if you tell people around these parts that you are going to Penguin Island, they know where you are talking about.

The trip down the Straits of Magellan lasted about an hour, I guess. And soon we were disembarking on the shores of Penguin Island.

The penguins (disappointingly) did not rush to come greet us. But the place was packed with penguins and other sea birds.

I can pretend this is a penguin running down the beach to greet me.

It'd be a lie, but I'll stick to me pretend world.

A penguin and a lighthouse.

The lighthouse's official name Faro Isla Magdalena -- the Isla Magdalena lighthouse. We can call it the Penguin Island lighthouse and they'll know what we're taking about.

This is a penguin and a tern.

 

It is nesting season for the penguins. Penguins are known for mating for life. They pair-bond intensely. During nesting season, eggs are laid in burrows. One half of the penguin couple stays with the eggs in the nest. The other goes off to hunt (and eat) for a few days. The absentee parent-to-be then returns and the penguin that had been home on the nest then leaves on a four day bender, hunting and eating.

There are holes all over the island which were once burrows used by a penguin couple but the homestead has been vacated.

Penguins on the beach:

Penguins on the beach. Now with kelp.

So there were no penguin babies -- or baby penguins, if you prefer. The eggs hatch in late December. So the early months of the year are when you will see the cuddly penguin babies. That you are not allowed to cuddle.

I tried to take a selfie with a penguin at least somewhere in the background. I was not successful.

I'm guessing the gulls use the same burrows for nests, but they don't tell us these things. This was not a tour to Sea Gull Island. This is Penguin Island. Monumento Natural Los Pingüinos.

And, yes, penguins are so cool -- no pun intended -- that the Spanish name for penguins -- pengüinos -- is officially spelled with umlauts. Like the rock stars that they are.

Here is a sea of gulls:

Back to the star attraction of this island:

Well, I couldn't manage a selfie with a penguin, but I did manage one with the lighthouse.

The lighthouse not only was bigger, it was stationary. Much easier for selfie-taking.

Not sure what's going on in this mosh pit.

The gaviota can only stare at it, at a safe distance.

These penguins are officially known as Magellanic penguins. You may know them better by their less-flattering name: jackass penguins.

Yes, they also are known as jackass penguins, seriously. They make a braying sound like a donkey. The braying served many purposes. One of which is a trez romantic call out to its life-partner penguin, so that its mate-for-life can find its soulmate in the crowd of penguin lookalikes. 

Now come on. Does this guy (or gal) (hard to tell with penguins) look like a jackass to you?

Or this one?

He's not a jackass!

This is not a jackass either. It could be a kelp goose, but, again, we weren't focused on seeing and classifying any non-penguin birds.

Another boatload of tourists are heading for Isla Magdalena for their designated hour of cavorting with penguins.

THis one, however, looks in no mood to cavort.

Their eggs that need a-hatchin'.

And this is the penguin to do it.

Someone forgot to tell him that penguins were flightless birds.

But, then again, he's a jackass.

Yes, Isla Magdalena was lousy with penguins. They were everywhere.

The hour for cavorting with penguins is drawing to a close.

Time to scurry back to the ferry-boat.

The island was worth the visit. It didn't smell of fish. The all-you-can-eat sardine buffet is held out in the waters, not on the island, where the penguin staying at home is fasting. But Isla Magdalena was not the only boat adventure destination out here today on the Straits of Magellan.