Punta Arenas .. replica of Magellan boat the Beagle and a replica of the James Caird … which of course Chile had a hand in by sending Tug boat to rescue those on Elephant Island . Goodbye to campervan and lovely Air b n b and fly to Iquique
Published by culmstock
South America 
5th Feb – Punta Arenas
Day 50
Today was our last full day with the camper. The air was quite chilly and we saw dolphins glide down the Beagle channel. After a damp and chilly breakfast we headed into Punta Arenas to look around. It was like a ghost town, but then it was early Sunday morning. Finally we found a tourist hotel and asked if we could buy some coffee. The waiter smiled and shrugged, looking around at the guests dressed just like us, as said ‘help yourself’! Lucky us! Free wifi too! Most of the guests were part of a big group running a marathon in 7 continents and they’d just completed the Antarctic marathon.
On the drive into town, we’d seen a huge Spanish galleon on the coast and discovered it was a replica of Magellan’s ship, so off we went to visit the museum. An enterprising Chilean, together with his 2 carpenter friends, had built not just a replica of a Spanish galleon, which was the first to ever sail Magellan around the world, but he’d also built replicas of the Beagle, the James Caird, and other significant exploration ships.
We followed a great auditory guide of the stories of these grand vessels. Magellan was killed by Indians in the Philippines in 1520 and his friend captained the vessel back to Spain, full of spices which more than covered to cost of the trip. It was the final proof that the world was round. An amazing feat.
It felt so strange listening about Neil’s English hero Ernest Shackleton here in Chile. He’d come to Punta Arenas from Elephant island where he’d left his 26 stranded shipmates waiting for him to rescue them from Antarctica. Shackleton succeeded on his fourth attempt on a Chilean fishing boat strong enough to cut through the ice. The ice had blocked all his previous efforts but he never gave up. It too, was an incredible story. The James Caird was the life boat under which the 26 stranded sailors sheltered until they were rescued. The actual boat is now in Dulwich college where Shackleton went to school.
And there was the Beagle !! Charles Darwin is well known and admired in southern Chile. It was so interesting being able to explore around its replica.
After this great museum we couldn’t find much else in Punta Arenas to entertain us. We fried left over eggs for lunch on the sea front finishing most of our food then tried to find a friendly bar for a beer. All we found was a trendy dark hotel. Since we could have far more fun in our campervan, we decided to buy some food and a nice bottle of wine and return to our quiet beach to enjoy our camper van for our last night. It really did feel like home and we had a lovely evening camped on the beach.
We watched a group of Chilean families camped further down the beach. They were having so much fun despite the cold temperatures. We admired their resilience and thought they looked just like English families braving the weather. They packed up and left quite late, leaving the whole beach to ourselves again. It was a fitting last night.
6th Feb – Return campervan
Day 51
It was cold in the morning, but luckily the rain stayed away and we had plenty of time and space to pack our things back into our rucksacks and set off to Wicked Campers.
Just after we arrived a young German couple arrived to rent a Wicked Campervan. They were so friendly that soon we were exchanging addresses. We gave them all our left over food, our wonderful 10L petrol container, the duvets we’d borrowed at Santiago and all the extra bits and pieces stuff we’d found so useful. They were thrilled, as were we to be able to pass it on to grateful campers.
It was sad leaving the campervan, but exciting too, as it was the start of our next adventure. We caught a taxi to our AirBnB, arriving far too early, so had to walk around and grab a coffee in a supermarket.
It was a pretty little apartment with a fully equipped kitchen and the owners were lovely. I immediately filled the bath and soaked away the grim of camping. It felt sooooo good to be clean again. We handed them a load of laundry and by mid afternoon we were clean and up and running again. They even had satellite TV and we watched Karate Kid in English with Spanish subtitles. We were so relaxed we decided to eat in, so we walked back to the supermarket to buy a pizza and some wine for an evening meal.
And we slept and slept in a real bed! Wow!
LikeLike