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Patagonia |
part 3 |
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Saturday 25 February 2006 We rise early
and after breakfast we drive to the airport. There we leave the car on the car
park and throw the keys in Hertz's letter box. We fly to Ushaia on the Argentinean
part of Tierra del Fuego with a stop in Punta Arenas. Ushaia is a bizarre
little town. It is the southernmost town in the world and they make sure you get
the idea. Everything is labeled "Al fin del Mundo" (at the end of the
world). The main shopping street is San Martin. It is exclusively geared to
tourists. Heaps of restaurants, tour operators and outdoor equipment shops. The
town is stretched out and exclusively low rise. We inquire at the Officina de Turismo
for the possibilities of a boat trip on the Beagle canal and a visit to the national
park. There are many boat companies organising trips. There
two types: short and long. The short one takes 3 to 4 hours and
takes you to the light house and back, with or without a walk on one of the
islands. The long one takes 7 hours and calls on a penguin colony as well. The
national park is about an hour's drive west of town and can be reached by bus.
For the boat trip we choose Patagonia Adventure Explorer. They offer the short
trip with a walk on Bridges Island. They use small boats and the group size is
no more than 14.We decide to rent a car, so that we are more flexible in
driving to and from our hotel and visiting the national park. We rent a small Suzuki
Fun from Wagens Rent-a-car. The car has surely already had lots of fun, as it
rattles very loudly. We drink a beer in an Irish pub before we head back for the
hotel. At night we
eat in the pizzeria Tante Sara. Reasonable food, but the service is lackluster.
Back to the hotel. Weather:
cloudy 16-20 degrees with occasional showers. Sunday 26 February
2006 We have lunch
at Café Tante Sara and then carry on to the
National Park. Once outside the town it is another 20km of unsealed roads.
We make a couple of short and simple treks. One goes to a beaver colony, where
we did not see a single beaver, but did see a huge dam. Another one took us to a
viewing point and a third along the Beagle canal. It is nice but not to
adventurous. It is very busy in the Weather:
sunny, around 15 degrees Monday 27 February 2006 Today it is lots colder than yesterday and more windy too. We take a taxi to the chairlift leading up to the El Martial glacier. It is a fairly long ride in the chairlift and after about 20 minutes we reach the mountain station. Once up there, it is still a good 20 minutes' stiff climb to the viewing point. It is also possible to walk up to the nose of the glacier itself. The viewing point offers fine views of Ushaia and the Beagle canal. The weather is clear, but the wind cuts right through my fleece sweater. Back
at the ground station a taxi awaits us and takes us back to the centre. We have
lunch at Tante Sara and go back to the hotel to collect our luggage. We ride to
the airport. The building is modern, but the process of checking in is still totally
uncomputerised. No computers, no printers, no monitors, nothing indicating that
the 21st century started more than 6 years ago. At 4pm we leave for Punta Arenas
in Chile. Here we rent a Toyota Yaris (sedan) at the airport. In Punta Arenas we
have a first encounter with the incessant
forceful cold wind Patagonia is so famous for. We drive to the centre of town to
Hostal de
Patagonia, where we have good, yet simple room Weather:
sunny, windy 12 degrees Tuesday 28 February 2006 We leave Punta
Arenas
in the direction of Puerto Natales and soon we get the real Patagonian feeling.
We spend the afternoon walking around town, which comes to life after five o'clock when the busses with the tourists come back from day trips to Torres del Paine National Park. Here too, Plaza de Armas is the central square in town. It has a faintly interesting church. The town is totally geared for tourists (and fishery). You find lots of guest houses, hotels and hostels, next to restaurants and shops selling outdoor essentials. We are looking for a snack and order the typical Chilean form of hotdog: the Completo. It is a hotdog, in which the sausage is buried in tomato, mayonnaise,avocado and sauerkraut. I want one without sauerkraut, which makes it an Italiano, because of its colours matching the Italian flag (red, white, green). Had I left out the mayonnaise it would have been a dinámico. The hotdogs come on specially designed plates. At night we go
out for a meal. The season is clearly ending
as most of restaurants are deserted and waiters are idly staring over the empty
tables. We
eat at Angelica, a fine restaurant. The wine is good too, Casillero del Diabolo
from the Central Valley, made from the Carmenere grape, a typical Chilean kind.
