Down Patagonia way – the bottom of the Americas

   Punta Arenas was a surprise and a revelation.  It was a pleasant little town, and its’ people came across cheerful and industrious.  For the first time on our adventure we found a place where everything just worked, easily too.  We wanted to go to see the penguins.  No problem, we can book you in for this afternoon.  We would like to see Fuerto Bulnes too.  Well we only do afternoons but here are two other operators with a choice of morning departures for the following day.

   The penguins were delightful in their breeding colony on Isla Magdalena.  They were delightful but poor buggers, their island in the Magellan Straight was bitterly cold.  “It was lovely, but muy muy frio”, Kizzy told our tour guide at Fuerto Bulnes the next morning.  "This is your summer, isn’t it?”  More of an indictment than a question, really.  “Here, there is no summer,” came the baleful response. 

   On the island you could see the moment, about 20 minutes into our hour ashore, that people started looking nervously toward the ferry anchored a short way off the beach, hoping for an early return.  One passenger disembarked, a lady in her eighties I suspect, although rugged up as she was it’s hard to be certain.  I took a look at her hospital issue walking stick and uncertain progress up the pebble beach and wondered if she would make the return journey.  Bless her but she found the only bench on the island and sat it out, in the windiest spot possibly of the entire Magellan Straight, without a single word of complaint.

   Fuerto Bulnes marked the most southerly point of our travels, a short (but surprisingly cold, wet and uncomfortable) trek of 40km from Cabo Froward, the very bottom of mainland South America.  It is the historic location of the first Chilean settlement to occupy the Magellan Straight, Mostly a recreation but evocative nonetheless.  Amusingly there is a marker you pass about 2km to the north that purports to be the geographical centre of Chile, being equidistant from the northern border with Peru and the extent of the Chilean Antarctic territory at the South Pole. 

Why is that man head-butting the tree and calling it an idiot?

   Despite warnings from the various popular guidebooks about difficulty booking connections in the high season, we had no trouble finding a bus to Puerto Natales.  Sadly I had trouble remembering to take the camera with us when we left the bus.  Hence, we have no photographic evidence of the southerly extremities of our travels.  Amazingly, the images here are in fact very lifelike recreations.  Gallingly, the photo I had the camera out to take was almost identical to the one here: taken specifically to put on the blog and illustrating the vast majority of the Patagonian scenery from the bus.

   Such is life.  We had a choice of five cameras we could purchase in Puerto Natales, all of which incorporated an idiot premium in the price (I swear, they separate it on the receipt).  One was an underwater digital camera with a warranty that expired in 2002.  Another was a Toy Story camera with fun games and three interchangeable fascias.  Sadly it only had capacity for 70 photos.  If we could have added a memory card that would have been the one for me.  We now have the next cheapest, a very pink Samsung.  “Do you have another colour?”  Quizzical stare from the assistant.  “No, we don’t have another camera.”  God help the next idiot.  I hope they find the one with fun games for Woody and Buzz.  Ours takes good photos.  We’re happy.

To the very bottom of mainland Argentina

   We spent Saturday morning at the beach and then the afternoon waiting for our bus to Rio Gallegos.  And waiting.  And waiting.  By the time it had arrived, two and a half hours late, we were a little concerned about making our connecting bus out of Rio Gallegos the next afternoon.  "No worries", the gentleman from the bus company assured us.  "The following bus will wait for your one, yes even if it is five hours late."  That was quite a relief because after a further delay of an hour and a half due to the bus electrics going down (see note 3 below) we were running over four hours late.  “Don’t worry”, the bus driver told us as he dropped us off in Rio Gallegos, “it will be here at 4pm”.  Actually, what he said was “don’t worry, they will be here at 4pm.” 

   When they turned up and opened the Andesmar bus company office they had no idea what to do about our predicament.  Four hours and many many words of uncomprehended Spanish later we left the bus station with assurances that a hotel and tickets for tomorrow would be sorted out for us.  I don’t think we were all that confident.  Thanks be to God, both these things did indeed materialise, and we are now bathed, refreshed and sitting in the final two seats on the El Pinguino bus to Punta Arenas.  However, we’ve not really succeeded in giving any of the people we met in Rio Gallegos (4 bus officials from two different bus companies, three hotel employees and a very helpful Mexican lady called Lina who offered to call her friends and find us a place to stay when we were getting desperate at about 6pm) a credible explanation as to why we want to go to Punta Arenas.  Suggestions on the back of a postcard please. 

   Our bus took us across the border to Southern Chile.  I provided the entertainment with my best impression of that tourist regularly featured on Aussie reality TV show “Border Control” who ticked the “nothing to declare” box whilst carrying a bag of fresh vegetables in his backpack … and then looked shocked when the dog found my backpack, of all the bags in the bus.  Paolo, a very nice Chilean chap gave us a caution and let us off without a fine, albeit feeling rather foolish.  Incidentally, we have now met up with two American couples in Chile and both of them also had "border control" moments crossing into Chile.  It makes me feel a little less foolish, and rather thankful that this didn't happen in Santiago airport where it seems they are pretty hardcore.

   Maps of our travels are below.  Not the most hi-tech I know.  The first one marks the main stops on our journey south from Rio.  Ans the second one shows the southernmost point that we got to - Fuerto Bulnes, about 50km north of Cabo Froward the southernmost tip of the mainland.  To get there would have involved 4 days of hiking there and back and 3 river crossings in each direction, and with maximums of about 10 degrees that didn't sound so appealing!