Punta Arenas to Santiago
There was a bit of a wait in the morning for our transport to Punta Arenas, so
a game of cards was on. Typically backpacker games are the likes of
sh#thead, so it's and essential one to learn in order to be part of a social group. I
just wish the vulgar name would change.
Outside, talking to fellow walkers and a couple of resort residents eroded the
waiting time quickly.
The trip out of the park was good with modern shuttles. I booked my return
journey so I was not overly bothered by lack of room on this last day of the
season.
The rural scenes back are repeated, but somehow new occupy us. Including this
fox - which I am sure is popular with the sheep farmer.
It's a big day getting all the way to Punta Arenas. /div>
I had a brief walk around Punta Arenas and re-affirmed my dislike for cities,
well this city anyway and decided to while my time in the hostel until the
collectivo -a community taxi picked me up.
Next morning I started the day with pleasant conversation with my fellow
backpackers. I met up with Shaun and Deb who I met in Puerto Natales, who had
kindly lent me some string to hang my food after regaling me with horror
stories about the mice in campento Italiano and Cuernos. We had fun reviewing
the past few days and the coffee and biscuits along with a breakfast of
scrambled eggs was consumed heartily.
I checked the flight schedule, somehow Qantas now has two flights for me from
Punta Arenas to Santiago, one today and one tomorrow. I wandered in
anticipation that LAN made the change correctly. I also found that I can
procure a new satellite phone in Santiago, I just hope that the price is
comparable to Australia otherwise there will be no purchase.
The housing estates of Punta Arenas are nothing to write home about. The town is pretty barren. The colour of the houses challenges that bleakness.
There was time to kill after all the checking so I wandered outside. I walked
along the foreshore of the city, it had much new construction, so it is
starting to be more visually appealing that what it previously, (I assume)
was.
The building standards and architecture however are questionable. The steel of
the shelters were already rusting and the coated concrete wearing away. There
were some fancy public chairs of grey uncoated concrete, not something I´d
like to lounge on in the summer. The weather is quite chilly and overcast, so
I only stayed for 30 minutes or so.
Overall Punta Arenas is an industrial port city. There is a feeble attempt at
making amenable to people but it´s full of litter, dogs and needs a facelift.
I was advised not to dwell here and unfortunately did so.
I walked up to the national park Magallanes overlooking the city - it
was not well looked after and somewhat spoiled by phone towers and litter. If
you work at it there are some nice views to be had. I have been spoilt by my
experience in Torres del Paine park.
The trees in the park were interesting with their natural alien adornments.
My time would have been better spent popping over to El Calafete to see the Perito Moreno glacier or another day in Torres del Paine or perhaps a cruise to Balmaceda Glacier - what/why did I choose Punta Arenas over these options ?
The flight was scheduled for 17:50 so I left the hostel at 16:30 via collectivo taxi. There were perhaps 3 other pickups and we were off to the airport in good time. The price was in budget at 3000 clp.
I owed money to Luis, the host of La Escondidia and he was waiting for me at the airport. I was glad to see him as he provided some reassuring assistance whilst the ticket was being arranged. It would have been pleasant to spend another night at his accommodation, but that´s travel for you.
The flight on LAN is as good as any in Australia. Food included of a selection of sweets and tea, coffee, juice or soft drink. Planes are clean, quite new and staff were able to speak English.
Arriving at Santiago, the hostel Romandia arranged a taxi for me and the guy had a sign out for me. Sign language was used to convey me out as neither of us had anything in common language-wise. It cost around 15000 clp ($30) to get to the hostel. A night staff member of the hostel Romandia had a reasonable command of English, I was very pleased with the quality of this place. I am the only resident non Spanish speaking person here.
I uploaded all of my photos to Google Picasa and accepted sleep quickly as
midnight is far later than all my nights !
Blog Indexes:
- Index to Patagonia and Peru treks
- Stuventures: Bushwalking.
- Stuventures:Contents.
- Prev: Torres del Paine
- Next: Flight to Cusco
Enjoying reading your blog Bub and seeing your photos. Keep it going. Interesting to read how some people do not do their homework on what to take on trips - um plastic hiking boots???? purlease.
ReplyDelete