Punta Arenas, Chile, South America

I had a decent sleep at the hostel last night. The only thing that disrupted me was the howling wind coming off the water outside my window. I had a nice breakfast up in the dining room, which confirmed my thought that I was the only one in the hotel. My table was all set for me, and it was the only one in the whole restaurant that had been set up. Yikes. I checked out by 10am and walked down to the Cruz del Sur bus terminal. The next bus was leaving for Puerto Montt at 11:15am, so I waited patiently.

It was a 2.5 hour ride to Puerto Montt and the bus was completely packed. I’m not sure why this is such a busy route, but everyone was dying to get off this island and get to the mainland. At least this time I didn’t have a screaming and kicking kid sitting next to me. When I got into PM I left my big bag at the bus terminal security lockers and went for a walk. Unfortunately, it was raining the whole time, so it wasn’t a very nice day for a walk. There was a big mall just about a mile away from the bus terminal so I went there to do some shopping. Since I’ll be heading to Antarctica in about a week, I need to pick up a few things before I get down there.

I was looking for some waterproof trousers, a hat, some thermals, stuff like that. I managed to find a fleece jacket and a new shirt, but that was about it. No luck with anything else. I headed outside in the afternoon and the weather had cleared up a bit so I got to see the center of PM. It was a little nicer than I had first thought, but there still wasn’t a lot to it. There were a couple of squares in the center, but not very impressive ones. And for a city being right on the water, I would have thought they’d do a better job of building some nice parks by the water. But they didn’t.

I got a taxi from the bus terminal to the airport around 7:30pm and waited in the incredibly small airport for my flight. There are only two places to fly to from Puerto Montt. Either Santiago, or Punta Arenas. It turns out that the flights to Punta Arenas actually originate in Santiago and just stop here to pick some people up. The plane was mostly full before I got on it.

It was just a couple hours to fly down here to Punta Arenas, and this looks like a nicer city. It’s quite a bit bigger than Puerto Montt. I got a taxi to my hostel and arrived at about 12:30am. Luckily the manager was awake so he let me in and showed me to my room. It’s really small, but it’ll be just fine for the next couple of nights. I’m looking forward to checking out Punta Arenas tomorrow. I have no idea what to expect.