Larry and I enjoyed breakfast in the Bellagio Dining Room with some folks from California and Australia. We then headed for the Michelangelo's Dining area to get our tender ticket to go ashore. It was a very cold and windy day...in the low 30's...the coldest day of our trip. From the ship we could see the rolling hills of the city which is the gateway to the Chilean Patagonia region. Here there are a maze of fijords, rivers, and mountains in the north. Just south of Punta Arenas is Antarctica...only a days journey by boat. While Ushuaia, Argentina is the southern most town in the world; Punta Arenas, Chile is the southern most city in the world.
We boarded the tender boat quickly and headed to the shore on a very bumpy ride. White caps and swells with 50 mile an hour winds. Our tender driver was not very experienced and it took him about an hour to get us docked and unloaded at the pier. It was good to get off the boat...I said, "Well, we got our money's worth today...it as like a wild roller coaster ride!"
We headed through the marine area and right out the door to the city center, Plaza Munoz Gamero. Here we enjoyed having lunch out in the intermitten misty rain and sunshine. It was warm one minute and cold the next. We had read that there was a hole in the ozone here and that you could get a sun burn very easily. We enjoyed looking at local craft booths in the square as well as watching the local school students who were in uniforms head home for lunch. Hernando Magellan's statue (first man to circle the globe) donned the center of the square. One foot was very shiney bronze...Why? Supposedly...if you rub the foot, you will come back to Punta Arenas again. Many had rubbed his foot because the rest of the statue was a dull tarnished brown.
Around the Plaza Munoz Gamero was a beautiful City Cathedral and Sara Braun Museum. We walked about a mile to see one of the most unique City Cemeteries in South America. What a surprise to see huge family mosolieums from generations of families who had settled in the area.
With the wind blowing and the cold temperature all day, we had a good little walk back to the port and then took the tender back to the ship. Our warm cabin felt really good. The ship pulled anchor at 6:30 and headed out of the Straits of Magellan for the Amelia Glacier. We had dinner in our cabin and watched the movie, "Phillamena"... a good little true story.
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