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.