We take a night cap at El Living, a friendly lounge bar.
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In Punta Arenas we have to disembark shortly for immigration formalities
(filling in a form and receiving another stamp in our passports). After that we
board again for our flight to 
Fellow countrymen abroad are not bad at all, but why do the have to be so loud
(about nothing) this early in the morning? Today we will be doing a boat trip on
the Beagle canal. Patagonian Adventure will take us on a trip with a small boat.
The first 45 minutes we head straight for the light house on a tiny island in
the middle of the canal. On our way there we unexpectedly meet dozens of Magellan
penguins in the water. The island with the penguin colony is much further out to
sea, but this time of year their young are leaving the nest and the penguins
have more time to go out fishing further away. We also see some black browed
albatrosses with their enormous wing span and several kinds of cormorants. The Beagle
canal is not a dug canal but a sea strait, connecting the
Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific ocean and separating the main island of the
Tierra del Fuego archipelago from the lesser islands. The border line between
Chile and
Argentina runs right through it. It is 240 km long and 5km wide at its narrowest
point. It is fairly navigable, but the more northern Magellan strait is safer.
The strait was named after the ship with which captain FitzRoy - accompanied
by the biologist Charles Darwin - chartered the coasts of South America. Near
the light house we see on a neighbouring island droves of sea lions and Atlantic
Fur Seals. They virtually lie on top of each other and makes lots of sheep like
sounds. After another hour we go on shore on an island: Bridges island, named after
an Anglican missionary, working among the Yamana Indians. The Indian nation has
completely died out, succumbed to persecution and, more importantly, European contagious
diseases, against which they had no immunity. The island lies smack in the
middle of the Beagle canal and offers fine views of the openings to the Atlantic
and the Pacific oceans. After 4 hours we are back in the port. 
park, the walks are rather flat and well trodden. Maybe we explored the wrong
part of the park. Finally we drive all the way to Lapataia, where the road
stops. Here too, we do a signposted track. Back in town we bring back the car
and go for a drink. Later that night we have dinner at 
.
Early evening we visit the most fascinating sight of the town, the city's cemetery. The
cemetery takes up several blocks and is full of family mausoleums and high-rise
blocks of graves. It is a neighbourhood in its own right. The various families
have really taken the after life to a different level. No style has been left
unused and the mausoleum cannot be conspicuous enough. We note that almost all
graves have fresh flowers. Apparently the dead are well visited. The avenues
cutting through the cemetery are lined with clipped cypresses and the place
tells Patagonian history through its epitaphs. 
Another
real sight is the monument for the unknown Indian. The little Indian is revered
and covered in commerative plaques by people thanking him for giving hope or
performing miracles. At night we walk to the Plaza Muñoz Gamero, the central
square. In the middle is an impressive statue of Magellan surrounded by a
couple of Indians. It is easy to notice that the big toe of one them is polished
to a shine. This is because it is believed that touching or even kissing it
brings good fortune and will bring you back to Punta Arena once in the future. We
see passers by kissing or touching it all the time. Later that
night we have dinner at restaurant La Luna. After a delicious Pisco Sour the
friendly staff serves us Chilean dishes (fortunately) with influences from far
away places. .
The
road is empty and seems be leading straight into endless emptiness. As far
as we can see there is no house to be found and for 40 minutes not even a car in sight.
And the wind... it blows continuously. The drive to Puerto Natales takes a
couple of hours and we make a couple of stops on the way for taking pictures of
Nandu's (an ostrich like bird), and pink Chilean Flamingoes. Puerto Natales
is not much of town. Lots of restaurants and hotels, but at noon it is virtually
deserted. We take a room in 
