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| Monumento Hernando De Magallanes in Punta Arenas's Plaza de Armas |
And almost certainly will ever go.
The final stop in my (some of the) Best of Chile tour is in the far south of Chile, Punta Arenas, in Chilean Patagonia.
Punta Arenas is the city that is the farthest south on the South American continent. 53 degrees south, latitude-wise. While it looks like a small town, it's surprisingly large, with a population of 127,000 or so. I like this town so far -- even though it is ridiculously cold for mid-spring weather (southern hemisphere) -- I cannot imagine venturing farther south, which would basically be Tierra Del Fuego or Antarctica. I'm not interested in either, especially the Antarctic. I mean: why? There's nothing to see but miles and miles of ice. And the local cuisine? It's not a culinary hotspot. Of course, it's not any sort of hotspot.
This is as far south as I am going to get. I may push the boundary farther north. And it's easier to push the envelope east and west since those are relative directions. I mean that in the sense that there is only so far south you can go before you're heading north again, or so far north before you're again going south. But there's no limit to how far west you can travel. Or east. You can circle the globe in either direction. And keep going. You can't do that with the north or south.
But you can head south to Punta Arenas and its Plaza de Armas. Of course it has a Plaza de Armas. This is Latin America.
And that, as I said up top, is the Monumento Hernando De Magallanes, the monument to Ferdinand Magellan, circumnavigator of the globe. I know people like to sound intelligent by talking about those who sailed from Europe to the Americas prior to Christopher Columbus, but there is no argument that can be made with anything approaching evidence that someone circumnavigated the globe before Magellan. (And circumnavigate he did. He did not complete the circle, but he died in the Philippines, which, essentially means he made it from one end of the Eurasian continent to the other going westerly. Which means: Cebu in the Philippines is the farthest west Magellan traveled. Even though it is what Europeans would've called: the Far East. And, like Magellan, that line of conversation has gone full circle.)
This is the Hotel Plaza building, so named because it is a "Hotel" on the "Plaza." I guess all the less obvious names had been taken,
This line of buildings starts, on the right, as that would've been closer to me when I snapped the picture, the Ilustre Municipalidad de Punta Arenas, the city council building.
This is the Catedral de Punta Arenas, the Sacred Heart Cathedral:
More interesting buildings.
And this is a wooden penguin.
Two wooden penguins, actually. I hope to see flesh and blood penguins (well, not penguin blood, I'm being figurative here).
This is a display marking the Gobernacion Maritima.
This is the Monumento al Piloto Pardo.
He seems to be pointing to the docks across the way on the Straits of Magellan.
Given that his finger is bright and shiny and the rest of him is dark, I am guessing there is some unofficial local custom about rubbing his index finger for good luck.
Why, yes, he is pointing towards the docks. Again, Punta Arenas is on the Straits of Magellan which, prior to the Panama Canal, was the main transit point for shipping cargo traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The alternative to the Straits of Magellan was the horrors of sailing 'round Cape Horn. You did not want to do that. Rough seas, hurricane winds, weather that change dramatically in the blink of an eye. A maritimer's nightmare. The relatively placid waters of the Straits of Magellan were like sailing a child's wading pool in comparison.
How cold is it in Punta Arenas. 8 degrees. That is Celsius, of course. But translating to Fahrenheit, it still was only about 47.
And here are the letters.
Letters spelling out the name of the place you are is a big thing nowadays, but it's especially a big thing in Latin America. I am in: P-U-N-T-A A-R-E-N-A-S. As long as you know your ABC's, you will know where you are.
And I am in Punta Arenas. At the letters.
Bundled up from the cold, with my vacation beard going on. I need all the layers I can get to protect me from the wintry cold.
This is Monumento A Tripulantes Goleta Ancud, the Monument to the Ancud Schooner crew.
What is the Ancud Schooner, you ask. What is the Ancud Schooner?
A schooner sent by the government of Chile in 1843 to claim sovereignty over the Straits of Magellan for Chile. OK, that's worth a waterside monument.
Time to head back inland. This is Sara Braun House.
Sara Braun was a Russian/Latvian-Jewish emigree who came to Punta Arenas and became a very successful, very wealthy shipping magnate starting in the very late 19th Century. Sort of an Aristotle Onassis and Jackie O (at the same time!) of the extreme southern tip of South America.
All this walking around worked up an appetite and a thirst.
Dinner at the Birra. They are known for their selection of local beers, but, oddly enough, they did not have my new Chilean favorite local to Punta Arenas: Austral. I over-ordered. I ordered a hamburger with BBQ sauce and cole slaw, a side order of cheddar cheese fries (good, although both undercooked and too much), washed down with a mega-mug of a local ale that was good, but not as good as the Austral Dark Ale I was drinking on Easter Island.
Punta Arenas is a beer town. This is not a wine town. It is a beer town in a wine nation.
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