21. Into the Arenas

7th Dec 2013 part 2

    After breakfast we arrive in Punta Arenas at 11.30 am on Saturday morning and after breezing through customs we struggle to find our way out of the passenger terminal into the real world. The terminal is set up for vehicular traffic not foot traffic and fair enough too as we were the only people getting of the Stalla Australis silly enough to be hoofing it out of there. So with our backpacks on we walk around in circles for a while till we decide to just follow the traffic. We find a set of turnstiles that lead to the outside world and as we are trying to get through them a door opens and we are ushered into an office where we have one of those conversations where they don't speak any English and amazing as it may seem we still couldn't speak Spanish, it had struck me as odd that we hadn't shown anyone our passports yet so I got them out and yes that and the words Stella Australis was what they wanted and finally a door to the outside opens and we set out to find our Hotel. The Hotel Isla Rey Jorge is an easy walk from the port and a stones throw from the town center, it is a beautiful old building full of character that I have no trouble in recommending, it has a homely feel rather than the sterile feel that most hotels have, once again thank you trip advisor. We dropped our bags and headed out to explore the town. We found the central plaza one street away which was hosting a parade honoring the  Bomberos (firemen) after that we found a beautiful museum. Now don't ask me anything about the museum - everything was in Spanish, all I know was it was full of old stuff and they got you to wear slippery felt booties over your shoes which made Andrew get that look in his eyes that made me grateful that I didn't have any little  kids in tow.

Coming into dock at Punta Arenas 

Titan - the little tug boat who could

Hotel Isla Rey Jorge, a short walk from the dock and a stones throw from the Square

Large foyers on each floor

Oh no - separate beds again

The Central Plaza 

The Plaza is dominated by a statue of Magellan

We stumbled upon a parade honoring
the firees

It's a completely different experience to go to a museum where you can't read anything

     Time for late lunch early dinner and it turns out there isn't much open in Punta Arenas on the weekend. At Gyros Pizza we choose a $10 hamburger and fries each. What came out was the largest serving of food I have ever been given in a restaurant. Initially we thought we had made a mistake in ordering but no, two young women beside us ordered the same thing and ate it all.. The hamburgers were nice but I couldn't even finish half of mine.

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